Through the use of first person point of view and a static main character, the short story "My Life is a Joke" by Sheila Heti explores the devastating impact of depression, particularly on women. The unnamed main character, speaking from beyond the grave, recounts her lonely death from depression and her lifelong struggle with feeling that her life lacked meaning without having someone to witness and validate her existence. As a static character who does not change over the course of the story, she represents the permanence of depression. The story highlights the importance of human connection and having others who can speak to the truth of one's life experiences.

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My Soul is a Witness:
An Analysis of Depression and Human Connection in Shelia Heti’s “My Life is a Joke”
If you could come back from the dead to say one last thing to the world what would you
say? Would you talk about the importance of love, or generosity, or forgiveness? Or would you
talk about your own life and for one last time tell our own story? In “My Life is a Joke” by
Sheila Heti, Heti’s main character, a dead woman, is invited to speak before an audience where
she tells the story of her death. Through the use of first person point of view and static
characterization Heti explores the devastating impact of depression, specifically as it relates to
women, and the importance of “having a witness”, someone to be present for and speak to the
validity of one’s life.
That “My Life is a Joke” is written in first person point of view is clearly evident and
requires little debate. “I was the only witness to my life …” (Heti). Words such as “I” and “my”
prove the use of a first person perspective. What is up for discussion however is how this
perspective influences the story and how the reader is engaged by it. Allowing the main
character, an unnamed woman, to speak directly to the reader creates a sort of intimacy that is
hard to develop with other points of view. Because it is the main character as opposed to a far
flung narrator or a sidelined secondary character telling the story, they are the one sharing the
details of their emotions. They express how they felt, what it smelled like, how it hurt. Beyond
the actual shock and horror of the subject matter, the importance and popularity of “The Diary of
Anne Frank” rests in many ways on the fact that it is a personal account. The readers of the
“Diary of Anne Frank get the opportunity to get to know Anne directly through her own thoughts
and words and once you get to know someone for better or worse you feel connected to them and

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in that connection lies the intimacy. This is generally true of all first person accounts. That
connection and thus intimacy makes it easier to be moved by the main character’s story and to
ultimately both care and feel for her.
There are generally two types of characters in works of fiction, dynamic or static.
Dynamic characters change and develop over the course of the story whereas static characters
remain the same from beginning to end, displaying no real or evident growth. Because conflict is
for better or worse more appealing then constant steady perfection and it so often precipitates
any form of change, dynamic characters tend to serve as main characters more often than not.
[education.seattlepi.com]. There are however exceptions to every rule and “My Life is a Joke”s
main character stands as a prime example of a static main character. From top to bottom the main
character doesn’t change in any noticeable or measurable way. She starts by saying she is ok
with the fact that she died alone but confesses early on that in actuality she is lying about her true
feelings and assumes that the reader has cottoned on to this as well. “Now, you can probably tell
that I’m lying. If I really am O.K. with the fact that no one I loved witnessed my death, why did I
come all the way back here from the dead?” (Heti). She is in fact depressed. Deeply and
tragically depressed. That she lied about the lonely state of her death means that she wanted
someone there by her side as she passed or at least on the sidelines watching the moment occur.
Towards the end of the story her sadness is still present. “Is death the same for everyone, or is
this laughing world a death made just for me?” (Heti). Even in her grave she cannot find peace.
The misery she felt in life she has carried over with her in death.
There are some who would argue that the woman is in fact a dynamic character because
of her admission of multiple changes in her perspective. “I didn’t like his idea of what a wife was
for—someone to just hang around and watch your life unfold. But I understand him better now”

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(Heti). But if a story is about a change that has occurred as opposed to a change that is occurring
can the character who has experienced the aforementioned change still be defined as a dynamic
character? By the time the audience/reader meets the main character she had been dead for a total
of four years and has spent those four years alone with the lingering thought of her boyfriend’s
last words to her. “A few days later, I died. It has taken me since that time—four years—to
understand the full significance of what he said: that I was a joke and my life was a joke” (Heti).
By the time she appears on stage to give her speech all the change and growth that she will,
conceivably ever, endure has come and gone and the finality of who she is has settled with her in
the grave. “Tomorrow I will be on an airplane home, down there with all the luggage, peace in
my bones, having declared what I came here to declare – what I realized when I was
underground” (Heti). Hers is not a story in progress but a story that has reached an inevitable
end. The change for her has already occurred. The conflict that defines dynamic characters is a
thing of the past. Now she is simply a woman retelling her story.
Because she, in her present state, does not change, Heti’s use of static characterization
also makes for a useful prop to explore depression, specifically in women. There are roughly
twenty million people diagnosed with depression in the United States. [nlm.nih.gov] One in
every five women develop depression at some point in their lives and are two times as likely as
men to suffer from it [mayoclinic.org]. There are a multitude of risk factors for depression both
social and biological as well as different forms of the illness. Women in particular are at risk for
post-partum, premenstrual dysphoric disorder also known as PMDD, severe depression
throughout pregnancy as well as during menopause [mayoclinic.org]. In “My Life is a Joke” the
main character appears to suffer from depression. “I didn’t come here to depress you. I came
here to tell you a joke. Or, rather, to show you a joke. Me” (Heti). Even at their worst moments

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people want to believe good things about themselves. Most people strive to see themselves in a
positive light and fight against that temptation to spew their own brand of hateful language onto
themselves but the main character has clearly fallen into that temptation. She genuinely sees
herself as a joke and in no self-deprecating fashion either. She has twisted the words of her last
boyfriend to assuage her sense of worthlessness in comparison to the life her high school
boyfriend has made for himself and her heartfelt belief in the words that the last man she loved
said to her. “My life and death were witnessed, I tell you! Witnessed and foretold! You did not
fare any better than me. It seems both of us won, in the end” (Heti).
There is a sense that she has moved beyond depression and slipped perhaps into insanity
– a need based insanity. She needs to believe she had some worth in this world and that her life
wasn’t less than for not getting married or not having kids. The lack of a “witness” in her life is
something she openly regrets. “It is no small thing to have someone who loves you see your life,
and discuss it with you every night” (Heti). There is a value to being seen. There is almost
something tangible about having people see who you are, and to know the truth of you, and
vouch for the validity of your life. Without other people left behind to tell the stories of our lives
and to attest to our overall existence what is to say that we were even here. “When all his
witnesses die, his life will be over. When his son is dead, and his son’s wife is dead, and the
children of his son are also dead, the life of my first boyfriend will be through” (Heti). There is
no one to account for the woman’s existence. No husband, no child, presumably no parent, or
sibling. She is left to verify the proof of her own life on her own and it is a fate that in all
honesty she has not come to reconcile with. “My first boyfriend found himself a witness, and I
have come to declare that I found one, too. I won, you see? I won!” (Heti). Her belief that her
second boyfriend “foretold” her death and that the only way he could do so was to see her, really

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and truly see her for who she was, is her attempt to gain herself a witness. She has chosen to
create one for herself, however misshapen and sad a witness it may be.
“My Life is a Joke” is a hauntingly heartbreaking tale. It offers no happy endings, no
glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, just a peek into the mind and heart of a woman whose
sense of self and self-worth has left her. Her story isn’t uncommon and less shocking perhaps
then what it should be, but in spite of that, Heti still manages to touch the audience by
developing an attachment between the reader and the dead woman through her use of first person
point of view and by creating a static character she is able to explore depression in its finality.
Works Cited

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"Depression:MedlinePlus." U.SNationalLibrary of Medicine. U.S.National Libraryof Medicine,n.d.
Web.08 Dec. 2015. <https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/depression.html>.
Heti,Sheila."MyLife Isa Joke." The NewYorker.The New Yorker,11 May 2015. Web.16 Nov.2015.
<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/my-life-is-a-joke>.
Staff."Depression(majorDepressive Disorder)." Depression in Women:Understanding theGenderGap.
Mayo Clinic,n.d.Web.06 Dec.2015. <http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-
depth/depression/art-20047725>.