Mental Illness as a Literary Device
The use of mental illness in Allen Esken's The Life We Bury demonstrates it as a powerful technique to create drama. Joe, the novel's main character, has left a chaotic home to attend college. He works odd jobs as a bouncer to pay his tuition. His mother is untreated bi-polar and she self-medicates with alcohol. Joe also has a young, autistic brother that he has left behind to go to college. Except when his mother is arrested and he must either return home or take his brother to stay in his cramped college town apartment. When his mother is arrested, Joe simply tells his brother his mother is attending a meeting. Some of the meetings last for days, which the brother mostly accepts. And soon, the mother will put at risk Joe attending college, which Joe considers his best shot at creating a new, better life for himself. Eskens starts the novel with this sentence... 'I remember being pestered by a sense of dread as I walked to my car that day, pressed down by a wave...
