76 pages • 2 hours read
Ned VizziniIt's Kind of a Funny Story
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Impact of Mental Illness
It’s Kind of a Funny Story intimately depicts the impact of mental illness. Craig’s journey demonstrates both the pervasiveness of stress and mental health issues and the silencing effects of shame and stigma. Only when a person rejects stigmas and shame can healing begin.
Initially, Craig struggles to acknowledge the significance of his depression and anxiety. He feels that he doesn’t have a reason to be anxious or depressed. Craig thinks that if he were abused or went through a specific traumatic event, “I’d have a reason for being in shrinks’ offices” (11). Because Craig feels that he needs a reason to justify his mental illness, it takes him a long time to acknowledge it to himself and then finally to his parents. As difficult as it is for him to admit, “I think I might be, y’know, depressed” (99), acknowledging the presence of his mental illness is essential to Craig receiving help. Even when Craig starts receiving help, it’s obvious that he has internalized ideas about how he “should” be feeling and “should” be functioning. He tells himself he won’t be thrown in the “loony bin” (108) and tries to handle his depression on his own initially.
Even when he realizes that he cannot overcome his depression or suicidal ideation on his own, he feels guilty for needing help. Craig tells himself, “You’re in here costing the state money, taking the same pills you took before. You’re wasting your parents’ money and the taxpayers’ money” (302). This is followed by Craig thinking, “You don’t have anything really wrong with you” (302). This back and forth in Craig’s mind shows how society’s negative attitudes and stigmas about people with mental disabilities or disorders further isolates and impacts their experience. Craig not only feels the weight of his anxiety and depression, but also the guilt of assuming that he is weak or defective for having anxiety and depression. When he struggles to keep food down, he is furious with himself, thinking “should be frickin’ eating and sleeping and drinking and studying and watching TV and being normal” (44). The belief that having mental illness is defective further contributes to the pressure he feels and the impact on his mental health.
It's Kind of a Funny Story shows that acknowledging the reality of mental and emotional pain helps to eliminate stigma and pave the way to actual help and healing. When Craig meets with Dr. Barney, Dr. Barney can tell that Craig thinks that anxiety and depression are personal failures. This is why he pauses and asks, “Do you know about brain chemistry?” (108) and takes the time to explain. He further removes the stigma of anxiety and depression by explaining that he experienced the same thing as Craig, “to a tee” (110). Similarly, Dr. Mahmoud explains, ““You have a chemical imbalance, that is all. If you were a diabetic, would you be ashamed of where you were?” (240). The support of doctors is important, but self-acceptance and the support of friends and family is ultimately what has the most impact on Craig’s healing.
While Craig discredits his own experience, his mother calls out the best in him and speaks truth to his misconceptions about mental illness. She tells him, “What’s a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decide to live” (226). When Craig is surrounded by dozens of other patients with their own reasons for being in Six North, he realizes that what he is going through is not unheard of or his fault. Craig is surrounded by people with schizophrenia, depression, suicidal ideation, and other mental illnesses. The Professor is paranoid that someone is trying to kill her. Noelle has anxiety and self-harms. These people make up a new community for Craig, full of people who accept him and have no reason to judge him. This shows Craig that having a mental disability or disorder is just one small part of a person, not a deficiency on their part.
Craig also realizes that anxiety and depression are common even outside the doors of Six North. He receives phone calls from friends and even a stranger admitting their own struggles with mental illness and asking for connection. His own principal calls to tell him, “You think we don’t have other kids in these situations? It’s a very common problem among young people” (312). As Craig can see past stigmas and judgements about mental health, he is able to drop the harsh standards he has for himself and begin to view himself in a gentler, more realistic and more productive light.
The Importance of Human Connection
Throughout It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Ned Vizzini establishes the theme of the Importance of Human Connection, showing that while isolation feeds mental illness, connection is essential to human flourishing. While it can be difficult to balance healthy relationships with boundaries and a sense of personal identity, doing so is fundamental for Craig’s development.
First, It’s Kind of a Funny Story shows that isolation feeds emotional pain. At the same time, mental illness makes it difficult to connect with others, creating a vicious cycle for Craig. As he approaches high school, Craig’s anxiety accelerates as he dedicates all his time to studying. He doesn’t tell his mother that his friends “were a bit estranged” (52). While he says that “everybody knows that” friends are important, he shrugs it off, telling himself that they “come and go” (52). Craig’s mental illness makes it difficult for him to connect to others and be authentic. His brain scolds him for spending time with his only friend, Aaron: You’re spending all your time at your little horn-dog friend’s house and when you get home you can’t do what you must do!” (99). Nia points out to Craig that he doesn’t “have a connection with other people” (119) but he doesn’t seem to know how to remedy this. His depression makes it difficult for him to even spend time with his own family.
Vizzini also shows how finally connecting with others helps people realize that they aren’t alone, an important part of coping with mental illness. When Craig shares with Nia that he is on medication, she is pleasantly shocked, saying that they are “partners in illness” (118). However, Craig doesn’t fully experience human connectedness until he is at Six North, where the other residents accept him and offer friendship. He is mentored by others, like Bobby, who shows him the ropes. Even a little thing like figuring out the “VACANT” and “OCCUPIED” signs by the bathroom is something that allows Craig to feel supported as he realizes that “I wouldn’t know if Bobby hadn’t showed me” (195).
Not only does Craig benefit from being accepted but also by giving back to others. When he lends his shirt to Bobby for an interview, it gives him a huge sense of satisfaction. Similarly, when Craig orchestrates finding Egyptian music that gets Muqtada out of his room, he feels joy watching Muqtada, who had spent so much time lying in bed finally get up “not for good, but for real” (423).
While being connected to others is important, Craig learns the difference between the counterfeit connection of pretense and true connection. At first, he thinks that people are his anchors, but Dr. Minerva warns him, “the patients are going to leave. You can’t rely on them” (309). While he and Nia bond over the fact that they are “partners in illness” (118), she doesn’t encourage him and only feeds his anxiety. Noelle understands the importance for space, which is why she won’t see Craig every day. Bobby reiterates that Six North is not “a place to meet people” (408). As Craig learns to balance isolation from others with learning to trust in himself as his own Anchor, he can fully grasp the Importance of Human Connection.
Unique Pressures of Young Adulthood
Being a teenager is a unique transitional space; not quite an adult and not quite a child. In It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Ned Vizzini examines the unique pressures of young adulthood, exposing the way that teenagers are more vulnerable now than in prior generations.
First, It’s Kind of a Funny Story shows how teenagers are expected to make adult decisions that they are unprepared for. While Craig demonstrates symptoms of anxiety as a young child, the height of his symptoms begins as he prepares for and gets into Executive Pre-Professional High School. When Craig takes a subway ride across town, he misses a teacher’s offer for extra-credit. While Craig is still getting a 93% in his class, he is upset not to be getting a 96%, telling himself, “You aren’t going over the top; if you’re not doing any extracurriculars, you’re done” (97). At only 15, Craig is overwhelmed by the idea of needing to have a financially successful career and has absorbed the message that that’s the only thing that will validate his existence. He and Aaron resolve to become lawyers, not because it interests them but so that they are always financially comfortable. As a freshman in high school, Craig feels like he must “be a machine” (99) to survive in the adult world.
This overwhelming pressure for teenagers inevitably results in the need for some type of coping mechanism. Aaron smokes pot, which Craig begins to do too. Nia seems to compulsively need attention from romantic partners to validate herself. On the other hand, Noelle broke under the pressure to be physically beautiful and cut her own face to ease the pressure. When he smokes, Craig asks, “Is my brain falling out of my head?” (66). For someone who’s brain is what causes the most distress, this experience is a bit of a relief. When Craig plans to die by suicide, he simply wants to relieve the pressure from his life.
Another unique part of the transition to the young adult experience is the increase of sexual desire. Craig looks at Aaron and Nia and almost surprises himself when he realizes “They stopped becoming people in my eyes; they morphed right into male and female sex organs on a collision course” (75). Sex is so important to teenagers that it’s what crosses Craig’s mind when he first contemplates suicide. He thinks, “I’m going to die a virgin” (139). When he is in the hospital, he thinks that a benefit of his journey is sharing it with girls because “they’d think I was brave and sexy and ask me to call them” (113). This desire is so strong that it makes Craig embrace Nia, someone who he realizes he doesn’t have an emotional connection with, even when he starts spending time with Noelle.
It’s Kind of a Funny Story not only depicts the unique pressures of the young adult experience, but how pervasive they are. Craig is not an exception to the rule but one of many teenagers experiencing anxiety and depression. His principal hardly bats an eye when he discovers where Craig is being treated. Humble points out that many people profit from young people having their one-sixth life crisis. Craig’s mother also recognizes that the pressure on teens occurs at a cyclical level. She says, “I think they might have to change the whole system” (439). It’s Kind of a Funny Story intimately portrays these pressures and also comments on the societal shifts that would contribute to alleviating them.
