Emily Tweten
Mrs. Schaefbauer
Novel analysis
English 3 period 5
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Joanne Greenberg takes some of her own personal struggles from her mental illness and turns it into an outstanding novel, I Never Promise You a Rose Garden. With such great detail and writing structure you can Almost feel you are within the story. She portrays her own experiences into her main character Deborah Blau. This novel uses detailed characters, themes, and settings to help you understand how one’s life is affected when it has been taken over by a mental illness.
The fictional story “ I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” was written by Joanne Greenberg that was published in 1964, which then later on became her best selling novel. Joanne
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At a young age Deborah is put through multiple traumatic events. At only five years old, she has a procedure to remove a tumor on her uterus, which causes her to have a weak bladder. The result of all this is Deborah getting harassed by kids from school and her neighbors. Deborah then creates her own world in which she flees to when reality becomes too difficult or uncomfortable for her. Deborah’s made up world is called the “Yr”. It started out as a beautiful, comforting place for her to go to, but as years went by it became a horrific place that she felt controlled her every move. Within the Yr included a group of people called the collect, they tormented, harassed, and teased Deborah for everything she did. Deborah begins to struggle in getting stuck in the Yr more than she is in reality, causing many problems for her. “ There had been so much blindness, cold, and pain in the Yr these past hard months.Now, as by laws of the world, her image walked around and answered and asked and acted; she, no longer Deborah, a person bearing the appropriate name for a dweller of the Yr’s plains.” (Greenberg, 16)This passage from the story describes how deep into her own world Deborah had become, and how others around her began to realize how much her illness started to affect