Fragmentation In The Asylum

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Humans are naturally curious about mysteries and the desire to piece together clues in order to create cohesive stories. In John Harwood’s novel, The Asylum, he portrays the use of fragmentation when Georgina is uncovering her past, and throughout her quest to escape the asylum. In the novel, Harwood effectively demonstrates how the purpose of the fragmentation is to create mystery in order to engage the reader throughout the book. Georgina’s past is given to the reader in incomplete narratives, which engages the reader in solving the mysteries of her past. In the beginning, when Emily discovers Georgina’s imaginary friend, Rosina, she immediately becomes fearful without any clear explanation. Emily is quick to tell Georgina that she ““[m]ust not play this—this game anymore; it is bad for you, as I said… we must find you playmates; it will be much better for you to have real friends than—” She did not finish the sentence” (Harwood 24). Emily’s words are very fragmented as her reason for why Georgina can not play with Rosina is very broken, incomplete, and weakly explained, thus creating further mystery about Rosina. This raises many questions as the reader desperately wants to know more about Emily’s true intentions as to why Georgina must not play with Rosina. Furthermore, Emily’s heart problem is also fragmentarily …show more content…

It engages the reader in trying to fit together all the small fragmented parts of this story in order to solve the mysteries of this novel. In The Asylum, fragmentation is effectively used to uncover Georgina’s past and her quest to escape the asylum because it enhances the plot of the story by making it more mysterious and suspenseful for the reader. On a final note, mysteries are what make humans curious to find answers to unsolved questions. Fragmentation helps the reader delve into the depths of a novel in order to unravel its deepest, darkest

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