Depression In Toni Morrison's The Others

Depression is a condition in the mind that is a chemical imbalance where it effects your mood, your interests, relationships, sleep and your appetite. In The Others, Grace, is awaiting her husband to come home from war, holding on to the slight chance he is still alive. This waiting drives her crazy, she becomes depressed with PTSD with the unmoral event to Graces life of her husband being killed, leading to her murdering her two children and shooting herself in the head after. The trauma of the deaths and the suicide results in Grace being delusional of her past depression that lead to her outburst. Her child remembers what she did and show this through dialogue of, "Remember the day mom went crazy". This quote was said more than once in the

“What have you done with my daughter”, “It’s me mummy”, Grace’s anger builds up and ends with her grabbing and pushing Ann. “She won’t stop until she kills us”, this quote was said by Ann which is a sign to the audience and a remembrance to Grace that she needed help and she had hurt them once before. Those around grace, her two children and the house keepers were put into the film to help Grace get through what she was dealing with. They gave grace someone to talk to so she didn’t feel as isolated in her home. By doing this they uncovered the truth slowly to Grace in a way that she could manage the situation. This is similar in Inception where Cobb uses his subconscious to dream of his wife in a fake world where they can be happy again. The scene of Cobbs family on the beach is a connection to Grace seeing the old lady as her daughter. Cobb sees his wife alive and happy, he sees their family together. The depression that grew inside his wife from the idea of living in a fake world lead Cobbs mind to believe he was the reason she killed herself. Cobb continuously going back into the fake dreams is a worry for the audience as it could have lead cobb to the same depression his wife had gained from the

The grief and trauma Cobb has of his wife jumping sets him up to being haunted in his dreams. She appears everywhere because he is always thinking about her. This idea of grief from a death is also a theme in The Lovely Bones where father, Jack, feels the need to figure out his daughter’s killer for her own sake to be a piece. His depression leads him to smashing up his family tradition that he had prepared to be handed down to Susie, that was his bottled boats. A scene that shows Jack feels alone without his daughter is when he has a candle lit on top of one of his bottled boats and the reflection of the window shows his candle light. This is where the reflection begins to move, like a gust of wind has gone by. This was done by the director to give Jack assurance that everything was going to be ok and his little girl was now safe. This idea of depression from the trauma of a death/suicide was used by the director to show the different approaches and dealings individuals approach their mental health, whether they know they have it or