RECOGNIZING SCHIZOPHRENIA AND ITS EFFECTS IN JOANNE GREENBERG’S I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN AND JOHN WRAY’S LOWBOY

Abstract

One of mental disorder which is a health problem throughout the world is schizophrenia. It is a mental illness that interferes with one's ability to interpret reality. This disease cause extreme fear, addiction or anger. Some Western writing embody mental illness as an inquiry into the deepest recesses of mentality (Linder, 2011). This research attempts to analyze representation of schizophrenia in Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and John Wray’s Lowboy using the psychoanalytic approach. In Greenberg’s novel, there are representations of delusion of persecution, hallucination, alogia, derailment, and avolition showing undifferentiated schizophrenia caused by physical trauma and bullying, while Wray’s novel reflects paranoid schizophrenia with its delusion of persecution, nihilistic delusion and hallucination caused by genetics. In both novels, the main characters become a mental burden that leads to stress but in Lowboy, the main character also making people around him afraid of his weird behavior.