Literary Analysis Essay on Ironweed

Ironweed is a book by William Kennedy that won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize Award. The which was published in 1983 talks about a former Major League Baseball player, Francis Phelan, whose life is on a downward spiral causing him to end up as a homeless vagrant. Francis fled from home for twenty-two years after accidentally killing his infant son. The events in the novel happen in three days, where Francis starts to come to terms with his past before deciding to return home to his wife finally. Ironweed is surprisingly an uplifting story despite being a disturbing read. William Kennedy’s Ironweed deserved to win the 1984 Pulitzer Price Award because of the dangers of depression, and psychological trauma transcends time and space. It depicts a rather ordinary and successful man’s life gets destroyed by depression. It also depicts the horrific effects of mental illness and the danger it presents to society. Finally, the story makes us realize that severe mental illnesses can be prevented, and there is hope even for the mentally sick.

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Mental illness is a condition that can affect everyone regardless of their race or social class. The novel increases awareness of the dangers of depression by showing how Phelan’s comfortable and prosperous life was destroyed by depression. Some people may fail to perceive depression as a threat or a real issue because they perceive it as a rich man’s disease. While Phelan was living a successful life, he was not productive. Phelan was an ordinary working-class American, and yet he still broke after an incident that involved his infant son (Kennedy, 26). That shows that depression is a condition that can affect everyone irrespective of his or her social status. Second, the story’s creation of awareness on depression is significant because people need to perceive it as a severe disease and stop dismissing it as just another minor ailment. In the story, Francis’s life was destroyed because he could not deal with the loss of his son. When asked as to why he has not been home in twenty years, Francis says, “There are reasons. That stone. The soldiers would have shot me. And I had to play ball-it’s what I did. Then I dropped my baby son, and he died, and I could not face that” (Kennedy, 26). Emotional loss can lead to depression and psychological trauma as it did for Francis. Francis had been able to survive traumatic events before, starting from the loss of his father. He seemed like someone who had overcome several emotional hurdles, and the reader would have naturally expected him to overcome the death of his son as he did with other losses. However, the emotional loss of his son’s death was too much for him to bear, and it caused him to run away from his family hence destroying his life. Therefore, the novel was deserving of the award because it educated people on the reality concerning depression and psychological trauma, and their vulnerability to the conditions.

Depression and psychological trauma can have horrific effects on a person, especially if they are experienced at the same time. The story uses Francis to show the gruesome effects of depression and psychological trauma that have gone unchecked. For example, in the novel, Harold Allen, one of Francis victims, appears to him and asks, “Why did you kill me?” (Kennedy, 26). Francis’s psychological trauma had caused him to either hallucinate or maybe develop Schizophrenia. Either way, he needs some mental healthcare because the fact that his reality is distorted is enough reason for him to be a danger for himself and society. He is struggling with coming to terms with the results of his actions. He is having a hard time accepting the fact that he took all those lives. That is causing him to see still what he perceives to be the people he murdered. Another horrific effect of psychological trauma and mental illness is depicted not through Francis, but through another homeless person called Dick Doolan, who had tried to cut Francis feet with a meat cleaver (Kennedy, 63). Francis did manage to keep his feet, but he had physically been exposed to the dangers of mental illness, and it ended up costing him part of his finger. Doolan was mentally ill, and his gruesome attack on Francis was one that was motivated by mental disorder. Like Francis, Doolan was a homeless person. The circumstances of his ending up in the streets are unknown, but his vicious attack is evidence that he might not be mentally stable. The way the novel portrays the effects of psychological trauma and instability makes it a deserving winner of the award because then people will get to take the issue of mental illness more seriously.

Third, the story depicts depression and psychological instability as an issue that is caused by a series of events rather than a single event. The author uses Francis’s journey and struggles with psychological trauma to show how a series of events that are left unchecked can lead someone to nearly losing their mind. In the story, Francis had witnessed a lot of traumatic events before the one involving his son. Francis had witnessed the gruesome death of his father while still young, and that memory tortured him (Kennedy, 15). The event must have left a significant mark on Francis’ life and might have contributed to the eventual collapse of his psychological state. What is clear is that these events were not being addressed. Francis still had grief involving his father. Grief involving the bum and several other people, before succumbing to the grief involving his son. The downward spiral of his life might have been avoided if he had taken time to address these series of events that had left him with traumatic memory. The story shows that mental health should be viewed as a work in progress rather than a one-time thing. People should take time to keep their mental health in good condition to avoid reaching a breaking point just as Francis did. Also, while the author made sure to show the horrific side of mental illness, he ends the story with a slightly lighter note that paints hope for the main character’s mental condition. Over the three days of the story, Francis had been retracing his steps back to his family. He had returned home after twenty-two years of absence to find his family still there (Kennedy, 164). The return marks have a significant step for Francis’s journey towards healing because he overcame a barrier that prevented him from returning home earlier. As much as he was still suffering from mental issues, Francis was still capable of making sensible decisions. He was capable of knowing what he needed to do. Nevertheless, most important, he was capable of recognizing the fact that he had mental problems. Through Francis’s slow but steady relapse into a mental disorder and his eventual return from home, the novel shows the readers that some conditions such as depression are preventable. It also shows that there is still hope for people with a mental health condition regardless of how far down they have fallen.

Mental illness is a danger to everyone regardless of the time that they are living in. It is a universal problem not limited to any particular country or geolocation. Ironweed depiction of those facts is what made it a worthy winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Price Award. Through Francis, the novel indicated that mental illness is a condition that can affect everyone regardless of their social class. It also makes a point of showing the ugly side of mental illnesses and the dangers it presents to society and individuals. Third, it shows hope for mentally ill patients through the life of Francis. The more people talk about mental illnesses, the more it is likely to be addressed. Mental illness has grown to be a big problem since Ironweed was first published, and that goes to show that the issue transcended time and space.

Works Cited

Kennedy, William. Ironweed. 1st ed., Penguin Books, 1984.