I Never Promised You a Rose Garden | Introduction
The autobiographical novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, published in 1964 by Joanne Greenberg using the pseudonym Hannah Green, recounts the experiences of a young girl who suffers from a mental illness. The novel draws from the author's own experiences in this story of Deborah Blau who struggles through childhood, fearful and sometimes even terrified by her circumstances. In an attempt to come to grips with a world she has trouble understanding, the protagonist creates an interior world of her own, one that includes various characters and an archaic language. As the young protagonist becomes more deeply entrapped in the world that she has created, the external reality begins to fade away.
The story opens as Deborah's parents are driving her to the mental hospital, where they hope their daughter will be quickly cured. Deborah's illness goes deeper than the family realizes, however, and Deborah ends up spending three years there. Readers observe the protagonist as she spends those three years fighting for her sanity. During that time, Deborah learns to trust her psychiatrist, through whom she re-establishes a healthy connection to the outer world. The title of this novel comes from the belief of the Deborah's psychiatrist that the journey from mental illness to health would not be an easy road to follow.
An immediate national bestseller, the novel was an unusual book for its time, revealing, as R. V. Cassill for the New York Times stated, "the internal warfare in a young psychotic." The book draws readers into the strangeness of Deborah's world and keeps them on edge as they root for the protagonist's success.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Summary
Chapters 1-5
Greenberg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden opens with the protagonist, Deborah Blau in the backseat as her parents, Esther and Jacob Blau, drive along country roads. Although the setting at first appears idyllic, with Esther even suggesting that the family is on a pleasure trip, there is mention of mounting tensions. The parents are concerned, for example, about leaving their daughter on her own when they stop at a diner for coffee. They are also concerned at night, when they leave their daughter in her separate motel room. Their anxiety rises again as they discuss the real reason for the trip, which is to take their daughter to a mental hospital.
When the focus of the story turns to Deborah, readers are told about the Kingdom of Yr, the imaginary world into which Deborah retreats. In this place, Deborah feels no tension. It is a neutral place, where her parents and her future do not faze her.
The next day, the family arrives at the mental hospital, a slightly rundown Victorian complex set in woods. The parents are disturbed by the bars on the windows and the disheveled patients who peer out of them. They rethink their reasons for bringing their daughter there. Both parents are torn between doing what might be right for their daughter and their guilt for bringing her to this place and for anything they might have done during Deborah's childhood to have caused the problems she now faces.
At the beginning of chapter two, the focus turns back to Deborah, describing her new environment, how she is constantly watched by nurses and attendants, and how she is watched in her inside world by the guardians and rulers of the Kingdom of Yr. Meanwhile, Esther and Jacob decide to lie to their younger daughter, Suzy, about Deborah's sudden absence from the family. They also choose not to tell other members of the family.
Introduced next is Dr. Fried, a prominent psychologist who is world renowned for her effectiveness in communicating with mentally ill people. Fried reads Deborah's records and discovers that Deborah is very intelligent and suffers from schizophrenia.
In chapter three, readers observe the daily routine of hospital life. Deborah has met Carla, a fellow patient. Together they try to find out how long they will have to stay in the hospital. No one is able to answer their questions.
In her first session with Dr. Fried, Deborah discovers that she has opened up her true feelings, maybe for the first time in her life. Dr. Fried is honest with Deborah, supplying her with direct answers instead of attempting to soften things. She tells Deborah, for example, that yes, she does believe that Deborah belongs in the mental hospital because she is definitely sick. Dr. Fried also tells Deborah that she hopes one day to help her to see the world as a more beautiful place than the one Deborah sees at the present.
Dr. Fried announces in chapter four that she has received a letter from Deborah's parents and that they want to make a visit. Deborah tells the doctor she wants only her mother to visit, not her father. Deborah senses that the hospital is going to be good for her. She is concerned that her love for her father and his for her will weaken her if she sees him.
Esther Blau makes the visit to the hospital. Esther wants to know if her daughter will ever get better. Dr. Fried tells her that it will take a lot of patience. Then the doctor asks Esther for a family history. Esther describes her relationship with her own father and his relationship with Deborah, whom he adored but also placed a lot of pressure on because of her good looks and intelligence. Pop, as Esther calls her grandfather, had a lot of money and often supported Esther and Jacob when Jacob could not meet the family expenses. The support Pop gave came at a price. Pop was also domineering.
Esther then describes some of the symptoms that she noticed that made her realize that Deborah may not be well. Deborah hardly slept, for one thing. She also developed a tumor and had to have a very painful operation that seemed to affect her personality. At age ten, a school psychologist told Esther that the results of a test indicated that Deborah might be disturbed. At the end of the conversation, Dr. Fried suggests that Esther be completely honest with Deborah from now on.
Chapters 6-14
Chapter six begins with Dr. Fried asking Deborah to give an account of her life. Deborah replies that her mother has already done that. Dr. Fried assures her that Esther gave only one side of the story. In the process of telling her version, Deborah begins to give Dr. Fried a glimpse into her private world of Yr.
Later, Carla reappears and tells Deborah that the reason she went crazy was that her mother shot her and her brother, then shot herself. Her mother and brother died from their wounds. Carla could not adjust to their deaths, especially when her father remarried. Then the girls discuss various aspects of the hospital. They are in Ward B, which allows certain privileges, such as walking around the grounds of the hospital unescorted. There is another section, Ward D, where patients are under constant supervision. Patients there were considered in the worst state of their illnesses.
In her next session with Dr. Fried, Deborah relates how she was often taunted with anti-Semitic slurs by children her age. Dr. Fried, who is German, can relate to Deborah's anger. Deborah is impressed by Dr. Fried's empathy. However, when Deborah returns to her ward, her inner world rises against her for trusting Dr. Fried. In response to all the shouts of anger inside her head, Deborah uses a piece of tin to rip the skin on her arms. When her self-inflicted injury is discovered, Deborah is moved to Ward D.
Lee, a fellow patient who is introduced at the beginning of chapter seven, refers to herself as a psychotic and says that Deborah is a psychotic too. Deborah also meets the patient in the bed next to her, a woman who thinks she is the first wife of Edward VIII, king of England. Later, when Dr. Fried asks to see Deborah's wounds, she does not act shocked or condescending. Once again, Deborah is impressed with the doctor and tells her more about Yr. Because she has opened up once again, Deborah falls into a psychotic state once she is returned to her ward. She is wrapped into a cold, rubber sheet and strapped in for several hours until she is once again able to communicate.
It is next revealed that the patients know intuitively where the attendants' psychological weaknesses are and how they attack them. The attendant called Mr. Hobbs, for... » Complete I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Summary
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