Book Is There No Place on Earth for Me Term Paper

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Earth for Me

Sheehan, Susan. (1983) Is There No Place On Earth for Me? New York: Vintage Books.

When Benjamin Wilder reminisced recently about Sylvia's summer in Chicago, he said he could have tolerated Sylvia's presence in his house for a few more weeks if he had had to, but she was taking such a toll on him that he had asked himself whether it was his mission in life to make her behave acceptably. His answer to that question was no. He felt that if she had stayed with him much longer, he would have lost his mind." (Sheehan, 1983, 223)

The book Is there no Place on Earth for me? is an account of Sylvia Frumkin, a pseudonym used to identify the true identity of a young woman who began suffering from schizophrenia in her teens. Sylvia was institutionalized early in her illness, and spent much of her life going in and out of institutions. Her struggle was chronicled, through a series of interviews later turned into a narrator by Susan Sheehan. The book was written in the 1980's, pre-Beautiful Mind, before schizophrenia became even remotely tolerated on a mass, commercialized level in literature and film, much less in life. Sheehan was a reporter whom became acquainted with the woman Sylvia Frumkin after she had suffered years of indignities of treatment at the hands of mental health professions, as well as strangers, friends, and as the above-cited quote shows, even and especially Sylvia's family.

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Sheehan uses the book, albeit not overtly, as a condemnation of the mental health system in America as well as the insensitivity of the circle of individuals around the woman, who were supposedly trying to help her, as outlined above.

The first part of the book details Frumkin's initial grappling with the early stages of her mental illness, and the point-of-view of the woman's immediate family in regards to the illness, before it was diagnosed and also after Sylvia began to receive institutionalized treatment. Frumkin's family situation as well as her character is detailed, without giving easy explanations as to how any specific family dynamic was the overriding cause of her illness. In the above-cited quote, the reader observes the insensitivity of the sufferer's uncle, who believed that Sylvia's own lack of a moral will, combined with the stupidity of her family whom refused….....

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