Turtles All the Way Down

Because of the effects of Aza’s condition, she cannot maintain a love relationship. She cannot be someone’s girlfriend, but she does have a solid friendship with Daisy that endures the difficulties of the events of the story.

Aza and Daisy have been best friends since their early childhood. Much of the strength of their friendship lies in how they complement each other. Daisy talks incessantly, while Aza is quiet. Daisy is optimistic to the point of being unrealistic at times, while Aza is overly pessimistic. Daisy helps Aza out of her fears of worst-case scenarios, while Aza brings Daisy back down to earth. When Aza’s inner struggles overwhelm her, when the dueling thoughts in her head pull her into a tightening spiral, sometimes Daisy’s voice can pull her back out and make her feel like herself again. This is the surest sign that Daisy is the friend that Aza needs to keep her from completely losing herself within herself.

While Daisy’s and Aza’s frustrations with each other finally boil over, it is a sign of the depth of their friendship that they can eventually see things from each other’s perspective and move on. Aza learns that friendship must be reciprocal and that she cannot take Daisy’s support for granted, while Daisy learns how much Aza means to her when Aza is injured in the car accident. The reader discovers from “Future Aza” that she and Daisy remain best friends into adulthood, another testament to the strength of their relationship.

Aza is fortunate to have a loving relationship with her mother, which she also takes for granted through much of the story. Aza often feels that her mother is overbearing and irritating, not unlike most teenagers. Aza’s mother has typical fears for her child’s well-being, but they are exacerbated by Aza’s mental illness. Aza’s mother also experiences excessive worry due to the loss of her husband. She fears also losing Aza, who has become the primary focus of her life. Aza refuses to discuss her feelings and inner turmoil with her mother, repeatedly saying that she is “fine.” Part of this is typical teenage reticence, but Aza is also afraid of letting her mother know the extent of her mental illness. She knows that her mother still carries so much pain over her husband’s death, so Aza does not want to add to that burden.

By the end of the story, Aza and her mother have learned to trust each other more. Aza asks her mother for help, admits the intensity of her illness, and tells her mother that she cannot be well for her mother’s sake. Aza’s mother accepts this and agrees to try to let Aza be her own person. There is a time when all parents must let go of their children and allow them to lead their own lives and deal with their own adversity.

In contrast, Davis has not had a supportive parent since his mother died. His father has never given Davis and Noah time, attention, love, and guidance, which leaves Davis feeling empty and adrift. There are adults in his life who care about him, like Lyle and Rosa, but both are hired help who cannot substitute for a loving parent. Davis feels this pain himself, but he is particularly sad for his little brother, who is lost without the care of their father. Noah needs someone to pick him up from school and help him with his homework, the daily kind of parental guidance that all children need. The final sign of Davis’s father’s failure as a father is his will, which leaves his fortune to the tuatara, not his children. Pickett saw the tuatara as his link to the future, not his children.

At the end of the story, Davis assumes a parental role in caring for Noah, though he is not yet an adult himself. Davis has suffered greatly, and he is determined that his brother will not continue to endure the same experience.

Aza questions her “realness” and reality in general. She feels detached from reality, like she is a fictional character in a story of someone else’s telling. This feeling is a disorder known as depersonalization and is characterized by the sense of observing one’s self from a distance. One’s feelings, thoughts, and actions seem to arise from outside one’s own body and mind. This is a terrifying sensation for Aza, that her thoughts and actions are beyond her own control. Aza’s compulsions are a way to control her reality, to bring order to the chaos in her mind.

Aza becomes upset with Daisy’s fictional portrayal of her, as Ayala. Aza is dismayed due to this confirmation of all the negative traits she believes that she possesses, but also because it feeds into her fears of not being real. Aza struggles with defining her identity, whether there is a “real” Aza deep down, regardless of her circumstances. Seeing herself portrayed in Daisy’s fan fiction makes Aza wonder if she is any more real than Ayala.

By the end of the story, Aza has begun to reconcile her “selves” as parts of a whole, which make up her identity and reality. She has begun to tame her inner fears, giving them less control over her thoughts and actions. Aza is not “cured,” and her future self attests that she will struggle throughout her life with her symptoms, but she feels more a part of the rest of the world.