Buckling under stress

Lydia is someone buckling under the immense pressure placed on her by her social environment. She feels like she has to appease practically everyone in her life, and no one seems to want to reach out to her and offer their help. Because of this, Lydia feels immense stress. As the text describes Lydia's situation, "It didn’t matter what she wanted. It never had. Everything that mattered, school, friends, her future, depended on keeping her parents happy," (Ng 161). Lydia is of the understanding that her entire livelihood is dependent on her ability to appease her parents. She knows that her mother has designed a path for her, and if she doesn't follow that path, she risks loosing her livelihood. Marylin is in many ways living vicariously through her daughter. She wants her daughter to live the life she always wanted but never got to have. However, Lydia has different goals, which is creating conflict and misery within Lydia. As such, we see Lydia start to get more and more desperate as she tries to respond to her family's increasingly impossible demands. Her suicide is the culmination of all of this. She has endured her family's strictness for so long and she now is buckling under all the stress they are subjecting her to. She no longer feels like her family's love is unconditional, and that she has to work for the support of her family. She no longer has the support to fall back on, and feels isolated and alone in her life. Thats is why I describe her suicide as her "buckling."