Microsoft word - wurtzel handout.docx

ELIZABETH WURTZEL, “PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED” PRESENTED BY BRANDI HOPKINS BIOGRAPHY: Elizabeth Wurtzel was born to a Jewish family in New York City in July of 1967. Her parents divorced while she was still young and dealing with the subsequent war between parents led to an early onset of depression. Her battle with depression continued into her undergraduate career at Harvard. Extensive therapy was no help to her, and she attempted suicide multiple times. It was the then experimental drug, Prozac, which finally offered her relief and launched her to stardom with her best-selling novel Prozac Nation. Wurtzel has since published Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, The Secret of Life: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women, and More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction. Interestingly, Wurtzel graduated from Yale Law School in 2008 but failed the New York bar exam until she retook it in 2010. During this break, she still referred to herself as a lawyer. She was also fired from the Dallas Morning News for plagiarism. SYNOPSIS Wurtzel opens her short story with her junior year in college during one of her breakdowns. It is here that the theme of the “lost generation” is begun with the therapist asking her repeatedly, “What have you lost?” and Wurtzel replying she does not know. Wurtzel attempts to explain what she has “lost” and her sense of homesickness by telling the nurse about her experience at summer camp, but the therapist is only confused. It is shortly after this experience Wurtzel is prescribed Prozac. Prozac saves Wurtzel’s life, however, there is still a problem. Prozac does not solve the problem of the homesickness she says she experiences. Wurtzel uses cultural references to explain how society has changed and demonstrate where this homesickness is rooted. She states, “All these young people are homesick and in a reverie for an enchanted place they’ve never known” (696). Wurtzel again retraces to her childhood to illustrate her point. Her parents became trapped in the expectations of their generation which is “adolescence—college— marriage—kids” (697). Her mother also becomes stuck and frustrated in the expectations of her time. She does not pursue the career field she desires and once she marries, Wurtzel’s father is still the one to work despite the mother being more highly By the time Wurtzel’s generation reaches adulthood, they are tired. The life cycle for them is backwards, “all grown-up and running a household at ten and all set to jump on the seesaw and slip down the sliding pond at twenty-five” (702). In an attempt toward a solution to her generation’s problem of family and parental figures, they form a new QUESTIONS: 1. Wurtzel describes her depression as homesickness, stating, “There’s no way, I realize, to ever make her understand that homesickness is just a state of mind for me, that I’m always missing someone or some place or something, I’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing” (694). How is this homesickness realized in Wurtzel’s younger life? How does she apply her own feelings of homesickness to explain her own lost generation? 2. What examples does Wurtzel use to show how society is normalizing and assimilating negative developments? What effect does she feel this has had on her generation? What have they become preoccupied with? How does she feel about this 3. Wurtzel states that the time line for her generation is backwards. How so? How does this compare to the timeline she states got her parents’ generation in trouble? 4. Wurtzel’s generation forms a new type of familial unit. What comprises this new family? How does this tie in with the changes in media representations of her 5. What is significant about the title, “Parental Guidance Suggested?”

Source: http://brandihopkins.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/wurtzel-handout.pdf