Cardenas 2
Bianca Cardenas
Professor Jett
English B1A
18 June 2018
Daily life with Depression in “Jerry and Molly and Sam”
The short story “Jerry and Molly and Sam” by Raymond Carver, is quite an eye opener when it comes to some sensitive situation for an adult. The story explains the life of a middle-age man suffering with a case depression and alcoholism. As we read further along in the story we come to find out just how sever Al’s case is and how he just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into the hole. As it states in the story “he was begging to feel he was losing control over everything” (Carver 14). It started when he lost control of his job then continues when he can no long functions without alcohol then intentionally driving away his family and making everyone around him kind of miserable. Betty, Al’s wife, demonstrates this when she begins to yell at him and say “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I’m ready to have nervous breakdown. I am ready to lose my mind” (Carver 22). Al essentially set a mood to the family that wasn’t ideal or healthy for either of them, thus making all their life’s just a little more difficult then usual.
Al picked up a habitual habit of making terrible decisions. These decisions caused bad situations that not only affect him but also his family. For example, when he began an affair with Jill, he put his whole family’s stability at jeopardy. Through all the turmoil they have had to undergo he seems to have no remorse about doing so. It’s like he set up for his family to get hurt, it may not be his intention but it’s utterly what he did. The article “Role of Family in Alcohol and Substance Abuse”, explains how the whole family is affected by the abuse, “abuse is a family disease” (125) it states, and it couldn’t be more right.
Essentially Al’s addictions cause him to be a little short tempered with the wrong people. This is proven when an argument is raised between him and Betty about his drinking and it ends with him saying “Goddamn you all” (Carver 18) and kicking a rake across the floor. Along with being short with his wife, he was also short with Suzy the family dog. So much in fact, that he packed her up in his truck drove to a neighbor across town and drop her off. This complies with the state made in the article “Mood disorder, anxiety, and suicide risk among subjects with alcohol abuse and/or dependence: a population-based study” that “AUDs are highly comorbid with mood and anxiety disorders in adults” (1). It seemed like Al stated to lose himself all together because within...
