Analysis of the Main Theme in Sidney Sheldon’s Tell Me Your Dreams Essay

Sidney Sheldons book, Tell Me Your Dreams carries a dark theme. It focuses on how the central font, Ashley Patterson, represents the seemingly well-adjusted, roaring and attractive young working professional. Deep inside though, she is experiencing stormy emotions. A product of traumatic childhood experiences, she is a walking disaster, memorialisey to explode. She is create that pargonntal abuse faeces strongly affect an individuals future behavior and life. The power of pargonntal nurturing cannot be netherestimated, and lack of admiration by a p atomic number 18nt for a helpless child can produce trauma, shattered dreams and disastrous results which the child carries into adulthood.Ashley Pattersons troubled character is introduced at the very start of the refreshful. Her paranoid state is immediately presented in the novels set-back few linesSomeone was following her. She had read about stalkers, but they belonged in a different, violent world She was stressful desperate ly rugged not to panic. But lately her sleep had been fill with unbearable nightmares and she had awakened each morning with a feeling of an threatening doom (Sheldon, 1998, p. 3)Descri level as an intelligent and attractive woman who has been financial support in Cupertino,California for three years at the start of the story, Ashley Patterson, young woman of a famous heart surgeon Dr. Steven Patterson, seems to have many good enough things passing for her. Looks, however, can be deceiving. Not all that looks well on the orthogonal like an innocent and beautiful appearance, reflects what is on the inside. Ashley kick the buckets involved in a series of brutal murders, specifically men who were stabbed and castrated. As distant as the police authorities were concerned, truth can be hard to find and later, as they were to find out, hard to believe. Eventually, the authorities find the equal DNA in each crime scene, trace it to her, and Ashley is arrested and placed under ps ychiatric investigation.While undergoing therapy Gilbert Keller, Ashleys dark past is little by little revealed. Ashley admits that her co-workers, the outgoing and merry Toni Prescott, and the shy and lonely painter Alette Peter are not real, when she says to Dr. Keller Dont you understand? Theyre not real. Theyre my imagination (Sheldon, 1998, p. 308). When Dr. Keller suggests bringing the three women fact-to-face with each some other and tells Ashley, You have to get to know one another. Its the only way youre going to be cured (Sheldon, 1998, p. 308), he confirms the main characters ninefold temperament disorder.Dr. Kellers calming presence symbolizes peace in Ashleys world of chaos and pain. He soothes Ashley when he explains to her the presence of her other personalities Toni and Alette by saying, you must remember that Toni was born out of your pain, to nurture you. The same is unbowed of Alette (Sheldon, 1998, p. 344). At this point, and as the story progresses, reader s are able to see how Ashleys painful past including a flummox who sexually assaulted her and a female parent who did not appreciate her had caused her constitution disorder, leading to her crime. She remembers how her mother was scolding her for interpret while they were in a car, which leads to an accident (Sheldon, 1998, p. 349).Her worst and repeated memories of her father saying Youll like this followed by an image of the man getting into bed beside her followed by a scream to stop (Sheldon, 1998, p. 327) depicts just how haunting and traumatic child abuse in the physical or sexual genius can be. This set offs the duality of the human psyche. Ashleys father may be famous and enviable and he may have obtained the respect of his colleagues and the world(a) public, but to his own daughter he is a monster.Ashley Pattersons crime is confirmed in the story when her split-personality character says, Im not a dangerous criminal. Im a normal woman. And a voice inside her said, Who murdered five innocent pack (Sheldon, 1998, p. 291). With this, the novels main theme of serious parent-child conflict can be highly traumatizing. Parental abuse carries grave consequences like behavioral problems and sometimes, the way out like youth violence is irreparable. I chose this theme because it is one that is beingness experienced in an alarming way in different countries.It is a universal problem that requires concerted action by therapists, family members, police authorities, amicable workers, the community-at-large, and so on. What interested me about the novels plot is the prominent revelation, through Ashleys therapist, of her multiple characters. Then, there is likewise the gentle and ordained reassurance provided by Dr. Keller, which gives an advance portrayal of the medical community, and how it sees a breakthrough when patients who are dupes of abuse seem to make progress or attempt to let go of their hurts and pains.The most important character in Tell Me Your Dreams is Ashley Patterson. all in all the unfolding events and issues revolve through her, and she serves as a symbol of others who pay foul a disorder but who deserve to be treated not as inferior beings but as individuals who need understanding and help. On the other hand, her father symbolizes the demented minds of those who may appear respectable from the outside but who are capable of causing tremendous harm with their acts.The context, or the place and time where the story takes place, begins in Cupertino, California, a sleepy street corner of the world but one which is bustling with corporate activity. The context helps highlight the dual personalities of several characters in the novel, like Ashley Patterson and Dr, Steven Patterson. The story also takes readers from capital of the United Kingdom to Rome to Quebec City to San Francisco in Bedford, Cupertino, as if pointing out how fast and alter modern-day developments go. The context, or multiple setti ngs, also parallels the multiple personalities of the main character and their different activities at different points in time.Ashley Pattersons multiple personality disorder is discussed by Dr. Salem, readers gain a better understanding of a disorder which is real. It is described as a condition where there are several completely different personalities in one body. Its also known as dissociatve identity disorder. Its been in the psychiatric books for more than two hundred years. It usually starts because of a childhood trauma. The victim shuts out the trauma by creating another identity (Sheldon, 1998, chap. 12). The author leaves an encouraging note in his book that say that some cases of multiple personality disorders are treatable. Unfortunately, this was not the case with Ross Carlson, a teenage boy diagnosed with double Personality Disorder. As the news goesIn the summer of 1983, the bodies of Rod and Marilyn Carlson were rear beside a road in Douglas County, Colorado. Bo th had been shot execution-style in the back of the head. Ross Carlson, their teenage son, was later charged with the murders Eventually, therapists identified as many as 10 personalities residing within Carlson. His attorneys later argued that Carlsons parents were abusive people who hale their twisted religion on their only child, causing him to develop the diverse characters as a defense mechanism. The six-year drama ended in 1989 when, at age 25, Ross Carlson died of leukemia (Multiple Personality Disorder, para. 2). Ross Carlson is the real-life counterpart of Ashley Patterson. In twain cases, the truth hurts that people who are your family and who are supposed to nurture and protect you can be capable of inflicting the greatest harm. The two cases one portrayed in a novel based on real life, and the other a real-life incident show that family upbringing and genuine care, concern and nurturing from parents are the best guarantees for a childs future. The two cases stress that people afflicted with Multiple Personality Syndrome are, after all, human beings who, in the first place, just needed to love, to be understood, and to heal. ReferencesLarson, B. (n.d.). Multiple Personality Disorder. Retrieved May 19, 2008, from http//pullingdownstrongholds.com/ legal transfer/multiple_personality_disorder.htmSheldon, S. (1998). Tell me your dreams. New York HarperCollins Publishers Inc.