Ellen Hopkins Idental

785 Words2 Pages

“Because only by confronting your demons can you ever hope to conquer them” (Hopkins, 525). In Ellen Hopkins’, Identical, the idea of finding oneself, and facing the underlying issues we hold is a struggle through the entire novel. Hopkins is an American author who, in almost all of her novels, focuses on the uncomfortable, yet very real, issues in today’s world. Specifically, in her book Identical, she discusses the issues that surround a pair of twins, Raeanne and Kaeleigh. Raeanne is seen as the “evil twin” or the negative one out of the two. She participated in activities such as smoking, drinking and having sex; she is a copy of her father. Kaeleigh, on the contrary, is portrayed as a the “innocent twin” or the successful twin. She achieves …show more content…

However, in the beginning of the novel the reader is notified of a car accident that occurred several years ago causing the girls’ mother to become emotionally detached and the family to disconnect. The reader observes the abuse the girls endure through their politician of a mother’s neglectful ways. Kay, the girls’ mother, will remove herself from their lives for months at a time which sends Raymond, the father, into a depression that can only be cured by sexual contact with Kaeleigh. Furthermore, the reader witness the rape incidents between Raymond and Kaeleigh from both girls perspectives. Toward the end of the novel we come to a point where one of the twins, Raeanne, is caught having sex with another boy by Ian, Kaeleigh's best friend and secret love. He become furious and begins to scream at the girl telling her that her sister is dead and has been since the car accident years prior. It is at this point in the novel that the reader realizes it was not a set of twins girls throughout the novel, it was one twin, Kaeleigh, who has split personality disorder and continues to play the life of her dead …show more content…

Themes involving rape, drug abuse, child abuse, alcoholism and neurological issues all flow throughout the novel. However, the most uncomfortable and main theme through Identical is the idea relating to the effects of mental illness on not only the lives of the diagnosed, but also the lives of everyone around them and how past events can encourage a person to become neurologically atypical. The book also takes this theme a step further by fulling address the causes of select mental illnesses and proving that not all are easily seen. The Blue Knot Foundation shows that child abuse and neglect leads to many different types of psychological issues beginning in childhood years and transferring into adult years (Abuse Related Conditions). For example, the abuse that Kaeleigh suffers from both her parent leads her to create this new identity to replace her dead sister which can be diagnosed as dissociative identity disorder. In addition, studies show that children who had an experience of rape or attempted rape in their adolescent years were 13.7 times more likely to experience rape or attempted rape later in their life (Child Sexual Abuse Statistics). The reader finds out through Raeanne that Raymond, her father, experiences sexual abuse from his neighbor as a child. This traumatizing experience is believed to be the cause of his sexual desires to

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