The Pretense of Sanity

It seems that a main theme in The Queen of New Beginnings by Erica James is insanity and how that links to the art of pretending.

Alice retreats into her mind's eye to live the life that she wants, but is a perfectly reasonable woman on the outside.

Clayton (Mr. Shannon) is overly judged and ridiculed for his mysterious outburst and labeled insane, in need of help.

Alice's parents, during her family flashbacks, are depicted as completely insane, over emotional, and over reacting. Obviously unstable.

Yet, Alice's parents are the only ones in the novel who don't pretend to be someone they aren't. And when Clayton stops pretending is when the gauntlet of insanity is thrown at him. Thus the link between sanity and pretending, and the pairing of insanity with the reality of identity.

Could insanity really be interpreted as letting your true self show one hundred percent of the time? The flaws in the theory are many, yet it holds quite a bit of depth.

Judgement

"And, as I said goodbye I realized the person questioning his church attendance was the very person who didn't attend church herself."

Christa Allan - Edge of Grace


As I finished another chapter of this novel, this specific line made me wonder if judgement has become a sort of blaming system. Do we judge others so that we don't have to judge ourselves? And if we can lay the blame on others in our life, do we do it to make ourselves feel better?

In the book, Caryn does nothing to try to help her brother through this hard time. He's just come out as a homosexual man and needs his family there for him, Caryn specifically. But she refuses to look at herself as a mirror - reflecting the good and bad. She judges her brother yet, doesn't want to accept the blame for what she's putting her brother through.

Is this what judgment has come to? Judging others so we can avoid judging ourselves?