Examples Of Mental Illness In Proof By David Proof

Register to read the introduction… We learn that Robert is a prestiged mathematician who was plagued with a rare mental illness. David Auburn hints at the idea that Catherine, Roberts’s daughter, was also gifted with the same mathematical skills as her father. In act 1, Robert and Catherine get into an argument over what are good days or bad days. Catherine seems to believe that the good days are those days when you just stay in bed all day and don’t leave, but Robert believes that those are days lost. Robert shows his concern for Catherine when he states “ You sleep till noon, you eat junk food, you don’t work, the dishes pile up in the sink… Some days you don’t get up, you don’t get out of bed”(Auburn 9). Robert worries that Catherine is suffering from depression from witnessing her fathers prolonged illness. Robert thought everyday not doing mathematics was a day lost and couldn’t imagine “ the work you lost, the ideas you didn’t have, discoveries you never made because you were moping in your bed at four in the afternoon.( Auburn 9). Catherine and Robert seem to have different aspirations in life, Robert wants to discover new mathematical equations when Catherine wants to just relax. While we are lead to believe that Catherine is lazy we get glimpses of her talent for numbers. We see that Catherine is brilliant through the eyes of her father when he says “ Even your depression is …show more content…
“Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has affected people throughout history”(Schizophrenia). Schizophrenia impacts about 1% of the United Stated Population. Even though schizophrenia isn’t common it still impacts millions of peoples lives each year. Robert exemplifies a lot of the same characteristics a patient who is diagnosed with schizophrenia is having. Many people diagnosed with schizophrenia feel that someone or something wants to harm them. They have a very hard time telling what is real and what is not. Many people with the disorder are terrified of the imaginary people that they withdraw themselves from day to day activity. In Proof Robert “believed that aliens were sending him messages through the Dewey decimal numbers on the library books. He was trying to work out the code.”(Pg 19) Robert is showing how mentally unstable he is. He is having a hard time telling the difference from what is real and what is not. Robert also struggled with his normal everyday to day routine, leaving a burden on Catherine. Catherine was forced to leave her brilliance based down from Robert and take care of him. When patients are diagnosed with schizophrenia they have a hard time retaining normal day-to-day activities so they rely on other family and friends for help, for Robert, his help came from Catherine. This leaving a terrible