Self-Awareness

The author explores this theme by documenting Millie's mental health struggles and her vacillating levels of self-consciousness throughout the events of the novel. Millie believes that she is very self-aware, that in fact her often self-destructive choices are carefully made with reasonable reflection, when in fact she is willfully ignoring the fundamental issues that are causing a great deal of her suffering—her chronic drinking, her isolation, and the fact that she does not pursue any sort of treatment for her obvious depression.

There is a significant discrepancy between what Millie believes she understands about herself and her actual lived experience, and this discrepancy is explored in ways that are both subtle and more overt. Millie believes her isolation is a conscious choice, and that she prefers to be alone in order to wallow in self-pity unobserved. “This is what I wanted,” she explains in Chapter...