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Kaden Dickinson

Mrs. Wines

Comp 1 / ENG124

19 October 2020

The Path of Schizophrenia

Have you ever known someone with mental illness? How were they affected by it? This

reader-response book, Challenger Deep, really shows the temporary and permanent effects

mental illness give. Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman focuses on Caden Bosch and his path

through his mental illnesses. The illness that the novel shines most of its light on is

Schizophrenia, by showing two worlds - one that is real, and one created by the depths of his

imagination, but also the following fear that haunts him. This is portrayed throughout the entire

reading, slowly closing in on itself while reaching the end. This path starts with Caden having

fear of a boy at school, leading to more random and ominous ideas in his head. The novel then

makes its way towards the ship, which is the best example of him confusing the real world with

fantasy. The ship also lies in the book’s climax, with the recovery of the illness.

Schizophrenia is defined by the Mayo Clinic as “...a serious mental disorder in which

people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of

hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily

functioning, and can be disabling.” This idea or definition flows through the book and even into

the acknowledgments. Caden’s first symptoms of Schizophrenia are shown when he tells his dad

that he believes a boy at his school wants to kill him, with no rhyme or reason at all. You can tell

the illness is developing because he is interpreting reality abnormally and has extremely

disordered thinking. This mindset affects his daily functioning by being paranoid, yet he is

thinking this way almost all the time.

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The next way Shusterman expresses his illness is through random yet progressively

worse thoughts in his head. The first one that is seen is his thought of China having an

earthquake directly adjacent to him on the other side of the world because he thinks that him

thinking and processing so much information that it will cause an earthquake. “Could my

thoughts be magnified in the heat and pressure of the earth and come out the other side as an

earthquake?” (Shusterman 25). He is most likely just exaggerating that he thinks a lot or even too

much, but it also seems like he believes in his fiction. “I check the news in secret terror to see if

there was an earthquake in China,” (Shusterman 25). The other small example of Schizophrenia

developing is Caden’s disconnection from the world or his life. He doesn’t feel like he isn’t

himself anymore, or like he isn’t a part of it; he loses the sense of being there by his brain

wandering off, and not like the normal daydream. “I sit with my friends for lunch. And yet I

don’t. That is to say, I’m among them, but I don’t feel with them,” (Shusterman 48). He is

noticing how he is drifting off from his friends, and he uses unnatural phrases to describe his

time with them. This doesn’t just occur with his friends, but with his teachers and family. “We’re

concerned, and (the school) just want(s) to help you, if you’ll let us,” (Shusterman 77). The final

small example of building Schizophrenia found is excessive anxiety, which is a side effect of

Schizophrenia, according to uptodate.com. “I try to relax, but I can’t. My reflection looks

worried. Am I worried? That’s not quite what I’m feeling today - but lately my emotions are so

liquid, they flow into one another without my noticing,” (Shusterman 67). There are countless

examples of anxiety disorder in Challenger Deep, but this example shows that Caden cannot tell

what he is feeling or have control over his emotions, with worrying without having anything to

worry about.

The biggest example of Schizophrenia, especially the development of it lies in the

‘Pirate’ Ship. The ship is Caden’s imagination that we see throughout the novel, showing how

scattered Caden’s brain is during this illness. The first recognition that he is on a ship starts by
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showing the ship as more of a dream place, or at least seeming like it is. There is no relative

connection in my eyes until he and his family go to Vegas, and Caden, with his family, jumps off

the 4 story tower onto a mattress (Shusterman 40). Right before this excerpt, people are jumping

off the Crow’s Nest on the ship (Shusterman 25). This is the first example we get from the ship

that this fantasy world correlates to the real world. Thus, this world begins to intertwine itself

with Caden’s life. “‘It’s a tough thing to do, even when the sea is calm,’ I point out,”

(Shusterman 226). During Caden’s families’ visit to the mental hospital where he is being kept,

he makes a reference to the sea and how he’s having a hard time living in the hospital. Of course,

that could’ve just been a thought from his dream that randomly recollected back into his

thoughts, but two pages later the reader sees that it’s not just a coincidence. “‘I’m on deck with

Carlyle. He hands me his mop, and lets me do some of his dirty work’….’Yep.’ He closes his

laptop to give me his full attention. There are others in the rec room with us, but they’re mostly

just watching TV,” (Shusterman 227-228). This quote, coming from the same chapter, is a new

style of writing Shusterman performs that we haven’t seen in this novel yet. The actual narrative

overlapping between both worlds gives both a better understanding of how Caden is feeling at

this time, but also an even better understanding of the correlation between the events he is

experiencing in real life and on the ship. Although these occurrences become more frequent the

farther in the book you go, the most significant example of Schizophrenia portrayed through the

ship is when he finally reaches Challenger Deep, the deepest part in the Marina Trench. The

Captain tells him that all the treasures he could ever imagine are down there and that if he made

it then he, as would the Captain, would have glory and riches (Shusterman 267). It just happens

that the Captain is portraying Caden’s mental illness the entire time, and he was the one to tell

Caden to go down to the bottom of the trench, portrayed in the real world as his suicide attempt.

There, and only there is where Caden finds the origin of his Schizophrenia, an old play-captain

that he met in New York (Shusterman 292). The play-captain then states “‘Subway’s bad this
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time of day,’ he says. ‘It’s forever down there, (Shusterman 294). Once he recalls this memory,

he realizes that this was the cause of his Schizophrenia, and now that he knows what caused this

demon to grow inside of him.

In conclusion, Schizophrenia is detailed in the book in many different ways. Small

details, comments to his family, anxiety, but most importantly his other world. In the end, it

comes together like a puzzle, with pieces of the upcoming events that are given to the reader as

hints of the climax. Once the fantasy and real-world start intertwining, the book gets very

explicit about how his actions in the mental hospital affect what happens to him on the ship,

while the friends he knows in the mental hospital are shown clearly on the ship as well. Looking

back at the definition of Schizophrenia mentioned in the second paragraph, Caden’s trip through

his illness strikes deep in most if not all details covered in the definition. Hallucinations and

delusions showed with the boy at school, feeling like he isn’t part of this world anymore, and

even the ship - the biggest detail of Schizophrenia - fits these terms. His daily functioning is

often disabled somewhat because of his medications, as he mentions he feels numb often

(Shusterman 195). Finally, his disordered thinking. His mindset while going through

Schizophrenia is flawed as it worsens the deeper in the book. Every example mentioned conveys

a disordered mindset, and by the end of the book, he has no recollection of what is real and what

is conjured by his twisted, ill mind.

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Works Cited

Shusterman, Neal. Challenger Deep, Simon & Schuster, 2015

Schizophrenia. (2020, January 07). Retrieved October 22, 2020, from

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/yc-20354443?

utm_source=Google

(n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.uptodate.com/contents/anxiety-in-

schizophrenia