American literature both fiction and non-fiction are important to today’s modern student because they both offer lessons to teach the students. Fiction offers the student a more entertaining way to learn a lesson or about a specific time in history. Non-fiction offers the student a factual lesson in the form of a story. In the fictional novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, a young girl named Deborah is taken to a mental hospital for her schizophrenia by her parents. Deborah at the time is unaware she has a mental illness, she believes she was given a special power to enter into a different world, Yr. Throughout the novel, Deborah struggles to find what is real ad what is imaginary. She visits with doctors and other patients in the ward to help overcome her illness. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden offers the lesson of how a mental patient adapts and overcomes the fear they experience, as well as, how the family and people around them experience fear for the patient and support them in their battle to mental health. Joanne Greenberg published I Never Promised You a Rose Garden in 1964 under the pseudonym Hannah Green (Constantakis).
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This novel was a fictionalized autobiography about schizophrenia. As a child, Greenberg created an imaginary world in an attempt to find peace from her fears created by World War II. Her imaginary world became her sanctuary and he prison because she could not escape it. However, by age thirty-two Greenberg was able to escape the interior world and write about her battle. Her novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, became a bestseller. By this time, she had already graduated from American University. She majored in anthropology and English. She married Albert Greenberg and had two sons. Greenberg published many other works of writing, including novels, short stories and essays. She also taught at the Colorado School of Mines as an anthropology professor; however, she later became a creative writing teacher. The strongest theme shown throughout the novel is fear. The most obvious instances of fear are experienced by Deborah while she tries to battle her mental illness; however, there are less obvious instances, such as Deborah’s family’s fear for her. “Deborah began to tremble. In fear she made another headlong dash for Yr…” (Greenberg, 90).When Deborah gets scared, she drifts onto her imaginary world, Yr. She uses Yr as a safe place to hide from her fears. A less obvious example of fear is Suzy’s fear of losing the love of her parents because of Deborah’s condition. Suzy says, “I draw, too; I dance, and I wrote two of the songs for the camp follies last year but you never stop Grandma or invite Aunt Natalie and Uncle Matt to hear the new song that I wrote or the smart thing I said.” (Greenberg, 230). By saying this, Suzy is begging for her mother’s love and attention. Deborah’s and Suzy’s parents are so caught up in Deborah’s illness that they tend to lose focus on Suzy. Another example of fear is shown in Deborah’s parents, Jacob ad Esther Blau. They both fear they made the wrong choice sending Deborah to the mental hospital, as well as whether she will get better or not. “…the lie she had to tell Jacob and the pain she had to keep to herself seemed to be reflected in everything she saw.” (Greenberg, 81). Esther lies to Jacob about her visits to Deborah to keep him from worrying about her progress. Each example of fear has a lesson on how they each overcame their fear. The second most evident theme is mental illness. Greenberg used multiple points of view to shine light on the battle of mental illness from not only the patient’s perspective, but the people around them. The view of mental illness from a patient is shown through Deborah’s battle. Deborah is in the main character in this novel, so her perspective is most important. She demonstrates what goes through a patient’s thoughts and how she feels about her illness. Greenberg also shines light on mental illness from the parents view through their doubt, guilt, and shame of their daughter’s illness. Jacob and Esther have doubt on whether or not Deborah will
This novel was a fictionalized autobiography about schizophrenia. As a child, Greenberg created an imaginary world in an attempt to find peace from her fears created by World War II. Her imaginary world became her sanctuary and he prison because she could not escape it. However, by age thirty-two Greenberg was able to escape the interior world and write about her battle. Her novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, became a bestseller. By this time, she had already graduated from American University. She majored in anthropology and English. She married Albert Greenberg and had two sons. Greenberg published many other works of writing, including novels, short stories and essays. She also taught at the Colorado School of Mines as an anthropology professor; however, she later became a creative writing teacher. The strongest theme shown throughout the novel is fear. The most obvious instances of fear are experienced by Deborah while she tries to battle her mental illness; however, there are less obvious instances, such as Deborah’s family’s fear for her. “Deborah began to tremble. In fear she made another headlong dash for Yr…” (Greenberg, 90).When Deborah gets scared, she drifts onto her imaginary world, Yr. She uses Yr as a safe place to hide from her fears. A less obvious example of fear is Suzy’s fear of losing the love of her parents because of Deborah’s condition. Suzy says, “I draw, too; I dance, and I wrote two of the songs for the camp follies last year but you never stop Grandma or invite Aunt Natalie and Uncle Matt to hear the new song that I wrote or the smart thing I said.” (Greenberg, 230). By saying this, Suzy is begging for her mother’s love and attention. Deborah’s and Suzy’s parents are so caught up in Deborah’s illness that they tend to lose focus on Suzy. Another example of fear is shown in Deborah’s parents, Jacob ad Esther Blau. They both fear they made the wrong choice sending Deborah to the mental hospital, as well as whether she will get better or not. “…the lie she had to tell Jacob and the pain she had to keep to herself seemed to be reflected in everything she saw.” (Greenberg, 81). Esther lies to Jacob about her visits to Deborah to keep him from worrying about her progress. Each example of fear has a lesson on how they each overcame their fear. The second most evident theme is mental illness. Greenberg used multiple points of view to shine light on the battle of mental illness from not only the patient’s perspective, but the people around them. The view of mental illness from a patient is shown through Deborah’s battle. Deborah is in the main character in this novel, so her perspective is most important. She demonstrates what goes through a patient’s thoughts and how she feels about her illness. Greenberg also shines light on mental illness from the parents view through their doubt, guilt, and shame of their daughter’s illness. Jacob and Esther have doubt on whether or not Deborah will