Contents: IntroductionPlot Summary Themes Style Critical Overview Criticism Sources Further Reading |
Characters
Miss Coral Allen
Miss Coral is known among the patients and staff for her exceptional strength. She is an elderly woman who is small and rather frail. But when she has a fit of anger, she is capable of tossing beds. She knows a lot, and Deborah is attracted to her for that. Miss Coral teaches Deborah what she can remember of Greek and Latin.
Anterrabae
Anterrabae is the most powerful god who lives in Deborah's imaginary world, the Kingdom of Yr. He often directs her actions, thoughts, and communications.
Deborah Blau
Deborah Blau is the protagonist of this story, a fictional stand-in for the author herself. She is sixteen years old at the opening of the novel and is on her way to a mental hospital after having attempted suicide. She is never sure, as the novel progresses, how long she will have to stay in the hospital, as she watches patients come and go. But she has a feeling she belongs in the hospital. There, she can be honest about her feelings without fearing she will hurt anyone else's.
She is fortunate that a world famous psychiatrist works at this hospital, one who takes a great interest in her case. Dr. Fried respects Deborah's intelligence as well as her sickness, which she hopes to help Deborah to dismantle. Because of Dr. Fried's honesty, Deborah begins to allow the doctor into her interior world, one Deborah has created to protect herself from the outside world, which she fears.
With her keen intelligence, Deborah is able to explain what is going on inside her head as well as what is happening all around her. She understands the patients who are suffering through their own mental illnesses as well as the doctors, nurses, interns, and attendants who work in the wards. Because she is so intelligent she craves to learn, an activity that motivates her to get well.
Throughout the story, Deborah courageously attempts to open her interior world to the light and to examine it and all the reasons that she created it. She also fights to re-enter the world that at one time frightened her so much it sent her into her imaginary kingdom. As she disassembles her mysterious interior world, she recreates the other more rational exterior one, sometimes finding herself falling into the abyss that separates the two.
Esther Blau
Esther Blau, Deborah's mother, appears to be more in tune with Deborah's need for help than Deborah's father. However, Esther feels guilty, as she blames herself for Deborah's illness. Esther actively pursues answers to her questions, something that Jacob Blau, Deborah's father, does not do. Esther often writes to Dr. Fried, asking for explanations of Deborah's condition, but she is not much more honest with Deborah than Jacob is. Esther tries to dismiss Deborah's fears with easy fixes. She also attempts to solve Deborah's problems rather than teaching Deborah how to solve them herself. Because of Esther's attitude toward her daughter, Deborah seldom, if ever, confides in her mother.
Esther is deceitful when telling the rest of the family about Deborah's condition. She even lies to her husband and hides the doctor's reports, which concern Deborah's progress or lack of progress. Dr. Fried, at one point, tells Esther that if there is one thing she can do to help Deborah it is to be honest with her.
Esther's strength and her belief in her daughter give her the confidence to insist that Deborah stay in the hospital, despite common prejudices about mental hospitals and the early outwards signs that Deborah's mental health was declining.
While Deborah is still in the hospital, Esther examines her own life as she looks for causes of Deborah's illness. Esther realizes that throughout most of her marriage, she has placed Jacob second in importance to her own father. She understands that doing so may have caused Jacob to feel insecure. By the end of the novel, however, Esther seems little changed. When Deborah comes home for a visit, Esther still is less than honest with her daughter.
Jacob Blau
Jacob Blau, Deborah's father, loves his daughter but feels guilty that his love may have somehow crippled Deborah, making her vulnerable to mental illness. He is sad that she does not want to see him during her stay in the hospital, and he does not understand that Deborah does not want to see him because of her weakness for his love. If Jacob was part of Deborah's problem, it was not his love that caused it but rather his inability to face the truth. He could not look at his daughter's problems and accept them for what they were. He refused to hear her cries for help and had trouble accepting the fact that she really needed to stay in the hospital.
One other topic touched on only slightly deals with the possibility that Jacob was sexually attracted to his daughter. This possibility is obliquely examined in a therapy session Deborah has with Dr. Fried.
Suzy Blau
Suzy Blau, Deborah's younger sister, appears to be affected by her sister's illness. Even when Deborah is in the hospital, Deborah's presence looms over Suzy's life. When Deborah comes home to visit, Suzy explodes in a fit of anger because she must cater to her sister, whom, at this point, she hardly knows. She feels cheated of a life of her own and of her parents' attention.
Another aspect of Suzy's story is told through Deborah. When Suzy was born, Deborah was angered by her sister's sudden presence and imagined that she attempted to kill Suzy by throwing her out a bedroom window. This memory turns out to be only a figment of Deborah's imagination, which Deborah's mind turned into an actual event. Dr. Fried is finally able to get to the bottom of it, realizing that Deborah would have been too small to have lifted Suzy out of her crib, to have opened the window, and to have attempted to throw the baby out.
Suzy is jealous of the attention that her sister gets, but she still cares for her sister. Suzy mentions, upon being told that Deborah is having mental problems, that she misses her big sister.
Carmen
Deborah meets Carmen on Ward B. She likes Carmen and learns that Carmen is there because she has had to lie to her father all her life in order to please him. The pressure finally built up too much, and she was placed in the hospital for help. Carmen's father shows up one day and takes her out of the hospital before she is cured. Deborah later learns that Carmen has committed suicide.
The Censor
The Censor is one of the imaginary gods in Deborah's interior world. The Censor controls everything that Deborah says so she does not reveal the secrets of the Kingdom of Yr to the outside world.
The Collect
The Collect consists of various voices that emanate from Deborah's Kingdom of Yr. From time to time, the Collect criticize Deborah, often unmercifully. The Collect represents Deborah's own unflattering opinions of herself.
Ellis
After Hobbs's suicide, Ellis comes to work on Ward D. He is a conscientious objector and has taken this job as a way out of serving a prison sentence. He is very obvious about his dislike and discomfort around the patients. Deborah sees him beat one of the patients.
Eugenia
Eugenia is the young girl with whom Deborah makes friends at the summer camp she attended when she was a child. Deborah senses that she and Eugenia have something in common, probably the existence of secret worlds. One day, Deborah finds Eugenia standing naked in the bathroom. She asks Deborah to beat her with a belt. Deborah refuses and then never talks to Eugenia again.
The character of Dr. Fried is based on a real psychiatrist from the 1950s, who actually helped the author of this story to find her way back to mental health. Dr. Fried is highly intuitive and quickly understands what Deborah needs in order to fight her way back to reality. Dr. Fried is honest with Deborah, never flinching at whatever Deborah tells her or what Deborah does. Because of this honest treatment, Deborah begins to trust Dr. Fried more and more and opens up her interior world to the doctor, who in turn helps Deborah to understand why she created that world in the first place. Eventually, Deborah gives Dr. Fried the nickname of Furii, a reference to fire, because once when Dr. Fried touched her, Deborah felt heat. She also used the nickname regarding Dr. Fried's keen insights.
Dr. Fried is attracted to Deborah because of her intelligence and her youth. She sees great potential in this young patient and decides to forego other teaching engagements and conferences in order to study Deborah. Dr. Fried becomes Deborah's ticket back into the world of health.
Furii
Dr. Halle
Dr. Halle becomes the administrator of Ward D. Deborah likes and trusts him because he does not belittle her in any way. She turns to him when she needs things, unafraid of approaching him. Dr. Halle learns to turn his head the other way when Deborah and Carla sneak off the premises.
Mr. Hobbs
Mr. Hobbs, an attendant on Ward D, is often rough and sometimes mean with the patients; they in turn taunt him and get into physical fights with him. Hobbs has a weakness, and the patients are clearly aware of it. That is why they pick on him. They see that he too is suffering from a mental illness. They suspect that he is mean to them to irritate them and make them appear crazier than he feels. In the end, Hobbs commits suicide. The patients' reaction is one of jealousy, noting that through his death, Hobbs has released himself from his problems.
Idat
Idat is a beautiful goddess who lives in the Kingdom of Yr. She is mentioned only briefly.
Mrs. King
It is into Mrs. King's house that Deborah moves as she receives her last treatments as an outpatient. Mrs. King trusts Deborah, despite her background, helping to build Deborah's self confidence in the outside world.
Lactamaeon
Lactamaeon is the most sarcastic of the imaginary gods in the Kingdom of Yr. He is the second most powerful voice and often taunts and ridicules Deborah.
Mcpherson
McPherson is the nicest of the attendants. He is not afraid of the patients on Ward D; therefore, the patients do not bother him. To a large extent, given the circumstances, he treats the patients as if he and they were equals. McPherson comes to Deborah and asks for her assistance in getting the other patients to stop picking on Hobbs.
Pop
Pop, Deborah's maternal grandfather, is a recent immigrant and a self-made man who creates a comfortable amount of wealth, which he shares with his family but not without strings attached. He rules his family rigidly. Deborah's mother, realizing how dependent she and her family are on her father's generosity, submits to his every wish.
Pop applies pressure on Deborah, the first of his grandchildren. She is born with blonde hair, a sure sign to Pop that she is his Americanized dream. Deborah must exhibit beauty and intelligence to show the world that Pop and his family are self-made aristocrats in their adopted country. He treats Deborah, on one hand, as a doll, making sure that she is dressed well. But, on the other hand, he constantly reminds her that she needs to excel. When Deborah shows signs of mental illness, Esther is most afraid to admit this to Pop, as if Esther has presented him with an imperfect granddaughter.
Doris Rivera
Doris Rivera became a model for the patients in the hospital because she was one of the few patients who made it to the outside world. Although she inspires hope, she also inspires fear. Deborah puts a lot of faith in the story of Doris but is shattered when Doris suddenly returns.
Dr. Royson
Dr. Royson replaces Dr. Fried when Dr. Fried must travel to attend a conference. He is nothing like Dr. Fried and his manner and treatment turn Deborah deeper into her sickness. He takes a more objective and distant stance and moves toward Deborah's illness too clinically. In response, Deborah injures herself. She feels abandoned by Dr. Fried and slips back into her world of mental illness, from which Dr. Royson is unable to release her.
Carla Stoneham
Carla Stoneham is one of the few patients with whom Deborah makes friends. They meet on the Ward B, but soon both of them end up in Ward D, for the mentally disturbed. Carla tells Deborah that she wanted to come to Ward D so she could scream her anger away. Carla also tells Deborah that she went crazy after her mother shot her. Her mother also shot Carla's brother and herself. Both the mother and brother died. The friendship with Carla is a sign that Deborah is getting better.
