Deborah's Best Friend In The Hospital example essay topic

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Greene I Never Promised You a Rose Garden takes place in the late 1940's. The main setting is in a mental hospital just outside Chicago. But it also goes back and forth between the hospital and the main character's home in Chicago. This book is about a girl named Deborah who is diagnosed with schizophrenia. She is sent to a mental hospital after trying to commit suicide. Deborah lives in her own world of Yri and has lost touch with reality.

In fact, she wants no part of the real world. During her life she feels that she has been deceived in so many ways and has become cynical. She has no friends except for the secret Gods and Goddesses she makes up in her head. In the beginning of the book Dr. Fried is introduced. She is a doctor that is going over Deborah's papers and speaking about how she may succeed in making Deborah better.

This foreshadows how important she will be in Deborah's life. Also how influential she will be to Deborah strengthening her health situation. After cutting her arms, Deborah is moved to the Disturbed Ward or "D" ward. There she finds many interesting people. She continues to open up to Dr. Fried and tells her more and more about Yri.

This in turn makes the Gods of Yri upset and makes Deborah go into these spells where she become unresponsive. The Gods also criticize her and put her down which makes her do things such as burn holes in the arms with cigarette butts. Dr. Fried finally gets to Deborah by telling her that she shouldn't quit trying to get healthy and really gets to her. After that Deborah begins to realize how important living is and she begins to let in the real world. She finally is moved back to a B ward and is allowed off the grounds.

She stops letting the Gods rule her and goes back to school to get her life back together. Deborah's conflict in this book is an internal conflict. Its whether to let the world in and live in reality or to continue living in the self hating, but comfortable life she's made up inside her head. Deborah would like to be live in the real world, but she somehow doesn't feel she fits in and that her world Yri is above the real world. She however does eventually choose the real world with the help of her hospital friends and Dr. Fried. There are many characters in this book.

Of course there is the main character Deborah. She seems like she could be a real person. Anyone with a schizophrenia could act like her. Also how she had real problems with self esteem.

Another main character was Dr. Fried. She was avery smart woman who knew her profession very well. She worked well with a difficult case like Deborah and she never gave up. She could be real but I couldn't imagine anyone being as amazing as she was. She was definitely one of my favorite characters. There was also Deborah's best friend in the hospital, Carla.

She is the only one that Deborah really opens up to, besides Dr. Fried. If there were any characters in the novel I didn't like it was probably Deborah's parents. Her parents were so self-centered in the fact that they had to keep everything so covert. They made it seem like they were so ashamed of her, but they went and said how much they loved her and wanted the best for her. The basic theme of this novel is that life never promises you a rose garden so even if you had some hardships you can still overcome them and live a nice life. Deborah became a real cynic after enduring lies and deceits so she turned her back on reality.

I agree with the theme because I think a lot of people give up when things get tough. I think people shouldn't do that and they should live life to the fullest because there are people that haven't had the chance to enjoy life, while others are throwing it away. Finally, I really enjoyed this book. I liked this novel because it let you into the mind of a mentally ill girl. It also showed you how people around her feel and react. It shows that people really can change for the better and improve their lives after adversity.