Everything I Never Told You or Intro to Psych?

An introduction to coping mechanisms using Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You

Celeste Ng’s first novel, Everything I Never Told You, follows a family during their struggle to accept the sudden death of Lydia Lee, the most beloved daughter of the family. In the case of any tragic event, individuals affected by the tragedy deal with their emotions using defense mechanisms that serve to make individuals feel better about unpleasant situations. Similarly, each character in Everything I Never Told You has his, her, or their own coping mechanism, a method through which they deal with the emotions that follow the loss of a family member. Ng effectively uses coping mechanisms as a device to subtly reveal the underpinnings of Lydia’s family members’ reactions to her death.

Marilyn: DENIAL and RATIONALIZATION

Denial: refusing to confront the truth about a situation by blocking it out of your head.

When the police inform her there were no signs of foul play involved in Lydia’s death, Marilyn rejects the evidence: “‘She would never have gone out on her own. I know she wouldn’t. Sneaking out in the middle of the night? My Lydia? Never.’” (Ng 108).

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Rationalization: attempting to find a more reasonable and easily acceptable explanation for why an event occurred, often in the form of an excuse.

Giving up on her academic dream is Marilyn’s biggest regret; hence, she cannot accept or understand why Lydia would give up her opportunity to pursue it. Marilyn refuses to confront the fact that Lydia willingly committed suicide and cope with the despair that accompanies the truth. Instead, Marilyn tunes into her confusion about Lydia forfeiting her chance by pushing the police to find a culprit despite the fact that Lydia is the perpetrator of her own death.

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Hannah: INTELLECTUALIZATION

Intellectualization: an attempt to take an unbiased stance and observe a situation.

Because Hannah is unsure of how to express her anger, she starts retracing Lydia’s last steps in an attempt to relieve her confusion about Lydia’s death: “She is furious with her sister for vanishing, bewildered that Lydia would leave them all behind...How could you, she would have thought, when you knew what it was like?...All she can think of now is: How? And: What was it like? Tonight she will find out” (Ng 102). As a young child, Hannah is innocent and does not understand why Lydia would abandon her family. Hannah’s confusion and frustration drive her to comb through every detail of Lydia’s life, from looking through Lydia’s room to reenacting what she did in her last moments. Like Marilyn, Hannah believes that finding an explanation will give her closure.

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Nath: PROJECTION

Projection: using someone or something else as the subject/receiver of negative emotions.

Nath blames Lydia’s death on Jack to avoid confronting his own guilt for not being there for Lydia when she needed it. Because Nath and Jack had conflicts in the past, Nath believes Lydia’s friendship with Jack is associated with her death: “[Nath] has been wrestling with the idea of calling the police himself, of telling them about Jack and how he must be responsible...they might have listened to Nath’s complaints...and come to similar conclusions” (Ng 112). To avoid grieving over the loss of his sister, Nath focuses on antagonizing Jack, assuming he was a bad influence on Lydia. Nath believes that by placing responsibility on someone else, he will no longer feel guilty for not being a resource for Lydia during her time of need.

http://interpersonal-compatibility.blogspot.com/
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