Running With Scissors: A Memoir

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2002

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-11

Chapters 12-20

Chapters 21-27

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Complex Nature of Family Relationships

The most prominent theme in Running with Scissors is the complex nature of family relationships. It’s evident from the very first chapter, as Augusten watches his mother get ready to leave the house for a poetry reading and feels deep anxiety at the thought of her leaving, even for a few hours: “I don’t want her to go. My umbilical cord is still attached and she’s pulling at it. I feel panicky” (2). Soon after, Augusten reveals the complicated and abusive nature of his parents’ marriage. They often argue violently, which at one point leads to their almost killing one another. Augusten watches all this unfold, powerless to do anything to stop it. Regardless of the way his parents act, he relies on them both and desperately craves their attention.

As Augusten enters adolescence, develops independence, and separates emotionally and physically from his mother, their relationship begins to change. Whereas he once viewed his mother as worthy of worship, he now sees her flaws all too clearly and begins to resent her. After Dierdre abandons Augusten, forcing him to live with the Finches, his resentment for her only deepens. He once again watches powerlessly as she becomes affected by Dr. Finch’s maltreatment. At the same time, Augusten’s father abandons him completely and refuses to answer his calls. Augusten then makes a new sort of family with the Finches but never really fits in or finds himself fully comfortable there.

The Finch family is a complex web of resentment, anger, and unaddressed mental health conditions. Dr. Finch is supposed to be the head of the family and a qualified psychiatrist, but his family is more dysfunctional than most others. Dr. Finch himself is the pinnacle of this dysfunction; he eventually reveals that he has an addiction to sex, is engaged in illegal insurance activity, and is abusive toward his patients and family. His wife, Agnes, has been so beaten down by her own family that she wearily resorts to sweeping for hours and has a consistently haggard appearance. All the Finch children have their own problems, adding to the chaos: Hope sometimes has delusions and relies more on bible-dipping and dreams than logic; Natalie is full of rage and has for years engaged in an abusive relationship with an adult man; and Neil is co-dependent, aggressive, and pedophilic. Over time, Augusten develops a distaste for both his own family and the Finches, and he eventually separates from them both: “So it came to this: Was I a turd-reading Finch? Or was I my crazy mother’s son? In the end, I decided that I was neither” (299).

Accelerated Adolescence

Accelerated adolescence is a central theme as well as a characterization and plot movement device in Running with Scissors. Augusten grows up quickly and much earlier than he should, beginning in his early childhood when his parents’ relationship exposes him to domestic violence. Although they never hurt him directly, they’re regularly violent with one another, and Augusten sees very early in life that companionship and love aren’t as simple and straightforward as they’re often made to seem. In adolescence, Augusten watches as his mother’s health deteriorates. He’s simultaneously thrust into the unconventional and disastrous Finch household, where he’s free to do as he pleases, including engaging in a complex sexual relationship with an adult man. Augusten’s accelerated adolescence shapes who he becomes, the way he sees the world and others, and his own self-image.

Augusten sees both positive and negative effects of his accelerated adolescence. The many downsides of his quick maturation largely result from a lack of adult guidance and support in his life: “The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do” (265). Living with the Finches, Augusten—like the others—has no real boundaries. This leads to several disasters and traumatizing moments in Augusten’s life, including watching Hope kill her own cat, being powerless as Dr. Finch medicates his mother and strips away her agency, and becoming involved with Neil, who has a host of his own problems related to aggression and dependency. Augusten observes himself changing rapidly during this time, not just as a result of the usual changes of adolescence, but more so because of what he’s going through.

In addition, Augusten bonds with Natalie over their shared experience of an accelerated adolescence. Together, they figure out life, what they want from it, and who they want to be. They both realize that they desperately need to separate themselves from their families and pursue their dreams, however difficult it may be. Augusten and Natalie show their frustration and rebellion by literally breaking open the ceiling, singing for the patients in a psychiatric ward, and eventually applying for jobs and moving out together. The permissive environment of the Finch home allows him to find himself and avoid school while earning what he calls a “Ph.D. in survival” (301). This becomes the positive aspect of his accelerated adolescence, as he feels prepared to leave for New York, pursue writing, and become independent.

The Illusion of “Normal”

Another central theme in Running with Scissors concerns the illusion of “normal.” Augusten learns how to present this illusion early on in life, coping with his parents’ dysfunction by scrutinizing his own appearance and keeping his belongings extra shiny. The question of what it means to be “normal” or whether normal people even exist at all is presented regularly throughout the book as Augusten grows up and discovers dark truths about the world and himself. He observes that “the line between normal and crazy seemed impossibly thin. A person would have to be an expert tightrope walker in order not to fall” (247).

Augusten first learns how to project the illusion of normalcy from his mother, Dierdre. She has a mental health condition and sees herself as a famous celebrity writer who is destined to be worshipped and loved. In reality, she’s constantly rejected from being published and lives an unstable existence as a result of her illness. Augusten constantly worries about becoming like his mother one day: “It scared me that I had her eyes because I worried that it meant I had whatever else she had back there that made her believe she could not only speak to the dead, but smoke cigarettes in the bathroom with them” (240). Although Augusten projects the image of being normal, he isn’t unlike his mother and comes to resemble the Finches he lives with in time as well. Augusten develops a toxic relationship with an adult man, tolerates living in utter squalor, and finds a darker side of himself that thrives on chaos and turmoil. This addiction to crisis is only fueled by his mother’s illness and the dysfunction of the Finches. Augusten wishes he had a desire to be normal but finds that isn’t his reality.

Augusten and Dierdre’s desire to project normalcy juxtaposes the Finches’ total disregard for the opinions of others or even their own welfare. The Finches live a life that is beyond unconventional and instead more akin to absurdity. Their house is falling apart and filthy, but beyond this, they engage in such behaviors as “toilet bowl readings” (164) and eating cold hot dogs. Hope kills her own cat when a dream leads to a delusion about its wish to die in peace, and Natalie and Vickie seem to have a sociopathic side. Augusten is thrust into this atmosphere without warning or knowledge of what he’s truly in for, and with the Finches he changes into someone who embraces the stranger side of himself.