Loss Of Identity

Joanne Greenberg in her 1964 semi-autobiographical novel I Never Promise You a Rose Garden and James Mangold in his 1999 film adaption of Girl, Interrupted, establish how much of a great importance a person’s identity is and the struggle and pain a mental health has on one’s mind and that it should never be bushed off as it leads to emotional and mental instability. One’s identity is what defines who and what a person is along with their purpose for existence. When lost, this can lead to confusion and can create the feeling one is of no great importance. Both authors using film techniques and literary devices, explore this through their young protagonists Deborah Blau a schizophrenic and Susanna Kaysen a borderline personality disorder suffer …show more content…
Fried, Deborah relives her past in flashbacks, this allowing further information on Deborah to be established and add to her as a character. Many of the flashbacks Deborah has are points in her life that may have lead to her mental health and lost of identity, this is why Dr. Fried tries to explore Deborah’s past along with the readers. In one case Deborah remembers when she was five and had been sent to hospital due to having a tumour in her urethra. However, it is stated that “doctors shock their heads about the wrongness inside her” along with “they made me take all that pain and be ashamed of feeling it”, this indicating possibly the beginning of when Deborah felt she was not right and that she was shameful to those whose eyes fell upon her. This flashback also indicates that at a very young age Deborah knew that a part of her had something incorrect and it was removed, but the part of her that contained this was a part of her that identified her as a girl, as a female and would later identify her as a lady and possibly a mother. This traumatic event in her life was likely a part of Deborah’s lost of identity and later lead to her schizophrenia, as she states to Dr. Fried, “I never lost the tumour. It’s still there, still eating on the inside of me. Only it is invisible” this underlining the fact that day has never left her and that Deborah feels that something is eating away at her, hidden but there, much like her illness. This …show more content…
Mangold indicates that when one denies their identity and mental state, it can lead to a greater loss of who one is and their purpose along with increasing the severity of one’s mental state. Unlike Mangold, Greenberg suggests the inner turmoil a person who feels like they have lost their identity faces and the pain it brings them when their mental health is dismissed and they are told they are not sick. Both Greenberg and Mangold, indicate the importance a person’s identity is and how mental health should not be taken lightly and ignored as it leads to only a greater issue. One’s identity is what makes a person and gives them a purpose in the world. When this is taken away it can have mass effects, but once returned to a person, they can feel whole and