Summery Of Inpyarg Essay, Research Paper
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Esther and Jacob Blau drive their sixteen-year-old daughter Deborah to a mental hospital for treatment after a failed suicide attempt. Deborah, suffering from schizophrenia, retreats into a world of her own making, the Kingdom of Yr, when the real world proves too frightening and confusing. Deborah is pleased to see that there are bars on the hospital’s windows, but her parents cringe when they hear a high scream inside.
Jacob and Esther decide to tell Deborah’s younger sister Suzy and Esther’s parents that Deborah is at a convalescent school. Meanwhile, Dr. Fried contemplates taking on Deborah’s case despite her busy schedule. She loves working with patients because they can examine sanity in a way that sane people cannot. As she muses that the world outside is often sicker than the world inside a mental hospital, she recalls treating a patient named Tilda in Nazi Germany.
In Yr, Deborah named herself Januce. She accidentally wrote this name on one of her school papers, a grave mistake because it revealed a clue of Yr’s existence in the Earth world. Afterwards, Yr created the Censor to guard its secrets from Earth. During her first session, Deborah accuses Fried of wishing to make her “friendly and sweet and agreeable and happy” with telling lies. Fried explains that she does not think that Deborah’s complaints of illness are lies. She believes that Deborah is indeed sick, but not physically. She promises that hard work and good treatment can make her well.
Esther and Jacob feel as if they failed their daughter in some way. When Esther writes to request a visit, Deborah tells Fried that she will see her mother, but not her father because she fears that he might take her from the hospital out of misguided pity and love. Jacob is hurt and angry to learn of Deborah’s refusal to see him. Suzy, although she has recently come into her own, must still rearrange her social life around the whims of Deborah’s illness.
Esther tells Dr. Fried about her family history before visiting Deborah. Her father was a Latvian immigrant with a clubfoot. His anger and resentment drove him to seek an education and build a fortune in the United States. He purchased a home in a rich neighborhood where he hoped that his children would gain admittance to the American elite. However, his neighbors were rabidly anti-Semitic, so they never accepted his family. Esther’s parents disapproved of Jacob, but when Deborah was born blond and fair, the family rejoiced at its good luck. Although Jacob struggled to make a living as an accountant during the Depression, Ester’s parents lavished expensive clothing, nannies, and toys on Deborah. Esther and Jacob were forced to move in with Esther’s parents, much to Jacob’s shame and unhappiness.
When Deborah was five, she suffered from incontinence that no physical punishment could correct. It was later discovered that a tumor was the cause, not laziness. A renowned specialist performed a successful surgery, but Deborah suffered excruciating pain for some time afterwards. After the stillbirth of twin boys, Esther became pregnant with Suzy, but she tried to maintain a smooth, calm face for Deborah. Jacob obtained a lucrative account and bought a house of his own, but he later discovered that the account was based on a vast chain of fraud after a year. They sold the house, and Esther’s parents gave them their house. Meanwhile Deborah attended a summer camp for three years before her parents learned that it was rabidly anti-Semitic. The Second World War brought financial difficulties, so Jacob and Esther were forced to sell her parent’s house and move into an apartment. Deborah became passionately interested in art, so the family assumed that her sensitivity and frequent insomnia were only the signs of an artist’s temperament. Soon thereafter, Deborah attempted suicide.
Esther now feels guilty for placing Jacob second in her affections after her father. She now understands that Jacob was humiliated all those years to live off her parents’ charity. Dr. Fried assures Esther that she and Jacob should not blame themselves for Deborah’s illness. She warns Esther that Deborah is extremely sensitive to lying, so she should be careful to tell the truth.
When Deborah’s tumor was discovered, she felt violated when the doctors examined her, and enraged when they told her that there would be no pain. She tells Dr. Fried that an intern explained that they lied to her so that she would not be afraid. Deborah utters a word of Yr’s language during the session. Terrified at her indiscretion, she flees into Yr completely.
Deborah meets Carla, another patient on her ward. Carla’s mother shot Carla, Carla’s brother, and then herself, but Carla survived. Inside the mental hospital, Carla and other patients are free to call themselves “crazy.” Yri language describes Deborah’s pain and suffering more accurately than Earth language. Nevertheless, at Dr. Fried’s urging, she struggles to describe her feelings in English. When Suzy was born, Deborah horrified the family by declaring that the wrinkled, red, baby was ugly. Her family has stood aloof from her since that day while they all loved Suzy, beautiful and carefree, unconditionally. When she started school late, her classmates stood apart from her as well. Deborah feels that her mother had recognized the “fatal taint” in her and tried to ameliorate it by taking her classmates out on an excursion. As she recounts the anti-Semitic taunts of her neighbors and peers, Deborah is grateful for Dr. Fried’s expression of indignation.
Later, the gods of Yr shout that Deborah is not “one of them.” When Deborah slashes her arm with a piece of tin, she is moved to the Disturbed Ward, where she is pleased to find that all pretensions to normalcy are absent. She begins telling Dr. Fried about Yr. At first Yr was a comforting haven, but it has become a source of pain, fear, and tyranny. Afterwards, Deborah suffers a psychotic episode, so the staff places her in restraints. Deborah explains to Dr. Fried that the gods of Yr told her that Three Changes and Their Mirrors would precede her Death. As Deborah recounts three separate incidents in her life, later mirrored by three other incidents, Dr. Fried suggests that Deborah has created a meaningful connection between these events in order to understand and survive in the confusing, inexplicable real world.
The patients on Deborah’s ward single out a particular attendant, Hobbs, for abuse. The patients understand that Hobbs fears their insanity because a seed of it exists inside himself. Meanwhile, Helene, a volatile patient, violently attacks Deborah. As in the real world, the attacker receives more attention that the victim. Earlier, Helene showed Deborah a picture of a college classmate. Deborah realizes that Helene attacked her in order to erase that moment of vulnerability.
During one session, Deborah furiously sketches a portrait of her Yri self. Dr. Fried is excited that Deborah has lost her apathy in her attempt to prove that Yr exists. Meanwhile, Carla joins the Disturbed ward because she wants to stop hiding her “insanity.” The other wards are too invested in keeping up the appearance of normalcy. They learn of Doris Rivera, a patient who became well enough to leave after three years at the hospital. The gods of Yr shout that Deborah can never go out into the world again, so Deborah suffers another psychotic episode along with a number of other patients. Carla says that they were all afraid of the threat of having to be well that Doris Rivera represented. Deborah curses Carla, and then apologizes because what Carla said might be true.
Meanwhile, Esther and Jacob worry over Deborah’s transfer to the Disturbed ward. Suzy shouts that everyone is always worrying over Deborah. Esther visits with Dr. Fried, hoping that she will be allowed to see Deborah, although there is a rule against visits on the Disturbed ward. In another session, Deborah declares that her essence is poisonous, so she destroyed her sister Suzy. Dr. Fried suggests that she is attempting to hide from the truth of what she actually did to her family, what they actually did to her, and what she is doing to herself. Deborah confesses that she tried to kill Suzy after she was born. Her mother discovered her just as she was poised to throw Suzy out of a window. She was never punished, and her parents never spoke of the incident
After Hobbs commits suicide, he is replaced with a Conscientious Objector, Ellis. Sylvia announces that it is against the Conscientious Objector’s religion to commit suicide. Normally, Sylvia is silent, so Lee Miller hurries to inform a nurse that Sylvia spoke. Deborah admires Lee for joining reality for Sylvia’s benefit. Deborah descends into a psychotic episode as Yr’s gods declare that they will punish her with insanity if she dares to admire the Earth world.
The patients continually ridicule Ellis’s religious beliefs. Deborah taunts him with a comparison between psychotics and religious zealots. Ellis considers himself a Christian martyr. McPherson, a popular attendant who is never attacked, asks Deborah to leave Ellis alone. Deborah declares that neither Ellis nor Hobbs was different from the patients. McPherson angrily tells her that a lot of people who need, even want, help cannot afford to get it. Although she is terrified, Deborah is happy that McPherson treated her with the respect one accords an equal.
Dr. Fried states that Yr is Deborah’s own creation, acknowledging that it is nevertheless real for Deborah. Deborah realizes now that her grandfather’s bitter anger and resentment against the long-dead Latvian noblemen is part of her illness. His pride in her was also an expression of his anger and the battle with the Latvian noblemen that mattered only to him. In the United States, there were new battles against anti-Semitic Americans. The adults were amazed at her sharp wit, but children saw through it, so they tormented her. Suddenly Deborah recalls a distant memory of being cared for by a nurse. She felt that the world had gone gray. Dr. Fried suggests that she is remembering feelings of abandonment after her mother had to go away for rest after miscarrying her twin sons. Deborah experiences these same feelings and colorlessness when she suffers psychotic episodes. When Dr. Fried touches Deborah to comfort her, Deborah feels as if her touch was like lightening.
Many nurses and attendants are afraid of the similarities between themselves and the patients. Deborah tries to comfort those who are frightened of her, but she only succeeds in frightening them more. Yr’s gods declares that she will taint those of the Earth world, triggering a psychotic episode. When she comes to, Helene is restrained in a nearby bed. Ellis enters the room to take Helene’s pulse. When she resists, he methodically slaps her into submission. Deborah later reports his violence to the ward staff, but no one takes her seriously.
Deborah gives Dr. Fried the name Furii, or Fire-Touch, in Yri. Dr. Fried promises to mention Ellis’s violence at the staff meeting, but she warns Deborah that she has no control over the Disturbed ward’s policy. Deborah declares that Dr. Fried’s reality is useless if it is so unjust. Dr. Fried reminds her that she only promised to help Deborah become free of her illness, so that she could fight for peace, happiness, and justice. Dr. Fried suddenly remembers that when Tilda once escaped the hospital in Nazi Germany, she returned to tell Dr. Fried that the world outside was crazier than she.
Dr. Fried demands that Deborah address her relationship with her father. Deborah confesses that she and her father share the same violent temper. Once, when a man flashed Deborah, he acted as if Deborah had attracted this perverted attention. Deborah cried out that she had already been broken and violated, so she was not good enough for a better kind of man. Her father slapped her because he secretly had entertained the same thoughts. Dr. Fried promises Deborah that after their work is done, Deborah will be free to choose between Earth and insanity.
Miss Coral, an elderly former patient, returns to the hospital. Despite her age and small stature, she can fight so fiercely that it takes several attendants to subdue her. When Lee tells Deborah that Miss Coral knows several languages, Deborah asks Miss Coral to teach them to her, and Miss Coral agrees. When Carla informs Deborah that she is moving to the B Ward, Deborah is afraid to realize that she will miss her. After Miss Coral imparts everything she knows of Latin and Greek, she informs Deborah that Ellis is fluent in Greek and that he might be willing to teach her.
Esther and Jacob finally admit that Deborah’s illness does not have a quick and easy cure. Therefore, they tell Suzy the truth. Suzy, against all their expectations, takes the news calmly. She had always wondered why the reports from the hospital never mentioned physical problems. Now that she knows about Deborah’s illness, everything makes sense. She hopes that Deborah will be well enough to return home soon.
Deborah once thought that she alone had a poisoned and poisoning substance, but now it seems that all the patients on the Disturbed ward have the same taint. Deborah tells Dr. Fried that when she was nine, Yr gave her the ability to change her form. So, when the Second World War began, Deborah became Japanese. She was disguised as an American, but she was a captured Japanese soldier. Her transformation gave meaning to Yr’s declaration that she was not “one of them.”
After the session, Deborah sense Yr’s oncoming punishment, so she asks a nurse to prepare her for restraints. Yr declares that her coming to the hospital was all part of the plan. The Third Mirror, the last deception, is yet to come. When she comes to, she is in pain due to the lack of movement and circulation in her legs. Deborah calls out for help, but the staff in long in responding. When she asked the nurse to prepare the restraints, Deborah had willingly asked for help for the first time. With the lingering pain in her legs, she considers the staff’s “help” a cruel joke, a deception. Deborah relates all of this to Dr. Fried and declares that she knows Dr. Fried plans to betray her. Dr. Fried denies the accusation, but Deborah demands proof. Dr. Fried replies that time itself will prove her loyalty.
When Doris Rivera is brought back to the hospital, screaming and fighting, Deborah bitterly declares that the hope she represented was false after all. Deborah asks Doris if the world proved too tough for her, and Doris responds with bitter, angry sarcasm that she was simply too tough for the world. Later, Deborah breaks her ankle in an accident and has to be treated at another hospital, where the staff watches her with a morbid curiosity. Deborah realizes that this is what she and other patients will have to face when they leave the mental hospital.
Deborah confesses to Dr. Fried that she was tempted to act out “insanity” at the other hospital. Dr. Fried suggests that she would do better to help others understand mental illness. Deborah insists that her poisoned and poisoning substance only allows her to have a kinship with people who share her taint. At camp, she and another girl, Eugenia, became friends. Later, Deborah found Eugenia in the showers, naked and alone. Eugenia gave her a leather belt and asked Deborah to beat her. Deborah, realizing that Eugenia had the same taint, ran away and never spoke to her again. If the same incident happened now, Deborah would not be afraid because she’s “crazy now.” For years, Deborah knew she was sick, although everyone told her she wasn’t. When Dr. Fried told Deborah that she was sick, she proved that Deborah was saner than she thought.
When Carla returns to the Disturbed ward, Carla assures Deborah that she shouldn’t feel bad for her. She became tired because she tried to do too much at once. The gods of Yr declare that Deborah’s poisonous essence is destined to destroy Carla. Deborah continues to share the secrets of Yr with Dr. Fried, but only to hasten the arrival of the final Deceit. Dr. Fried declares that Deborah’s desire to meet her final destruction with beauty and poise is simply adolescent melodrama. Dr. Fried announces that she will be gone for the summer, so Dr. Royson will take over Deborah’s case temporarily.
Deborah is transferred to the B ward. She convinces herself that Dr. Fried is dead. Dr. Royson attempts to prove to Deborah that the language of Yr is merely Deborah’s own creation. Deborah begins to burn herself with stray matches and cigarette butts. After Dr. Halle cleans the wounds, Deborah experiences another psychotic episode. She returns to the Disturbed ward where another patient praises her capacity for violence. A doctor reassures her that she didn’t hurt anyone, however.
Deborah continues to burn herself in order to ease the pressure of the “volcano inside her.” She hides the burns so well that a doctor suggests that she might return to the B ward soon. Deborah knows that matches and cigarettes are less guarded on t he B ward, so returning there might hasten her death, so she immediately reveals her burns. Although the restrictions on cigarettes and matches are tightened, Deborah still succeeds in stealing them. When Dr. Fried returns, Deborah struggles to expl ain that she tried to work with Dr. Royson, but he was only interested in being “right.” Esther, frightened by the news of Deborah’s behavior, meets with Dr. Fried. Dr. Fried does not try to placate her with false hope. She states that she is i n high demand, so she would never take on a hopeless case. Dr. Fried hopes that Esther has a dominating, strong will to help her insist that Deborah’s treatment continue, despite her family’s objections.