Genre
Memoir
Setting and Context
America, England, late 1900s; Academic context
Narrator and Point of View
first-person limited, yet aware of the future
Tone and Mood
tone - reflective, serious, whimsical
mood - hopeful, analytical
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist - Kay Redfield Jamison, Antagonists - Death, Madness
Major Conflict
Jamison struggles to maintain sanity in the face of an illness which prevents her from wanting to take the medication to treat it.
Climax
After a severe fit of mania, Jamison attempts to take her own life.
Foreshadowing
The book's title and beginning foreshadow the trials Jamison will face, and she begins the book by stating outright that it will chronicle madness.
Understatement
Jamison uses wry understatement to write about living with a complicated illness that has a high mortality rate.
Allusions
Jamison alludes to a number of works by famous manic-depressive authors, including Robert Lowell.
Imagery
The author provides vivid imagery of her time abroad at St. Andrews and Oxford.
Paradox
Jamison works with other psychiatrists who understand mood disorders from a clinical perspective, yet some of them fall into the same trap that they warn against as clinicians when they stigmatize her and consider her a coward for discussing her illness.
Parallelism
Jamison seeks to help others with the same illness as her; we see how her own health improves while she helps advance the cause of those suffering from manic depression.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Personification
Throughout the book, Dr. Jamison personifies manic-depressive illness to understand its effect in her life and portray how she conceives of it.
