Quicksand, and the Illusion of the Manageable World
time for mentally stable blog post march! While reading through Schmidt's version of the Heroine's journey, I had a thought. How, in "The Illusion of the Perfect World," could there be a coping strategy called "Disappointed?" Doesn't the existence of something depressing inherently break the illusion of the Perfect World before it can begin? How would a depressed person be able to think that the world is perfect? Well, in Quicksand , we can see some of that 'depressed' heroine, and see how she attempts to navigate her depressing world, before being hit with a betrayal. Helga, from the very beginning of the book, feels disillusioned with her current life. From the first few chapters, Helga already realizes that her life at Naxos is terrible, and chooses to abandon the South for Chicago. The most direct way of thinking about this in the context of a Heroine's Journey would be consider this first part of the book as some sort of separation from...