Psychology is an important topic in Autobiography of Red, even when it is not explicit nor centralized. Geryon grows up feeling different, illustrated by the dread of leaving home, vague injustice at school, and his red wings (Carson 36). He prefers imagery to words. In Geryon’s world, colors have influential connotations and his senses intermingle. Others perceive his emotions as morose or overly complex (looking at you, Herakles). As a child, he is derogatorily called stupid, only to later find his calling in philosophical thought.
Something charming about Autobiography is the universality of Geryon’s story. He is embarrassed by desire and has an occasionally dry sense of humor; he struggles to belong but ultimately succeeds. Carson humanizes the monster of Greek mythology, and in doing so makes Geryon’s perspective resonate with neurodiverse individuals. It is done with that tinge of universality—Geryon can be read as expressing dyslexia, synesthesia, anxiety, or autism, to put labels on some topics a psychiatrist might tell him about in 2025. There are myriad interpretations and truths to Geryon’s mental landscape, and no interpretation is incorrect. Personally, I would like to posit that he is displaying obsessive-compulsive disorder.
From the beginning of Autobiography, onwards, so much of Geryon’s behavior is familiar to me. His behavior aligns with some commonly understood OCD symptoms, such as his brain getting “jammed then restarted” when faced with odd numbers (Carson 91) and feeling the need to clean up after others (Carson 102). On a street in Buenos Aires, Geryon reads all the headlines of a newspaper—which could be curiosity in a foreign place or attention to detail, but we are reading it through an OCD lens (Carson 106). In the scene at the tango bar, Carson explicitly states, “Geryon had a bad thought” (101). From my point of view, ‘bad thoughts’ are evocative of intrusive thoughts, which typically feed obsessions and necessitate compulsions. A strong point of evidence is Geryon’s two instances of picking a scab, then his lip. He tries to hide his hands, but his mother notices and says, “Don’t pick at that […] leave it alone and let it heal” (Carson 30). Soon after, they are spending time together and she says, “Don’t pick your lip Geryon let it heal,” implying that this is a pattern (Carson 34). I cannot tell you how many times my mother has fondly batted my fingers away from my lips, so this instantly stood out to me. After all, skin-picking disorder is often classified as a subset of OCD.
Then, the less commonly understood OCD symptoms Geryon displays. His loyalty to both justice and facts could be interpreted as a site of morality-based OCD. He has a rich inner world, which he prefers and cultivates compared to the outer world. His line “you can’t be alive and think about nothing” portrays his worldview as someone prone to overthinking (Carson 103).
I would like to put this story in conversation with OCD experiences, but my chief conclusion is that Autobiography makes space for marginalized people through Geryon’s experiences with ostracization. He feels abnormal not only because of his wings but because of the way he is on the inside, too, and that is highly relatable. In the same way certain pages of the dictionary may be wrinkled and smudged, speaking to years of individuals with questions about their identities, Autobiography is a wrinkled and smudged book where I have searched for and found myself.
Works Cited
Carson, Anne. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse. Vintage Contemporaries, 1999.
Fama, Jeanne M. “What Is Skin Picking Disorder?” International OCD Foundation, International OCD Foundation, 29 Nov. 2022, https://iocdf.org/about-ocd/related-disorders/skin-picking-disorder/.
“Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: When Unwanted Thoughts or Repetitive Behaviors Take Over.” National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023, www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-when-unwanted-thoughts-or-repetitive-behaviors-take-over.