Literature Analysis #1

William Styron: Darkness Visible 

Topic and/or Event

The book that I read was Darkness Visible by: William Styron. This book is a really good read. It talks about his depression and others around him that also suffer from depression. Also this book has quit a wide vocabulary. You may need a dictionary if you want to understand half of the words in it. The book is very descriptive in its way of describing how William Styron suffered through his depression. And how all his close friends had their own forms of depression whether it be losing a loved one or being unhappy and just trying to do what’s best for your child. It is pretty accurate on how depression feels and it gives you a sense of what he is feeling. This is a very descriptive book and I am very happy with how the author portrayed everything. It also mentions a lot about suicide and that it is a way out but you shouldn’t go straight to that answer. Life is your choice though.

                Just for clarity. This book is a description on how the author suffered through depression and how he saw people around him suffering through different types of depression.

                I feel that William Styron wrote this book because he felt that everyone is probably going through the same things I am. But he wrote not only about himself but the people around him.

                So how I came across this book was in the library (ps. Its overdue). I just kind of came across it and when I started reading it I was kind of feeling depressed so when I started reading it I kind of felt a connection and that’s when I felt that it was a pretty good book for this project.

                To me, this book is very realistic. Depression is very big in today’s society and it is actually becoming a problem. He talks about life in the 1960’s and so on. Times really haven’t changed in the way that depression is still big and might be even more of a concern. Depression wasn’t that big of a thing back then either. They used the word melancholia. It actually was said that word was created as far back as the 1300’s. That is quite some time. I have had family members who have also gone through depression. Not quite in the ways that the people in the book did but they have been through the same type of feelings as the people in the book.

People

                So I feel that he chose the people in the book because of the backstory’s they had. Each one had different back stories but still suffered from depression. Some of them were rich and they still suffered from depression. So it goes to show that you can still suffer through depression even if you are rich. Depression can get anyone that it wants. I feel that the author just wanted to let people know that everyone goes through depression. It is just about how you handle it. Whether it be a good way of handling it or a bad way.

                One character was Simone del Duca, a large dark-haired woman of queenly manor. She kind of acts a little high class. It doesn’t really go into character emotions or anything so I can’t get a really good read on her. (Maybe it’s just because it is a bit of a hard read) I would have written them as a direct character. Give a little bit of background and maybe show her giving off some emotions that would give you a real understanding of the type of person she is. Another character that pops up a few times through the story is Romain Gary.  Romain Gary was described as a man in his mid-sixties. And his voice that of an old man. Also very wheezy and possibly had the voice of depression. He acts very shaky. On the fact that his wife had died and that is why he is suffering through the stages of depression. For this character I would probably just leave it as a direct characterization. It captures the description of him pretty accurately.

                Simone del Deca is pretty interesting on the fact that she is rich and actually awarded William with an award of 25,000 dollars. I am kind of positive that she was hitting on William Styron. So that’s why I put her in as one of the characters. Romain Gary was picked because he is mentioned quite a bit and I thought his depression was very sad. He lost his wife. That is a pretty big depression starter. So that’s why I put him as one of the characters. He is very relatable.

Style

                The type of style William used was, I want to say a journalism type of style. It kind of carried on and some of the time I didn’t know what was going on. I had to reread a few times. But it was a good read. I enjoyed the way he descripted the story. It was very realistic. I enjoyed it.

                William Styron did describe a few places. He described Paris, Connecticut, a farmhouse that he owned, a friends vineyard that he visited often, etc… but he didn’t go into very much detail. More of just telling you the location. Not very much landscape description or occurrences that were going on around him.  His main focus for the book was the characters and their depression.

                William Styron mostly used a philosophical point of view. He made you feel like everything doesn’t make sense. Kind of like you get confused in his words and you have to focus even harder to try to get an understanding of what it meant. His tone was really eerie. Pretty creepy and kind of psychotic but this was meant to give you the feel of depression as the disease that it is.

                William Styron had a very eerie attitude towards the audience of his book. In the sense that he just wrote it how it is. How he feels and how his friends feel. Quite honestly I think it was pretty brilliant in how he wrote every thing.

Enduring memory

                Some of the things I will remember is how he describes being depressed and not feeling he is worth anything or deserving of anything. “I believe in the reality of the accidents we subconsciously perpetrate on ourselves, and so how easy it was for this loss to be not loss but a form of repudiation, offshoot of the self-loathing (depression’s premier badge) by which I was persuaded that I could not be worthy of the prize that I was in fact not worthy of any of the recognition that had come my way in the past few years”. It is pretty descriptive in how you could feel so unworthy of an accomplishment.

                The other passage that I found very true was about suicide and philosophical problems. “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy”. This is a passage from the book The Myth of Sisyphus. That is a pretty powerful passage. And I am thinking of reading that book next. Thanks for reading.