Catherine

Catherine is Robert's twenty-five-year-old daughter. A college dropout, she has spent several years at home caring for her mentally ill father. A few years earlier, when his illness went into remission for almost a year, she enrolled as a sophomore at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She dropped out of that program and returned to look after her father when he again became ill. Their relationship, although sometimes antagonistic on the surface, was sustained by strong mutual affection.

Catherine is worried that she may inherit her father's illness, and the signs of mental instability are already there. Although she is a highly intelligent woman, she has no direction in life and often, according to her father, sleeps till noon. Some days she does not even get out of bed. She is obviously suffering from depression, and her attitude about life is bitter. Claire, her sister, wants her to...