I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Criticism)

Criticism

Joyce Hart

Hart, a published writer on literary themes, examines the differences between the methods of Dr. Fried and Dr. Royson and their respective effects on the novel's protagonist, Deborah Blau.

Greenberg wrote I Never Promised You a Rose Garden as a fictionalized account of her three-year period in a mental hospital. She decided to fictionalize this story possibly to protect herself, her family, and the other patients with whom she shared the experience. This decision does not mean that the incidents that Greenberg relates are any less true, but it does raise curiosity concerning how Greenberg may have brought those elements together in order to tell her story.

For instance, what is Greenberg attempting to say when she juxtaposes the skills, intelligence, and therapy styles of Dr. Fried and Dr. Royson? These doctors are obviously opposed to one another in many ways. Deborah responds to Dr. Fried by trying hard to move toward health. But with Royson, Deborah fails miserably. Is it due to Deborah's feeling of abandonment because Dr. Fried has decided to travel away from the hospital? Or is Greenberg showing her readers how the difference in the doctors' approaches could make significant differences in a patient? Is Greenberg judging the two doctors, in other words, or is she merely describing them as they appeared to her in real life? Although the answers to these questions may never be fully understood, it might be interesting to lay out the ways Greenberg portrays these two people and to note the differences that Greenberg attributes to them.

Deborah meets Dr. Fried first, and her initial reactions to the doctor are mixed. The first is one of bemusement. She is surprised to find out that the "gray-haired, plump little woman" who answers the door at Deborah's first appointment is not a housekeeper but rather the doctor herself. But the bemusement fades shortly afterward and turns to anger, which is spawned by fear.

During her first session with Dr. Fried, Deborah is put off by one of the doctor's questions. Put off may not be the correct way of describing her response. Deborah's reaction is more like a recoiling, as if she has been confronted by a poisonous snake. This happens when Dr. Fried asks: "Is there anything you want to tell me?" This question seems to be direct and simple, but it throws Deborah off guard, so she becomes defensive. "All right," Deborah says, "you'll ask me questions and I'll answer them — you'll clear up my 'symptoms' and send me home and what will I have then?" Upon seeing Deborah's reaction, Dr. Fried tries to assure the young patient. "If you did not really want to give them [the symptoms] up," Fried says to her, "you wouldn't tell me." Dr. Fried then adds, "You will not have to give up anything until you are ready, and then there will be something to take its place." Fried recognizes that her question has frightened Deborah, so Dr. Fried tries to calm the girl's fears, helping her to regain her equilibrium by reminding her that she is no victim in this doctor's office. Deborah, Dr. Fried reminds her, is the one in control.

This reassurance loosens Deborah up a bit. She exposes a little of herself to Dr. Fried, but unfortunately she does so by degrading herself, listing all the negative aspects of her personality or at least the depressing things others have told her about herself. But after offering this pessimistic description of herself, the narrator reveals that as Deborah sits there in Dr. Fried's office, she thinks "that she had perhaps spoken her true feelings for the first time." In other words, the narrator is telling the readers that Dr. Fried has made an impression on Deborah, one that has created trust between the patient and the doctor. This comment foreshadows, or hints, of what is to come. Without that trust, Deborah may have been lost forever in her mental nightmares.

Now the question is, how does Dr. Fried encourage this trust? Well, first she asks Deborah if she wants to share information about herself. Dr. Fried does not try to forcibly dislodge any of Deborah's secrets, which, as a therapist, Dr. Fried knows exist deep inside Deborah. Of course, Dr. Fried wants to expose Deborah's secrets, but she is a patient woman. She suggests to Deborah that she has an opportunity to talk about them if she wants. It is up to Deborah to decide if she wants to respond to the invitation. There is no pressure and no intrusion.

The other thing that Dr. Fried does to deserve Deborah's trust is to empower Deborah, something that no one else has ever done for her. This is not the false empowerment that she has received from her grandfather, who wanted to make Deborah the model example of their immigrant family. Neither is this the everything-is-fine attitude of Deborah's parents, who believe if they can convince Deborah to swallow their false assurances, she will be strong. Dr. Fried's offer is much more authentic and satisfying. She tells Deborah something that no one else has dared to. Deborah can remain sick, if that is what she chooses. Or she can get better. Either way, Dr. Fried will impose nothing on her that Deborah does not want.

There is another more significant ingredient that convinces Deborah to trust Dr. Fried. It is made known when Dr. Fried assures Deborah that she will not leave her stranded in a void should Deborah decide to give up her symptoms. In other words, Dr. Fried is committing herself to Deborah's cause, should Deborah choose the path to health. Deborah will not be stripped of everything she knows and left alone and vulnerable. Dr. Fried needs Deborah's trust so she can lead her to the place that is waiting for her should Deborah be willing to give up the patterns and thoughts that feed her illness.

Finally, there is Dr. Fried's honesty. When Deborah challenges Dr. Fried, saying that she is just like all the other doctors who have told her that she is faking her symptoms, Dr. Fried does not back down. On the contrary, Dr. Fried responds. "It seems to me that I said that you are very sick, indeed." Although no one wants to hear that they are mentally ill, it is obvious that Deborah is relaxed in hearing this, released from the need to pretend otherwise. Upon hearing these words from the doctor, the narrator responds that with these words came a light, which "shone back" through time, illuminating parts of Deborah's past, contrasting with the lies she had been told in attempts to hide the obvious.

In contrast with her first visit with Dr. Fried, there is little or no bemusement when Deborah first encounters Dr. Royson. Deborah notes how he sits stiffly in his chair. She attempts to make conversation with Royson, trying to ease the tension, but Dr. Royson's personality is as stiff as his posture. He does not give in to Deborah's small talk, seemingly convinced that he must keep a professional distance. Contrary to Dr. Fried's style of inviting conversation, Deborah feels that each of Dr. Royson's questions are demands and that every time she offers an answer, Dr. Royson jumps on them as if they are prizes. She uses the word "pickax" to describe how she imagines his questions coming at her.

But more defeating than any other of Royson's misguided efforts is the mistake he makes when he reacts to an unfamiliar word that Deborah utters. "Oh, the Secret Language," Dr. Royson says. With this statement, especially in Deborah's mind, Royson has trespassed. He has attempted to move into Deborah's secret world without a hint of an invitation. All he offers in way of a defense for his transgression is: "Dr. Fried told me that you had a secret language." What Royson does not seem to realize is that not only is this not a valid ticket by which to invade Deborah's inner world, it is also a slap against Dr. Fried. Royson is implying that Dr. Fried is an accomplice in his invasion. So he alienates Deborah and turns her against Dr. Fried as well.

Deborah withdraws immediately. Although her health had progressed under Dr. Fried's care, Deborah decides she has nowhere to go except back into her illness. As she fades from reality again, she has one lingering thought for Dr. Royson. In all her sickness, she finds the strength to tell him: "[D]on't cut bangs with a hatchet." But Dr. Royson does not understand what she is saying. So Deborah rephrases it: "Don't do brain surgery with a pickax."

Clearly, Greenberg is suggesting that someone like Dr. Fried, through gentleness and honesty, is able to build a trusting relationship. This relationship ultimately leads Deborah (as it did Greenberg herself) to health. By contrast, stiff, oppositional Dr. Royson does nothing of the sort. His mistake is obvious. Dr. Royson tried to open a path into Deborah's mind, not with a precise and intricate tool but rather with a pickax, an instrument that is more suited to killing his patient than to opening her mind to the light of a beautiful new world.

Source: Joyce Hart, Critical Essay on I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

What Do I Read Next?

• Greenberg has spent a large portion of her life helping others with physical and mental challenges. In her book In This Sign (1984), Greenberg follows the lives of deaf parents and the challenges they must face in raising a daughter who can hear.
• Where the Road Goes, Greenberg's 1998 publication, follows the journey of a grandmother who believes she must once again take a political stand by walking across the United States.
• John Neufeld's Lisa, Bright and Dark (1969) tells the story of a sixteen-year-old who suffers from a mental breakdown. Lisa's parents do not understand what is happening to their daughter, so Lisa turns to her friends for support.
• The novel Go Ask Alice (1971) by James Jennings, written in diary form, tell the story of a teenage girl who suffers from terrible mood swings that are exacerbated by drug use.
• The novel Cut (2000) by Patrick McCormick is about a teenage girl, whose guilty feelings resulting from her belief that she is responsible for her brother's illness send her into withdrawal. She ends up in a hospital, where she at first resists treatment but then slowly pulls herself back to health.
• The Bell Jar (1963) is an autobiographical novel that draws upon Sylvia Plath's own struggle with mental illness and her experience receiving shock treatment.
• Girl, Interrupted (1993) is an autobiographical account of a teenager's stay in a mental hospital. Susanna Kaysen is quick in mind and often funny as she tells her readers about her sometimes terrifying journey to health.