![]() Like other artistic treatments of mental illness-or insanity, to use the parlance common in its day-though, The Snake Pit’s popularity certainly derived from its luridly sensationalist elements, and its happy ending. The Snake Pit-by far the most commercially successful of the three books at the time it was written-was turned into a popular movie of the same name featuring actress Olivia de Havilland. Notably, each of these three earlier works features a female protagonist and includes deeply intense autobiographical elements. Kik appears as an all-knowing savior to the troubled central character. Each novel was written during an era when Freudian psychoanalysis dominated the practice of psychology in the United States-in Ward’s book, the Freudian psychoanalyst Dr. Plath’s and Greenberg’s novels especially are works of tremendous literary merit and cultural significance. ![]() Novels on the subject published over the previous three decades included The Snake Pit (1946) by Mary Jane Ward The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964) by Joanne Greenberg. Mental illness already occupied a distinct position in American literature when Ordinary People first appeared in bookstores in 1976. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |