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Jack Muriano
AP English 11
Meyer
Plague
Mental health issues are a medical concern suited only to treatment by the best-trained
and qualified of medical professionals. While they may not be an infectious disease, it still ruins
lives even kills. Unlike any other disease, it has a tendency to suddenly, unpredictably, and
unavoidably hurt bystanders, random and not, who have never been subject to it themselves.
Unlike any other disease, the symptoms can be near-impossible to detect even with the most
advanced of tools, especially if the patient doesnt want them to be detected. Unlike any other
disease, it often worsens other cases it comes into contact with. In The C-Word in the Hallway,
Quindlen expresses to her readers this need for education, understanding, and treatment of our
friends, out family, and the strangers we pass every day without ever knowing that theyre
considering stringing up some rope or pulling a trigger, rather than the continuing dismissal of
the entire issue as a problem of attitude or mindset.
Psychological Autopsy. A powerful phrase in and of itself. Quindlen drops that
particular term in the very first line, catching the readers attention and setting a sober, serious
tone. This is an article about death, about misguided and sick children who kill themselves,
others, or both. If the reader wasnt focus enough yet, the author then imparts a resounding clang
of solemnity by metaphorically comparing the runaway path of unseen mental, unseen by most,
to an unannounced plague throughout our quiet suburbs and busy cities. To emphasize that
its youths shes talking about children with bloody hands, Quindlen uses the imposing phrase
murder suspects with acne problems. She sets the tone and engages the viewer in the very first
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paragraph, and only then lays out her goals of ending the ignorance about mental health and
moving it from the margins of care. By ending that set of ideas with a simile comparing such a
course to a vaccine in terms of lives saved, the author uses connation to deliver the message that
treatment for mental issues is a valid medical course of action that is safe and entirely necessary.
Over the next several paragraphs, the author uses word choices with heavy connotation
like luring alongside pure facts to imply and enforce that mental illness is dangerous. Quindlen
expresses disgust this those who consider the whole deal childish with diction like ludicrous
[spankings] and excuses, excuses by adults as to why these children were never treated. Some
tsy, but are stymied by costs, attitudes, and other parents. Further conveying her attitude towards
those who dismiss these problems are both the fact of incredible irony that in one of her chosen
examples, the father bought his son, in the middle of treatment for an obsession with violence, a
pistol he was later murdered with, and her statement that the other was assessed not to be an
issue in less time than it takes to eat a happy meal. The juxtaposition there drives home the
renewed fact that these are children were dealing with here.
As the essay draws nearer to its end, Quindlen reviews the not long passed methods of
treatment for these injured people, with such popular methods as lobotomies being considered
acceptable treatment not too long ago. While that may have left them to peacefully but
brainlessly loll away their days, harsh juxtaposition deliver the message that now lots of them
wind up in jail, displaying that our methods today are only slightly less barbaric. In case that
particular appeal to emotion failed, she switches rapids to logos, logically stating that curing is a
lot less expensive than a life of care in a cell. Rapidly rebounding back to pathos, she pleads for
our hearts by comparing the lack of treatment for two thirds of our injured young ones to a
failure to vaccinate them; by connotation, a standard, necessary medical procedure. The harsh
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and plain reality of her writing continues- Fathers who sissify talking about problems may
soon have to put a name on a cadaver. Quindlen softens no blows. Finally, she hits on the what
ifs inside us all with a string of commonly felt rhetorical if onlys that strike at the readers
personal guilt and intends to drive them to action.
Throughout her piece, Qindlen uses steely and uncensored phrases and harsh
juxtaposition to hammer in the severity of her argument. She continually compares treatment to
existing accepted medical procedures to confirm its legitimacy, and gives warning of the
consequences otherwise. Mental illness is a dangerous, terrible, but ultimately treatable disease,
with the right actions, and Quindlen does an excellent job of using every method at her disposal
to send this message to the reader.