Analyse af John Greens 'Turtles All the Way Down'

An analytical essay on Turtles all the way down by John Green

For most teenagers their biggest concern is whether or not they get invited to the party or if their grades satisfy their parents enough to let them go out on a Friday night. For others it is if their crush has texted them back yet. In Turtles All the Way Down we meet Aza. She is a teenage girl diagnosed with OCD, and she does not even want to attend the party or kiss a guy.

The narrative technique is used in a way that makes the reader sympathizes with Aza. The book is told by a first-person narrator which makes the reader get into the character of Aza, and by doing so they understand her decisions. Aza spends most of her time worrying and filling up her head with all these thoughts. Even though the reader does not get big pieces of information at a time they will solve the puzzle over time. Azas biggest trigger is germs and microbes. It gets to a point where she no longer feels like she has power over her own life. “I feel like I might not be driving the bus of my consciousness”, (p. 86). She told her therapist that at one of their sessions, and this figurative language of describing her life living with OCD and these thought spirals that fills up her head and takes over her whole mind. Because of the narration of the story the inner monologue and all the thoughts she shares with the reader makes it easier for the reader to understand Aza’s actions and come up with excuses for her behavior towards her mother and her best friend. As earlier mentioned, she uses a very figurative and well considered - much more than her friend Daisy. This is also rather untypical for a girl that age to speak so poetic, but it also just helps emphasize the point being that she is different from other kids her age. In summary Aza’s OCD makes her stand out from the ordinary teenagers by the way she talks and her big thoughts and fears.