In Paul Tremblay’s, A Head Full of Ghosts, the narrator Merry takes us on a journey, describing the day-to-day interactions with her older sister Marjorie. We begin the novel by first viewing Merry, 15 years after “everything happened”, about to tell her story to a novelist (8). Right from the first few pages, the thing that stood out to me the most was Merry’s confusion and her unreliability as a narrator. Merry even outright states that all of the nightmares, fabrications, media, etc, “hopelessly jumbles up what I knew and what I know now” (13).
8 years old at the start of her narration, it is obvious that something is going on with Marjorie and that Merry does not know anything. Throughout the first 60 pages, we can see Merry’s development as she slowly begins to notice Marjorie’s strange behaviors. From the eerie twist on the molasses explosion in Boston to Marjorie’s note about holding Merry’s nose in her sleep to finally to the manic episode in Chapter 9, Merry realizes that something is wrong with Marjorie, however, she has no idea what. Her confusion is reasonable – what 8 year old would recognize the signs of a severe mental disorder in her older sister that she reveres so much? Her parents certainly do not disclose any information. When Merry asks her mother what happened at Marjorie’s doctor appointment, her mother responded that nothing did and thus gave her “license to imagine all manner of doctor’s office horrors” (45).
The notion that mental disorders are taboo is incredibly apparent in this section of the novel, and quite frankly, mirrors society’s thoughts as well. Today, many people have mental disorders, and yet, most people are not open to discussing them in order to learn more information and erase the stigma. Instead, like Marjorie’s situation, everything is kept very secretive and as a result, Merry is kept in the dark. So, I have to wonder: does Merry’s confusion come from the fact that she was 8 years old at the time of Marjorie’s mental degradation or the fact that the rest of her family would not disclose any information and thus Merry was left to rationalize the situation by turning to other sources.