Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mental Health
Art and Self-Discovery
Peer Pressure vs. Self-Empowerment
Friendship and Romance
Summary
Analysis
Craig’s Mom and Dad are worried as they listen to Craig throw up his dinner. He starts to make a plan to kill himself that night. He decides to sleep in his mom’s bed one final time, and his dad sleeps on the couch. While he’s in Mom’s bed and she is out of the room, he calls Nia. She says she also sleeps in her mom’s bed sometimes, since her dad died when she was three.
This passage shows how the gap between Craig’s external and internal lives is widening, with Craig still seemingly acting normal around his family, all while secretly making plans to kill himself.
Themes
Craig asks Nia if she always planned to hook up with Aaron at the party. She doesn’t want to talk about it at first, but eventually she admits that both Craig and Aaron were in the running, and if Craig had made a move, she might have ended up with him. Nia admits that sometimes Aaron gets too full of himself, and she’s glad to have Craig as a friend to talk to. Near the end of the call, she tells Craig she’s worried about him and that he should call back if he ever plans to do anything rash.
Craig’s conversation with Nia shows once again how Craig’s low self-esteem has warped his view of the world. Craig saw himself as unworthy of Nia, when in fact, she liked him all along, possibly more than she likes Aaron, who seems to Craig to live an ideal life. Although this conversation lets Craig know that other people’s lives aren’t perfect either, it doesn’t dissuade him from his suicidal plans, showing how strong the forces of depression can be.
Themes
