Paper Example. I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

The interesting cover title of Iain Reid's book I'm Thinking of Ending Things presents various puzzling questions. Is it life? An affair? Or an unsatisfactory relationship? So the nerves the reader is already up there before they even start reading it. The author suggests that it took him around four years to write the novel even though he already had ideas about the book. The narrative is generally from his past experiences growing up in the countryside of Ontario. He also claims he left the ending of the novel open for interpretation and that even though he has his own explanation of the ending of the story, other interpretations are acceptable. The novel is generally viewed as horror fiction and a psychological thriller about a young woman who went with her boyfriend to see his parents and the horrific aftermath that follows. Many of the chapters in the novel are separated by conversations between two people discussing the horrific events that occurred in the school.

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Question 1: fiction vs. reality

To begin with, the story can be viewed as reality rather than fiction. It is a true reflection of the suicidal thoughts of people suffering from Schizophrenia disorder go through every day. Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by abnormal interpretation of reality. According to Kingdon, David and Douglas (1998), the disorder is chronic since it requires lifelong treatment and is only treated to get the disease under control or help improve the long-term outlook. Jake seemed to be suffering from the condition basing on his behavior. As the book comes to a close, it is revealed that the whole narrative is about Jake, a university dropout who had been working as a janitor for the past 30 years (Kingdon, David and Douglas). The novel discusses his loner nature as most of the time, he spent writing novels. They finally realize what had truly happened when they find the notebook with his body next to it. These are the same symptoms for the disease, such as withdrawal from friends and delusions. For instance, after dinner with Jakes's parents, her to the school where he worked for more than 30 years. He pretends to have seen a man watching them as they made out in the car and goes in the lookout for him. Jake takes long to come back, and she also follows to see what was happening. It seems he had allusions of seeing a person before he went to commit suicide, which is a symptom of the disease.

Question 2

To understand the metaphorical meaning of the novel, it is important to evaluate the whole novel from the beginning. The story seems to be real events of the last journey of Jake, a man suffering from a severe mental illness. Following the scenes in the novel, the illness ticks all the boxes of schizophrenia, a multiple personality mental disorder. The manuscript is found next to his body in the school where he worked as a custodian. At the start of the book, it appears as if his girlfriend is the narrator of the story. A twist as the novel comes to a close reveals that he was never in a relationship with the girl and that he came up with the story in order to feel what his life would have been if he had been in a relationship. His girlfriend, who is the unknown narrator in the novel, states at the beginning of the novel that she is "thinking of ending things" (Reid 3). During the journey, although she is afraid that her boyfriend thinks their relationship is getting stronger, she is not much into it. At least, that's what the author makes the reader believe at first. There is a disturbing twist at the end of the story, which reveals that all the characters she came across were part of Jakes's deepest thoughts; thus, the novel can be viewed as an extended metaphor of his life.

There is something not clear about Jakes's behavior as he shows her around the family firm when they arrive. She suggests that she feels like she has stepped into a yard, although it was cold, dark, and beginning to snow. She realizes that a photo that he claims to be of himself when he was young appears to be much older than it should be. When she takes a closer look at it, she realizes that the photo resembles her, which makes the reader reach the conclusion that she is a fragmented part of him. Additionally, after dinner with Jakes's parents, they make a stop the dairy and later on a side trip to find a place where they can throw their cups. He then takes her to a school, which turns out to be the place Jake worked for more than 30 years. He pretends to have seen a man watching them as they made out in the car and goes in the lookout for him. He takes longer to come back, and she also follows to see what was happening.

Even though Jake s girlfriend fears that the intruder is trying to hunt them down, she continues to search for him only to find out that there was no intruder and that he intentionally lured her into the school. A self-reflection of all the events in the journey makes her realize that she, together with all the characters, were all pieces of Jakes's psyche. The concept of the girlfriend being locked in the school alone is a metaphor of the life of Jake as he feels confined in mental illness that he cannot get out of. Jake has no friends or family because of his communication problems. Despite being a smart individual with a doctoral-level education, he ends up as a school custodian since he has a problem relating to other people. These different parts of Jake's personality have been gathered in the school so that he can end his struggles.

Question 3

Psychology comes from the word psyche, a Greek word that means logos and mind, thus translating to mean study ad knowledge. Hence, psychology is a scientific understanding of human mental processes and behavior (Rose 450). Therefore psychology is used to examine the behaviors of Jake, the character in the book I'm thinking of ending things. Jake is the principal character of the book; he is the only real character, while others are mare parts of his personality. Jake, in real life he was a middle-aged man, and he worked as a custodian in a school. The school where he was currently working was the place where he killed himself. According to the novel, Jake had a mental illness that caused him to have a split personality disorder. Thus, his behavior was far from normal since his psyche came into pieces of several personalities. The disorder made him hear voices, thus making the disorder more like schizophrenia. Following the mental disorder of Jake, he behaved wired, and he was living in his world. He liked being alone from his childhood to his adulthood age.

In addition, the novel impacted me as a self-destructive idea from the tile itself. However, for other people, the expression intrigued them to think about separation. Surely, from the topic of the novel, "I'm thinking of ending things," it alludes that an obvious sense but not necessarily suicide but other possible decision of the narrator. The narrator struggles with the decisions throughout the novel, about whether to end things with Jake. Besides, the narrator uses the express "they" instead of "he" or "she" because the storyteller is amazingly cautiously to mention. Since the storyteller never alludes to themselves in specific sex, and as the novel concludes, it turns out to be significantly brought out, however, not in the manners you may anticipate. The nearest the storyteller's sexual orientation comes to being obvious is the point at which they talk about Jake's "last sweetheart" or when they depict Jake alluding to them as a smaller and youthful Uma Thurman, "positively," which again leaves space for vagueness. Albeit later in the novel uncovers that the storyteller is, or would be, she, despite everything, it feels guileful to the painstakingly worded portrayal to distinguish them while all things are considered. A case of this cautious wording comes at whatever point sex is described, and there are failing to identify substantial highlights to cause us to accept the sexual orientation of the narrator dependent on their body parts. In one scene, when Jake and the storyteller are making out in a vehicle, for example: "I fit my head back as he begins kissing my chest." Chest , not bosoms, however chest, which makes the body of the narrator undeniably increasingly uncertain.

Question 4

The main character may be presumed to have a personality disorder because he posed all the symptoms associated with the disorder. Jake had an unhealthy and rigid pattern of functioning, behaving, and thinking. The character in the novel had trouble relating and perceiving people or situations. Hence, the condition leads to significant limitations and problems in social activities, school, relationships, and work. In addition, the disorder causes the one having it not to realize since their behaviors and thinking seem reasonable. Therefore, the people having a personality like Jake may blame others always for the problems they face since they do not understand their problem. They are taking an example of Jake, who had a personality disorder and ended up killing himself since he was unable to understand his problem.

Kayla is among people who have managed to disclose to people that she had a disease that influenced just an estimate of two percent of the world's population and which led to the death of one individual in every ten. Personally, the disorder is among misjudged and criticized emotional well-being conditions. In addition, the disorder's staggering impact can be found in a thousand untold stories by the individuals who live with it, just like Jake in the novel.

In two thousand and seven, Kayla was hauled out of a lake in South Yorkshire, where she attempted to take her own life. Fortunately, her accomplice happened to work with a police helicopter to find her cell phone signal by the edge of the water, where two mutts discovered her, and she was taken to security. At that time, her accomplice abruptly turned into her 'carer,' and then she turned into an 'administration client.' Kayla had no clue that the adventure on which we were going to set out would be such a long and rough one.

Furthermore, her side effects started during her new youthfulness; hence, she immediately became mindful that she dislikes her friends. She development partition nervousness, self-hurt, a dread of deserting, and passionate shakiness kept her from encountering what ought to have been the common existence of a young person. She went through her days in disengagement, not understanding the staggering feelings that assaulted her from each side. The feeling included, regularly sobbing late into the night while she asked why the emotions would not leave, and why she could not put a name to them.

Therefore, she barely found any individuals happy to take an individual behind the character issue as she had. There can be such massive inventiveness conceived in the brains of those tormented by psychological sickness. When outfitting through verse, workmanship, music, or composing, it tends to be a fantastic asset for recuperation. Besides, several seasoned suicides exploited people the most consistently, characterized by investigation gathering data on individuals and the disorder. Kayla's conditions were more similar to Jake's, but unfortunately, Jake was never saved in due time. Jake isolated himself most often, thus hard for him to make any friends. He did not have anyone who could look after him thus, preventing him from ending his life.

While most articles do not necessarily characterize suicide endeavors in two examinations but utilized the meaning of the World Health Organization, however, different investigations described suicide endeavors as any deliberate, reckless act, without requiring a communicated expectation to kick the bucket or obscuring the line among para-suicide and suicide.