For Deborah and most of the other characters in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, life is something you lead behind bars. But issues of freedom and confinement go beyond just the obvious, like the fact that the book is set in a mental institution.
In Deborah's mind, freedom initially means being free from pain and judgment. In Yr, she can escape and fly like a bird or run like a horse and spend the day hanging out with the cool gods of her imaginary world.
But when that world limits her, it starts to feel just as confining as Earth is, and she longs to escape both worlds. The mental hospital offers safe space for her to start to get well, but the hospital too becomes something she wants to escape. Eventually, for Deborah, freedom comes to mean shaking the burden of mental illness and being free to decide who she is in the real world and make her own choices about her future.
Questions About Freedom and Confinement
- How does Deborah's relationship with Yr change over time, and how does that transformation relate to ideas of freedom and confinement?
- How do Deborah's parents view her stay at the mental hospital?
- How does Dr. Fried define mental health for Deborah, and how does this definition relate to the idea of freedom?
- What are some examples of the way Deborah's definition of freedom changes throughout the course of the book?
Chew on This
Deborah's definition of freedom evolves over the course of the novel. For her, freedom comes to mean self-determination rather than escape.
The way we define mental health and mental illness contributes to the level of freedom and confinement experienced by people who suffer from mental illness.