Mental Illness In Silver Water

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In the novel Silver Water, by Amy Bloom, the narrator Violet shows us the difficulties not just herself, but her entire family faces with the burden of their youngest, Rose. Rose suffers from a type of mental illness that is not specified, but as we can tell has serious repercussions. The whole family cares and works the best they can to help Rose make it through life, but sometimes it’s just not that easy of a thing to do. Throughout the story, Violet the sister, takes care and loves Rose as much as she possibly can but in some ways it can sort of be a burden. In the novel Silver Water, the narrator exposes the effects a mental illness can have on a family. One important scene in the novel is when the entire family has gone together …show more content…

When she noticed Rose wasn’t in her bed she immediately began to panick. She ran outside and into the woods as fast as she could yelling out Rose’s name at the top of her lungs. She found Rose laying in the grass staring up at the sky, “Closing time, she whispered, I believe that’s what she said. I sat with her, uncovering the bottle of white pills by her hand, and watched the stars.” (p.5). It’s truly a wonder of what could have been going through Rose’s mind at this particular point in time. Clearly she wasn’t right because she didn’t think of how badly she was going to hurt her loved ones. Maybe Rose felt as she was a burden, perhaps she felt that she was tired of always being an accident waiting to happen and that doing this was just going to fix it all. Suicide victims, nine times out of ten are never right in their mind to begin with, at least at that moment they most positively aren’t. It’s insane to think that a person could believe that by taking their own life can make others that much easier, but unfortunately it happens every day. Imagine the emotions that were flowing through Violet and her parents because of Rose, sure maybe it was tough living a life with her in it, but It’s a guarantee that it didn’t get easier without

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