Themes – WJECThe theme of depression and mental health issues in About a Boy

In About a Boy, Nick Hornby explores some aspects of mental health or well-being. Through the character of Fiona, Hornby looks at the way people with depression try to cope with everyday life while they may be feeling helpless or even suicidal. Hornby himself has experienced depression.

Hornby demonstrates that mental health issues are just another aspect of life, as common as any other problem.

How are the themes of depression and mental well-being shown in the novel?

In About a Boy, Nick Hornby explores depression and mental health through Fiona’s depression.

Fiona experiences depression

How does Hornby show this?

Example 1

Marcus shows how Fiona is behaving from Marcus’ point of view.

Evidence

He didn’t want to watch any of the soaps, because soaps were full of trouble, and he was worried that the trouble in the soaps would remind his mum of the trouble she had in her own life.

One Monday morning his mother started crying before breakfast and it frightened him. Morning crying was something new, and it was a bad, bad sign.

Analysis

Hornby allows the reader to track Fiona’s descent into a new bout of depression through Marcus’ eyes. She is feeling sad at first, and Marcus grows increasingly alarmed as she seems to become sadder.

Every few days, there is a more sinister indication that Fiona’s depression is worsening. Marcus is unable to do anything as his mother cannot explain to him why she feels this way.

Example 2

Fiona calls in sick to her work, but Marcus cannot see how she is sick.

Evidence

When he got home his mother was lying on the floor with a coat draped over her, watching children’s cartoons. She didn’t look up.

His mum was half on and half off the sofa: her head was lolling towards the floor. She was white, and there was a pool of sick on the carpet, but there wasn’t much on her – either she’d had the sense to puke away from herself, or she’d just been lucky.

Analysis

Hornby shows how difficult it is for other people to understand how to help somebody who is depressed. Marcus is beside himself with worry, but at the same time he feels resentful that his mother is not looking after him.

Fiona takes an overdose of pills and would have died if Marcus, Suzie and Will had not come home when they did. Marcus is aware that everything has changed, because his mother has proved that she would rather be dead than be with him.

Example 3

Marcus finds his mother’s suicide note to him.

Evidence

A big part of me knows that I’m doing a wrong, stupid, selfish, unkind thing. Most of me, in fact. The trouble is that it’s not the part that controls me any more. That’s what’s so horrible about the sort of illness I’ve had for the last few months – it just doesn’t listen to anything or anybody else. It just wants to do its own thing.

Analysis

In this note, Hornby describes how depression feels. The reader sees that Fiona is controlled by the illness, and is able to sympathise with her, even when Marcus is traumatised by it. As time moves on, he begins to understand that his mother is learning to live with her depression and sees that it is nothing to do with him or his behaviour.

Analysing the evidence