I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Joanne Greenberg
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The twentieth century
- Setting: An American mental hospital
- Principal Characters: Deborah Blau, Dr. Clara Fried, Jacob Blau, Esther Blau
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Autobiographical fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, United States or Americans, Memory, Teenagers, Race, Suicide, 1940’s, Alienation, Friendship, Guilt, Mental illness, Reality, Surgery or surgeons, Women’s issues, Jews or Jewish life, Anti-Semitism, Sisters, Mental institutions, hospitals or asylums, Psychiatry or psychiatrists
- Locales: Chicago, IL
The Novel
This novel provides an inside look at schizophrenia and the experience of mental hospital patients, as well as a glimpse of the emotional cost to the family of a mentally ill child. Jacob and Esther Blau commit their sixteen-year-old daughter, Deborah, to the care of a well-known psychiatrist, Dr. Clara Fried, after the girl has attempted suicide. Three years of slow, almost imperceptible progress with occasional backslides into Ward D, the last refuge for the violent and the lost, must pass before Deborah finally chooses reality over the private world that she calls...
[The entire page is 2514 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
