Depression in Hanya Yanagihara A Little Life

A Thesis Prospectus

by
Hanna Imelda Gultom
190210003

English Department

Faculty of Letters
Catholic University of Saint Thomas
Medan
2022
Depression in Hanya Yanagihara A Little Life

A Thesis Prospectus

by
Hanna Imelda Gultom
190210003

Consultant

Dra. R. M. Simamora, M. Hum.

English Department

Faculty of Letters
Catholic University of Saint Thomas
Medan
2022
 1. The Background of Choosing the Topic

In the novel, characters play vital role in knowledge humans’ characters

whilst writers create characters for novels, they pick certain elements of

everyday humans, improve a number of the ones elements at the same time as

downplaying others, and convey them collectively in something manner they

see suit. The cease end result is a fictional individual that only exist inside the

pages of literary arts. Since characters in novels are derived from normal people

inside the actual international then it is possible to explore and mirror on human

nature and struggles in novel through characters are supplied throug h the

writer, even though the characters are fictional (90 Gill).

Novel is a world specifically created by an author through exploitation of

words (Gill 77) Novel is a fictional literary art in which an author uses words in

such a way to narrate his personal or fictional experience to readers Therefore,

novel should not be misunderstood as real life events. However, it does not

mean that the story in novel is not derived from real life events as Pattric

Parrinder claims that fictional narrative gives us an inside view of a society or

nation, just as it gives access to personal experiences very different from our

own (1).

The author is the most important element; the events of the novel and the

reactions of the reader depend on what he or she chooses to do. It includes; the

first is, how the author arranges events. The most important way in which any

author arranges events is by controlling the viewpoint of the readers. The

second is how the author tells stories. It means that in what person is the novel

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written, first-person narrator or third-person narrator. The third is the author's

attitude. A story cannot discuss in isolation from the novelist's attitude. The

attitude of a novelist will be evident in the way the novel is written (Gill 78 ).

Hanya Yanagihara is an American novelist editor, and travel writer. She

grew up in Hawaii. She is best known for her bestselling novel A Little

Life (2015), which was shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize and for being the

Editor in Chief and was born in 1974 in Los Angelees Her father, hematologist

oncologist Ronald Yanagihara, is from Hawaii, and her mother was born

in Seoul. Yanagihara is partly of Japanese descent through her father.As a child,

Yanagihara moved frequently with her family, living

in Hawaii, NewYork, Maryland, California and Texas.She attended Punahou

High School in Hawaii. She attended Smith College and graduated in 1995.

(wikipedia )

Yanagihara has said that her father introduced her as a girl to the work

of Philip Roth and to "British writers of a certain age", such as Anita

Brookner, Iris Murdoch, and Barbara Pym.Of Pym and Brookner, she says,

"there is a suspicion of the craft that the male writers of their generation didn't

have, a metaphysical reckoning of what is it actually doing for the world". She

has said that "the contemporary writers I admire most are Hilary Mantel, Kazuo

Ishiguro, and John Banv ( wikipedia )

Yanagihara’s private life is as constrained as her cultural knowledge is

broad. She lives in a narrow SoHo loft, decorated with art and antiques and

baubles, that she calls her “pod.” She rarely goes out and likes her place to be

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tidy—she won’t host dinner parties because she doesn’t “want the crumbs.” We

once agreed to meet at a local restaurant. “You either go to Omen, Raoul’s, or

Fanelli’s if you live down here, and I go to Omen,” she declared, adding that

she wanted to sit at a particular table in the back. When she takes her trips, she

packs a suitcase that, a friend says, is “almost as small as the one in ‘Rear

Window.’ ” ( Newyorker.com)

Yanagihara moved back to Hawaii for her final three years of high

school, living first with her grandparents and then with a teacher. She enrolled

at Smith College in 1992. Explaining her choice, she joked, “In the early

nineties, it was very easy to get into the women’s colleges,” then added, “Being

a female was never something—and continues not to really be something—that

was interesting to me. . . . So it was odd that I ended up at a women’s college.”

At Smith, she marched for Asian American rights, and when writing papers she

spelled “women” as “womyn”—a stance that she now regards as mostly a pose.

“I should have spent more time thinking critically, and not trying to scare my

way into easy ‘A’s,” she said. Yanagihara slept with women at Smith

—“everyone had sex with women.” When the dorm next door hosted an annual

orgy she didn’t go, because if she had she would have had to help with the

cleanup afterward. By the time she got to college, she knew that she wanted to

be a writer. “I was really going because I was hoping I would be like Sylvia

Plath and stick my head in an oven,” she joked. “But I had pretensions to be

something literary.” ( Newyorker.com)

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 After college, she moved to Manhattan, where she worked in the sales

department of a paperback publisher. She later became a publicist, then an

assistant editor at Riverhead, a hardcover imprint. Friends who visited her when

she was in her late twenties were surprised to find gallery-worthy objects in her

small, sixth-floor apartment. She made her first major purchase, “Bass Strait,

Table Cape,” a photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto, for ten thousand dollars,

paying in installments. Her parents, she said, “had always instilled in me that art

collecting was just something I should do,” though in practice she gathered

objects “only to amuse myself.” She told me that she often found the outside

world forbidding, and so she made her private world a refuge.

( Newyorker.com)

His novels get many awards, they are, novel A Little Life, won the 2015

Kirkus Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the 2016 Baileys

Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The

People in the Trees was shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize in

2014, To Paradise is a 2022 novel by American novelist Hanya Yanagihara.

The book, Yanagihara's third, takes place in an alternate version of New York

City, and has three sections, respectively set in 1893, 1993, and 2093. Though a

bestseller, the novel received mixed reviews from critic. ( pen.org)

Yanagihara is also a novelist with a large readership. Her 2015 book, “A

Little Life,” begins as the story of the friendships among four recent college

graduates, then cascades into an operatic, often appalling, chronicle of the abuse

suffered by one of the protagonists. Like her magazine, the novel is proudly

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baroque. The critical reception to the book was very divided: it was called a

“great gay novel” by one critic, and a “ghastly litany” by another. But it has

sold more than a million and a half copies in English alone. It’s still easy to find

readers talking online, with odd pleasure, about the emotional devastation that

reading A Little Life brought upon them. TikTokers post videos of themselves

crying after finishing the book. . ( Newyorker.com)

Yanagihara, who is forty-seven, has become conversant with hundreds of

creative people and their work. She has spent a lot of time travelling and has an

unusually international aesthetic: she is as comfortable speaking about

ceramicists in Sendai as about conceptual artists in New York. She took over

four years ago, and, thanks to her magpie intelligence, it has become a vibrant

cabinet of curiosities. Fashion and design spreads are now steeped in art

history, and the magazine publishes essays that are surprising, and sometimes

esoteric: an analysis of avant-garde flower arrangers; a rigorous survey of

artists, from Japan to South Africa, who are “reimagining the animal figurine.” .

( Newyorker.com)

Yanagihara felt lucky to be running, a publication that nobody interfered

with as long as it made money and gave advertisers fashion credits. She thought

of her version as “a very well-photographed kind of zine.” Part of what kept her

secure at the Times was her identity. “Let me put it this way,” she said,

carefully. “I think they’re pleased I’m a nonwhite woman.” she had found a

wormhole to a front-row seat in the fashion world, which ruthlessly excludes

the undesirable. “I know I’m not attractive,” she said. “I would like to be. But

5
we can’t all be.” She paused. “Obviously, such things don’t matter at the Times.

No disrespect to my colleagues!” . ( Newyorker.com)

A Little Life a story about a young teenage man a talented and

successful lawyer in New York City, as he struggles to cope with his traumatic

childhood. Despite this apparent closeness with his friends, Jude finds himself

unable to divulge either detail of his past or current state of mind to his

roommate. Nonetheless, he thrives in his law practice, and develops a close

parent-child relationship with his former professor, Harold, and his wife Julia,

which results in the pair adopting him when Jude turns thirty. While thankful,

the time before the adoption is filled with further bouts of self-harm, as Jude

believes he is inherently unworthy of affection. Meanwhile, the rest of the

group finds success in their respective fields, with Willem becoming a star of

theater and then film. JB finds success as an artist but also becomes addicted to

crystal meth. The group stages an intervention, where JB mocks Jude by doing

a crude imitation of his limp. In spite of successful treatment, and a great deal

of apologizing, Jude finds it impossible to forgive JB. Willem refuses to forgive

him too, causing the group to fragment, with only Malcolm remaining friends

with all four members.(wikipedia)

It becomes clear that Jude was sexually traumatized at a very young age,

making it difficult for him to engage in romantic relationships. His friends and

loved ones begin questioning this isolation as he enters his forties, with Willem

especially being baffled with regard to Jude's sexuality. As his loneliness grows

more intense, he enters an abusive relationship with fashion executive Caleb,

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who is disgusted by Jude's limp and his increasing use of a wheelchair. Jude

finally breaks off the relationship after Caleb rapes him, and they meet a final

time when Caleb follows him to dinner with Harold, humiliates him, and then

follows Jude to his apartment, where he brutally beats and rapes him, leaving

him for dead. Jude nonetheless refuses to report the incident to the police,

believing he deserved it. Besides Harold, only Andy – Jude's doctor and

ongoing confidante – knows the truth of the failed relationship.( wikipedia)

Although Jude's body manages to heal, the rape causes him to flash back

to his childhood, wherein he was raised in a monastery and repeatedly sexually

assaulted by the brothers. He recalls a period when one of the brothers, Brother

Luke, ran away with him, forcing him into years of child prostitution. After he

was rescued by the police, Jude was placed in state care, where the abuse

continued at the hands of the counselors there. After the break-up with Caleb

brings back this childhood trauma, Jude finally decides to kill himself but

survives the attempt. In the aftermath, Willem comes back home and begins to

live with him. Jude continues to refuse therapy but begins to tell Willem the

least traumatic stories about his childhood, which Willem finds disturbing and

horrifying. The two soon begin a relationship, but Jude continues to struggle

with opening up, and does not enjoy having sex with him.(wikipedia)

In an attempt to curb his cutting, Jude decides to instead burn himself as a

form of self-harm, but accidentally inflicts third-degree burns that require a skin

graft. The wound is so severe that Andy tells him he has to tell Willem what

happened, or else he will do it for him. Before Jude can tell Willem, Andy

7
accidentally divulges the information. Willem is horrified but, after a difficult

fight, Jude finally confesses that he does not enjoy sex, and tells Willem about

the years of sexual and physical abuse he endured. Jude also reveals that he

escaped state care at age 14 and hitchhiked, performing sexual acts as payment

to drivers. He also explains to Willem that the damage to his legs was caused by

a man called Dr. Traylor, who picked Jude up and held him captive while he

cured him of venereal disease, assaulted him, and eventually ran him over with

his car.(wikipedia )

The relationship continues, with Willem sleeping with women (and not

with Jude) for a while, until he eventually stops, due to a sense of guilt and

uneasiness. The two settle into a comfortable life together, which is shaken

when Jude's legs become worse, and he must reluctantly amputate. He manages

to learn to walk again with his new prosthetics, and the pair enter a period of

their life which Willem dubs "The Happy Years". However, while picking up

Malcolm and his wife from the train station for a visit, Willem is involved in a

car accident with a drunk driver, which kills all three occupants. With his close

friend and lover dead, Jude descends once again into self-destructive habits,

losing such an excessive amount of weight that his remaining loved ones stage

another intervention. Though they are able to get him to gain weight and to

attend therapy, years of depression and despair finally overtake Jude, and he

takes his own life.(wikipedia)

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 A Little Life was written by Hanya Yanagihara and was published

in March 2015 by Doubleday. A Little Life is Yanagihara's second novel,

and due to the difficult subject matter, neither the author nor editor

predicted that the novel would be popular. Nonetheless, it received very

strong critical reviews and a positive response from readers. The novel

was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize for fiction and won the

2015 Kirkus prize for fiction. Yanagihara was also selected as a finalist

for the 2015 National Book Award in Fiction. However, there were a few

notable exceptions in which the novel received negative reviews. Most of

these reviews focused on the grim subject matter and graphic

representations of bodily suffering. A few critics also took issue with

Yanagihara writing about gay male characters without having lived

experience of this identity. On the other hand, Yanagihara has also

received praise for sensitive depictions of trauma and loss in the gay

community.In 2018, playwright Ivo van Hove adapted A Little Life for

the stage in collaboration with Yanagihara and directed a theatrical

adaptation that debuted in Amsterdam.( gradersaver. )

The critic Parul Sehgal recently suggested A Little Life as a prominent

example of the “trauma plot” — fiction that uses a traumatic backstory as a

shortcut to narrative. Indeed, it’s easy to see Jude as a “vivified DSM entry”

perfectly crafted to appeal to “a world infatuated with victimhood.” But Jude

hates words like abuse and disabled and refuses to see a therapist for most of

the novel, while Yanagihara has skeptically compared talk therapy to “scooping

9
out your brain and placing it into someone else’s cupped palms to prod at.”

(Jude’s sickest torturer turns out to be a psychiatrist.) More compelling about A

Little Life — and vexing and disturbing — is the author’s omnipresence in the

novel, not just as the “perverse intelligence” behind Jude’s trauma, in the words

of another critic, but as the possessive presence keeping him, against all odds,

alive. A Little Life was rightly called a love story; what critics missed was that

its author is one of the lovers. ( vulture.com )

Jon Michaud says novel can also drive you mad, consume you and take

over your life.” He’s right: the big book of our Australian summer is as bleak

and addictive as they come.( thegurdian.com )

Meredith Alling also says that I finished reading novel A Little Life and I

feel like I just climbed out of a well and my fingernails are torn up.

( thegurdian.com )

According to the Wall Street Journal, in “recent months it [the book] has

gathered momentum, fuelled by booksellers and readers, particularly on

Twitter, where people have shared their intensely emotional responses … [On

Twitter] they have called it ‘upsetting’, ‘harrowing’ and ‘traumatic’. But many

also say it’s the best book they have ever read.”( thegurdian.com )

A Little Life is one of the best fictional accounts of trauma and the long-

term effects of it. the point of view, making us work, so at times we are

required to imagine Jude’s world directly, at other times we have to picture his

world through the sense-making of others. We experience Willem’s suffering in

the face of conflicting needs and opposing meanings; Andy’s struggle to

10
contain his upset at his impotence in curing Jude; Harold and Julia’s

desperation as they find ‘doing the right thing’ to be so excruciatingly painful…

these are all emotions that we too might feel when engaging deeply with our

clients and their distress. ( bps.org.uk )

The novel focuses on a specific character, staying true to them as they

evolve, suffer, thrive or succumb. The novel advantage over the psychologist is,

of course, that their focus is limited only by their imagination. In our work we

may attempt something similar, prioritising the experience of this particular

person, yet we often come to the edges of our possibilities. It’s not just the

limits of our imagination that get in the way – other aspects of our work

impinge on us too. Maybe we can’t focus on one person as we are working with

a couple, family or group; or it may be due to the fact that we don’t set up

services to cater to the needs of specific individuals, we prioritise developments

that a range of people may use, individuals that may be subject to similar

diagnoses yet may have come to these by very different experiences and

manifestations of distress. ( bps.org.uk )

A Little Life is a timely reminder that the simplistic idea of distress being

primarily a personal or biological issue cannot be right. Of course, as somatic

beings, we are mind and body, and trauma can affect both. But for those who

struggle to imagine the impact of abuse, deceit, stigma and violence… this story

brings this home. ( bps.org.uk )

The beauty of novel is that they provide an escape from your reality for a

short period of time. They can expose you to a completely new reality that

11
you’ve never pictured before, and you get to immerse yourself in someone

else’s problems in order to forget your own. But I find that the struggle with

reading heavy books is that it’s even more emotionally overwhelming for you

to dive into the character’s problems than it is your own, at least in my

experience.(hercampus)

Considering the facts above, I take the novel as the object of my study to

discuss depression. Depression is a common and serious medical illness that

negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act.

Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a

loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of

emotional and physical problems and can decrease your ability to function at

work and at home. But being sad is not the same as having depression. The

grieving process is natural and unique to each individual and shares some of the

same features of depression. Both grief and depression may involve intense

sadness and withdrawal from usual activities. (psychiatry.org).

Depression is classified as a mood disorder. It may be described as

feelings of sadness, loss, or anger that interfere with a person’s everyday

activities. Though depression and grief share some features, depression is

different from grief felt after losing a loved one or sadness felt after a traumatic

life event. Depression usually involves self-loathing or a loss of self-esteem,

while grief typically does not.

In grief, positive emotions and happy memories of the deceased typically

accompany feelings of emotional pain. In major depressive disorder, the

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feelings of sadness are constant. People experience depression in different

ways. It may interfere with your daily work, resulting in lost time and lower

productivity. It can also influence relationships and some chronic health

conditions (healthline.com).

2. The Objective of the Study

This study intends to show depression in Hanya Yanagihara A Little Life

to be the potrait of people who depression in life.

3. The Scope of the Study

The study focuses on the discussion of depression in Hanya Yanagihara A

Little Life. I limit the study onhow the characters struggle on the grief and

affection which are representedin the novel through its aspects such as

characters, setting, metaphor, etc

4. The Theoretical Approach

The study applies mimetic theory, proposed by Abram saying that it is the

explanation of art as essentially an imitation of aspects of the universe. The arts

of painting, poetry, music, dancing, and sculpture, Socrates says, are all

imitations. It is a relational term, signifying two items and some

correspondence between them. But although in many later mimetic theories, the

philosopher in the Platonic dialogues characteristically operates with three

categories. The first category is that of the eternal and unchanging ideas; the

second, reflecting this, is the world of sense, natural or artificial; and the third

category, in turn reflecting the second, comprises such things as shadows,

images in water and mirrors, and the fine arts (Abram 9-10).

13
 Imitation is also made a term specific to arts, distinguishing these from

everything else in the universe, and thereby freeing them from rivalry with

other human activities. It is apparent, however, that the mimetic concept the

reference of a work to the subject matter which it imitates is primary in

Aristotle’s critical system, even if it is primus inter pares. Their character as an

imitation of human actions is what defines the arts in general, and artistic

species. And the form of a work, the presiding principle determining the form

of the object that is imitated. It is the fable or plot that is the end and purpose of

tragedy, its life and soul, so to speak, and this because tragedy is essentially an

imitation not of persons but of action of life. We maintain that Tragedy is

primarily an imitation of action, and that it is mainly for the sake of the action

that it imitates the personal agents(Abrams 11-13).

5. The Method of the Study

This is a library research, where all data are taken from t Ahe library

through extensive reading and literary criticism. The data are collected from

some libraries, especial University of Saint Thomas library, author's website,

Hanya Yanagihara, journals and library online. A Little Life is treated as the

primary source supported by data which are taken from internet that are

relevant to the study. Secondary sources are taken from various books and other

relevant sources from the internet. After all the secondary sources are collected,

the analysis is done by selecting the most crucial episodes from the novel

relating to grief and affection in the main characters. Then, the data are taken

together to form a comprehensive and meaningful result for literary

14
appreciation and interpretation. Some steps are done, such as reading the novel

thoroughly finding the crucial events dealing with the topic, and making

incomprehensive interpretation.

6. The Technique of Presentation

This study will consist of four chapters. Chapter one consists of several

parts of the background study, the objective of the study, the scope of the study,

the theoretical approach, the methods of the study, and the technique of

presentation. Chapter two presents grief and affection. Chapter three is the

analysis of the novel and chapter four is the conclusion of the whole discussion.

7. The schedule of the study

Activities March April May June

2022 2022 2022 2022
No

1 Finding source and arranging data X

2 Prospectus seminar X

3 Writing report X

4 Thesis examination X

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 Work Cited

Gill, Richard. Mastering English Literature. Macmillan, 2006..

Biography Hanya Yanagihara. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Hanya Yanagihara. Web December 3, 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/hanya-

yanagiharas-audience-of-one. Accessed on December 3, 2022

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/little-life-profound-story.

Accessed on December 3, 2022

https://pen.org hanya yanagihara Accessed on December 3, 2022

https://www.gradesaver.com/a-little-life Accessed on December 3,

2022

https://www.vulture.com/2015/04/how-hanya-yanagihara-wrote-a-

little-life.html

Accessed on December 3, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/09/hanya-yanagihara-

to-paradise-interview-a-little-life. Accessed on December 3, 2022

https://www.hercampus.com/school/u-ottawa/getting-real-about-a-

little-life/ Accessed on December 3, 2022

https://www.healthline.com/health/depression. Accessed on

December 3, 2022

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 Sreekumar. Orientation of Critical Theories – M.H.Abrams (lecture

notes)

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