Ohh, Kate...

Kate Cutrer is, to put it nicely, lost. Very lost. Like in her own world lost. Possibly her own universe. But we love her anyway because we can relate to her,  especially in those low, dark moments where we question our purpose in life and ask "Why am I even here?!" repeatedly with no reply. We have probably all experienced an existential crisis similar to hers, except we eventually come out of ours and back to everydayness whereas her entire life since the accident is an existential crisis. She describes the feeling as if she were walking on a tight rope over an abyss. 

She tries to end her life on multiple occasions, but then never follows through with it. She claims that suicide is, in fact, the only thing keeping her alive. The fact is, she can't commit suicide because she is so deep in despair. Kierkegaard calls this torment of losing the inability to die, to die death. 

"... this sickness of the self, perpetually to be dying, to die and yet not die. For to die signifies that it is all over, but to die death means to experience death means to experience dying, and if this is experienced for one single moment, one thereby experiences it forever."

Now imagine living (if you could even call it living) in this "sickness unto death". Imagine no longer wanting to live, but without even death to look forward to. Suddenly, Kate is a little more understandable. But this is where God comes in. In my paper, I talked about why Percy didn't "end the novel with Binx at the altar of the local Catholic church." He wanted Binx's search to spark his readers' searches without their knowledge. He wanted them to find their way to God on their own. Kate also had to discover this on her own, Binx couldn't do it for her.