A Work in Progress

Will struggles with Authenticity, Friendship, and What It Means to Be Seen. After Nick’s comment wakes Will up to the extent of Individual and Systemic Anti-Fat Bias in the world, Will “hides” in “plain sight,” preferring to obscure his real, authentic self as a protective measure.

Markus, on the other hand, is an open book. The simple act of him asking Will for his “story” makes Will “frea[k]” asking:

‘What’s YOUR 

story?’ […]

‘Why are YOU

back here?’ (199).

The capitalization, which emphasizes the second person, shows Will’s interrogative and adversarial tone. When Markus simply answers rather than arguing back, Will calls it “the weirdest / thing” he has ever witnessed (199). Will is shocked that someone would be so open and authentic. Between Pages 199 and 202, Markus tells a story about himself. While Will’s voice is written in verse that becomes increasingly fragmentary as his self-image grows more critical and his restrictive eating deteriorates his physical health, Markus’s story is written in prose. This is the only prose section of the novel. The difference in form highlights the differences in how Markus and Will present themselves. Will presents himself in fragments and short glimpses, hiding in baggy clothes, protests, and fake smiles. Markus presents himself fully and authentically with nothing to hide, represented in form by full prose lines and complex sentences. Thus, their perspective on being “seen” is echoed by the formal qualities of their respective voices.

Markus’s primary role in the narrative is to impart advice to Will that aids in his character growth. Will’s diary recounts two formative interactions with Markus, and both involve Markus handing down useful perspectives and life lessons with little further exploration of his character. Markus’s story describes how, in every new place he moved, he used to buy clothes in the same style as the local kids to fit in. Unlike Will, Markus says he was “really, really good at fitting in” (201). This perspective is valuable because it shows how “fitting in” does not inherently bring happiness. Will thinks he has to become thin to fit in with everyone else and be valued by his peers. However, Markus’s story shows how “fitting in” does not bring happiness if you are not true to yourself.

Markus describes that once he began to accept his authentic self and present that self to the world, the “harder it was to act, even for a second, like some other, not-true version of me” (202). Markus’s perspective shows Will how authenticity and self-acceptance are what truly make one happier in life. The opinions of someone’s peers and surroundings are likely to always be in flux, and their standards and perceptions are likely to be always changing. Markus’s story emphasizes how someone can maintain a positive self-image in this changing landscape of perception.

Despite this message from Markus, Will’s negative self-image and disordered eating grow more severe—continuing to develop the theme of Body Image, Self-Critique, and Self-Acceptance. The motif of the black scribbles shows up more throughout this section, dominating whole pages. On Page 231, for instance, the scribbles that represent Will’s critical and negative self-perception take up the majority of the page. The lines of the scribbles are so close together that, in many places, almost none of the white pages are visible. In the middle of one scribble are a series of words that inform Will’s criticism of himself: “STUPID,” “UGLY,” “IDIOT,” and “FAT” are repeated three times in letters with increasingly thick lines (231). This list shows the adjectives that Will associates with the otherwise neutral descriptor “fat” based on the messages he receives about being fat from the world around him.

Near the end of this section, Will hides in panic in a bathroom, not realizing it is the girl’s restroom. He overhears two girls talking about someone Jules likes and hoping it isn’t Will because they think he is a “creep.” The girls’ cruelty exacerbates Will’s negative feelings and causes an increase in Will’s self-harm. He bites his lip until it bleeds and digs his fingers into his eye sockets. These moments are written in short, fragmentary lines:

[M]y fingers

in my eyes

and make it hurt

and hurt

so loud

it fills

my head

until

there’s nothing

nothing else

but it (247).

Will here is engaging in self-harm to cope in a physically harmful way with the overwhelming feelings of emotional pain and distress he feels. This further emphasizes the effect of Individual and Systemic Anti-Fat Bias. The cruel rhetoric his peers use causes Will to want to take physically harmful actions in an attempt to drown that emotional pain out. Will continues to hurt himself and not eat until this food restriction begins to have a clear cognitive and physical effect. His writing becomes even more fragmented, mirroring his fragmented cognitive function. He narrates his process of waking:

i wake up

slow

not

sure

am i

still

asleep? (261).

These lines use extensive spacing both between individual words and increasing double spaces between lines, moving from a typical single space to two full blank spaces between lines. This increased spacing represents the time it takes Will to complete his cognitive processes, which are not functioning at full capacity due to his lack of food intake. This leads to his complete physical collapse. In this section, Lerner uses deliberate stylistic choices to emphasize the increasingly negative effect Will’s restrictive, self-harming behavior has on him—both physically and emotionally.