The Purple Lady
The “purple lady” is Susannah’s brain-fever hallucinatory symbolic protector. She is introduced in the Preface; the first character the reader meets, actually. The Purple Lady is seen through her hallucinations as a black nurse with a Jamaican accent; perhaps not coincidentally, Susannah had a protective nanny as a child named Sybil who was Jamaican. The final line of the book, at the end of the Acknowledgements sections, reads: “And, finally, thank you to the “purple lady,” whose name I still don’t know.”
Orange Flight Risk Band
The plastic orange band with the words “FLIGHT RISK” on them become a symbol of the nature of perception and truth. Susannah is convinced beyond all doubt that the in the room in which the Purple Lady appears her wrist was fitted with this band. It is only after viewing the security camera footage that she finally accepts as truth what others have been telling her all along. It must have been a yellow “FALL RISK” band because the hospital does not even have the one she saw during a hallucination so real she cannot believe it never actually happened.
EEG Video Tapes
The EEG Video tapes are the symbolic opposite of the orange band. While the band represents a truth perceived only by the author during as a result of hallucinatory falsity, the security camera footage from the EEG present unbiased, objective truth of what actually occurred. At times these tapes are completely at odds with Susannah’s memories while at other times they reveal the significant difference between objective observation of an event and subjective emotional response to what is being perceived.
The Clock Drawing
The clock drawing can only be termed a symbol with half-accuracy. Literally, the drawing of the face of an analog clock (the kind with hands which move) becomes a tool which proves essential to finally arriving at an accurate diagnosis. The drawing is equally effective as symbol, however, as a metaphor for her condition. The instructions for Susannah to draw the face of a clock from memory produces a circle inside which are numbers listed from 1 to 12 in the correct order. Notably, however, all the numbers are squeeze into the right half of the circle, leaving the other half blank. This arrangement symbolically replicates her “brain on fire” by only the right side of her brain having become subject to inflammation.
Bedbugs
Bedbugs become the central symbolic manifestation of the external observable effects of the author’s medical condition. The opening sentence of Chapter I is “Maybe it all began with a bug bite, from a bedbug that didn’t exist.” In fact, the bedbugs did not exist, but that does not stop Susannah from becoming a prisoner to the paranoia her mind produces that they not only did exist, but are responsible for her persistently worsening health.
