Strangers to Ourselves Literary Elements

Non-fiction

Aviv's book is set during a number of different time periods, but is primarily set in the late 1900s and early 2000s.

Strangers to Ourselves is told from Aviv's third-person perspective.

Aviv's book is clinical, formal, empathetic, warm, inviting, scientific, and not judging.

Those who suffer with mental illnesses are the protagonist in Aviv's book and mental illness itself is the antagonist of the book.

The major conflict of the film involves each person's struggles with mental illness—and how they attempted to treat it.

There is no discernible climax in Strangers to Ourselves because it does not follow a traditional narrative structure.

Aviv being cured of her eating disorder is foreshadowed by some of her conversations with her doctors.

Aviv understates her self-awareness during her early life while dealing with her own mental illness.

There are allusions to psychology, mental health concepts, the geography and history of the United States and the world, and popular culture in the time periods each story is set.

As some of the patients' mental illnesses grow stronger and more intense, violent and unstable imagery becomes more and more common.

Mental institutions claimed to help their patients. However, they sometimes did more harm than good to their patients.

N/A.

"The police" refers to the police officers.

The mental illnesses that the people in the book struggle with are personified in the novel and are given human characteristics.