The Theme Of Schizophrenia In Amy Bloom's 'Silver Water'

Improved Essays
Tai Kezirian
Mrs. Mims/Mr. Lewis
Advanced Writing
Nov. 6 2015

Mental Disorders: Schizophrenia
Mental illness is a huge problem today that can’t always be solved by a special treatment. Amy Bloom uses the story “Silver Water” to show that mental illness can not always be fixed through special treatment. A woman expresses her older sister Rose’s mental decline, which caused her family to experience one of their loved ones suffer through one of the most harsh mental illnesses. Rose’s loved to sing and be around music especially since her voice was “like mountain water in a silver pitcher, the clear blue beauty of it cools you and lifts you beyond your heat, beyond your body.” (87) But her music failed her in all the institutions she went
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Rose spent the next 10 years in and out of mental hospitals switching from time to time due to her therapist. The worst family therapist Rose has ever received was Mr. Walker. As he would read Rose’s file in front of the family, Rose would oddly and slowly start massaging her breasts. This gave Mr. Walker a very questionable impression on Rose from the start due to how inappropriate she behaved. Rose’s family began giving Dr. Walker such a hard time that he could not take it anymore. The day they met their best doctor was almost as bad as how the first therapist turned out. They scared off the residents before they were sent to Dr. Thorne also known as “Big Nut.” Dr. Thorne was so good for Rose and her family that Rose even moved into a halfway house whose director already loved Big Nut as well. Rose begins to fall in love with him but he lets her know nicely that he cannot do that and be her therapist all at the same time. Later on, Big Nut dies unfortunately. “After fourteen minutes, Mr. Walker decided that our time I was up and walked out, leaving us grinning at each other.” (90) This quote comes to show that some therapists will give up on someone who is in real need of help due to their mental illness at such a young age. It is sad that Mr. Walker could even walk out on a person who need special help when that is his job. Also, when Big …show more content…
Rose’s mother tried to stop her and could not stand a chance which caused Violet to have to stop her sister. When Rose was finally stopped, she began apologizing to Violet and her mother then began running to her room. They then ate dinner then all went to bed. Violet was awoken at about three o’clock in the morning by the cool night air. She got up and walked down the hallway looking for a blanket when she noticed that Rose was gone, so Vi went outside where she saw Rose’s footsteps leading into the darkening woods. Rose was found lying dead in the woods after she finally killed herself by an overdose of seconal. Rose said it is “closing time,” (97) she whispered. This explains how Rose felt, she just couldn’t live like that any longer so she felt like it was her closing time/ time to die. Rose loved her family a lot, but she couldn’t go without her favorite therapist Dr. Thorne any longer because that seemed like that only time she had a sense of normality. She wanted to kill herself when her family wasn’t up and in her love of nature in the woods, this shows how strong of a person Rose actually is to still care how her family thinks and feel even though she is still struggling with her mental illnesses. This scene shows the psychological thoughts of Rose and how smart she actually can be even with her mental

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