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Brain On Fire Essay

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Everyone acts like they are invincible. Impervious. Untouchable. However, just a few circumstances lining up can not only alter your life, but destroy it, changing everything familiar, twisting any feeling into a delusion, and even altering your memory. The human mind is more susceptible to injury and disease than anyone may be led to think. Since a person’s brain is so fragile, considering how important it is becomes even more daunting. After all, the brain, is the body’s ultimate controller, taking charge of even a person’s own desires and actions once it is compromised by injury, illness, or other ailment (Cahalan, 2012, pg.87). As much as the human race wants to believe they are in control, the truth is one event could drastically change …show more content…

In literature, when an author is not a reliable source, which could happen when writing a fictional character with schizophrenia or a murderer, the words are not necessarily meant be held as fact in the world being created (What is an unreliable narrator?, 2016). Susannah’s book covers the entire length of her time while under the influence of a raw and mysterious illness, now known to be Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis, the scope of which is still not entirely known (Cahalan, 2012, pg.156). This disease attacks the NMDA receptors in the body, which are responsible for many aspects of memory and a person’s tenuous connection with reality (What is Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis?, 2016). In Susannah’s case, some of the events she has written involves information that is from people who witnessed her behavior during this time. She has no memory of an entire month in which she was entirely under the influence of her inflamed brain (Callahan, 2012, pg.41). Therefore, a large section of this book is told from the perspective of an unreliable source, but this does not detract from this engaging novel’s message or

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