Last week I went to a presentation where a man spoke about his life and struggles with mental health. This really emphasized to me how much more there is to a person than what is on the surface, and not everything will show itself in a physical form. Mental health for example is for the most part invisible, and can be a whole other world for a person that the rest of society cannot see because it is impossible to be inside of their heads. Percival Everett’s character Vlepo in Frenzy however has this additional power, but only if he could see into his own independently thinking mind could he be satisfied.
The speaker talked about his visits in and out of hospitals and rehab, as well as his substance abuse. He had a difficult time staying at one college and moved around a lot until he finally did graduate. Throughout his life, he often changed careers from working on radio to helping people with addictions, and now writing books, blogs, and traveling to share his story. All of these different roles gave him new perspective, not just about other people but about himself too. This reminded me of Vlepo in Frenzy because he is changed into many different forms by Dionysus from his human form, like a bee, similar to how the speaker changes professions and has to transform his behavior and redirect his skills because of it. Working with a variety of different people and learning about their lives, he gained their insight and perspective the more he was able to get to know them. Vlepo was able to get to know people by seeing into their minds.
Although the speaker wasn’t quite as invasive as Vlepo when it came to getting to know a person, the better connection he had with people the better he was able to understand them. Especially when he was an addictions counselor, it was easy for him to sympathize and connect with his clients because he had gone through the same experiences as the people he was helping. Through these experiences he recognized how much he was capable of and how much control he had to not to subdue back into his habits and to calm himself down when he felt like he was breaking down. This is where he and Vlepo differ. Vlepo is constantly controlled by Dionysus and doesn’t have any connections outside of the god. Although he can see other people’s thoughts, Vlepo has never had the same kind of experiences as they have had such as internal familial struggles or a committed relationship held together by love. Also, what he realized about himself was not as positive. Vlepo came to see just how much he doesn’t know about himself because most everything he does is controlled by someone else and when he is on his own, he doesn’t know how to feel or even where he comes from. When Sibyl asks him where Vlepo was from, Everett writes his narration as “I could not answer her. I did not know. My heart sank, and the hollowness that found me, sadly, was the absence of my Bakkho’s voice” (Everett). From this, it is easy to sympathize with Vlepo as many people don’t know exactly who they are. Like how the speaker took a while to find himself, it may take a while for Vlepo to do the same.
Works Cited
Everett, Percival. Frenzy. Saint Paul, Graywolf Press, 1997.