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

Sidney Sheldons book, Tell Me Your Dreams carries a drab fundament. It focuses on how the central shell, Ashley Patterson, represents the get togethermingly well-ad comelyed, successful and lovely young working professional.  Deep within though, she is experiencing stormy emotions.  A product of  traumatic babehood experiences, she is a walking disaster, adjust to explode.  She is proof that enate abuse croup strongly affect an individuals future behavior and life.  The power of p arntal nurturing tin cannot be underestimated, and lack of treasure by a parent for a powerless child can produce trauma, bust dreams and disastrous results which the child carries into adulthood.Ashley Pattersons dissolute genius is introduced at the very spring up of the unused.  Her paranoid state is immediately presented in the novels first a couple of(prenominal) linesSome bingle was following her.  She had read roughly stalkers, precisely they belonged in a contrastive, hazardous world She was trying desperately securely not to panic. But lately her catch some Zs had been filled with unbearable nightmares and she had awakened apiece(prenominal) morning with a feeling of an be  doom (Sheldon, 1998, p. 3)Described as an capable and attractive woman who has been living in Cupertino,California for three years at the start of  the story, Ashley Patterson, young lady of a celebrated heart surgeon Dr. Steven Patterson, seems to have umteen a(prenominal) good things going for her. Looks, however, can be deceiving.  Not all that looks well on the proscribedside same(p) an innocent and pretty-pretty appearance, reflects what is on the privileged. Ashley gets involved in a series of brutal murders, specifically work force who were stabbed and castrated.  As far as the patrol authorities were reached, truth can be hard to convey and subsequentlyward on, as they were to find pop out, hard to believe. Eve ntually, the authorities find the corresponding DNA in each criminal offence scene, trace it to her, and Ashley is arrested and placed under psychiatrical investigation.While undergoing therapy Gilbert Keller, Ashleys dark past is gradually revealed.  Ashley admits that her co-workers, the outgoing and bouncing Toni Prescott, and the shy and lonely painter A allowte turncock 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 other and tells Ashley, You have to get to go with one another. Its the plainly modal value youre going to be healed (Sheldon, 1998, p. 308), he confirms the principal(prenominal) component parts quadruplex personality ailment.Dr. Kellers comfort 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 essential remember that Toni was born out of your pain, to encour progress you.  The same is true of Alette (Sheldon, 1998, p. 344).  At this point, and as the story progresses, readers are able to see how Ashleys painful past including a find who sexually assaulted her and a produce who did not appreciate her had caused her personality disarray, stellar(a) to her crime. She remembers how her mother was scolding her for singing eon they were in a car, which leads to an accident (Sheldon, 1998, p. 349).Her scald and repeated memories of her father saying Youll deal this followed by an image of the man getting into bed beside her followed by a holler to stop (Sheldon, 1998, p. 327) depicts just how haunting and traumatic child abuse in the tangible or sexual sense can be. This suck ups  the duality of the human psyche.  Ashleys father whitethorn be famous and enviable and he may have obtained the respect of his colleagues a nd the general public, that to his own daughter he is a monster.Ashley Pattersons wrong-doing 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 citizenry (Sheldon, 1998, p. 291).  With this, the novels main solution of serious parent-child conflict can be highly traumatizing. Parental abuse carries scrape consequences want behavioral problems and some ms, the effect like youth violence is irreparable. I chose this theme because it is one that is being experienced in an alarming way in distinguishable countries.It is a universal problem that requires cooperative action by therapists, family members, police authorities, brotherly workers, the community-at-large, and so on. What interested me about the novels plot is the sporttic revelation, through Ashleys therapist, of her multiple characters. Then, there is alike the gentle and positive reassu rance provided by Dr. Keller, which gives an promote portrayal of the medical community, and how it sees a  breakthrough when patients who are victims of abuse seem to collect progress or attempt to let go of their hurts and pains.The most important character in Tell Me Your Dreams is Ashley Patterson. All the anthesis events and issues revolve through her, and she serves as a symbol of others who suffer a disorder but who deserve to be enured 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 frightening harm with their acts.The context, or the place and time where the story takes place, begins in Cupertino, California, a sleepy-eyed 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, li ke Ashley Patterson and Dr, Steven Patterson. The story also takes readers from London to capital of Italy to Quebec City to San Francisco in Bedford, Cupertino, as if pointing out how fast and varied modern-day developments go. The context, or multiple settings, 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 limit where there are several tout ensemble different  personalities in one body. Its also known as dissociatve individuation operator disorder. Its been in the psychiatric writings for more than two hundred years. It ordinarily 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 roles of multiple personality disorders are treatable.  Unfortunately, this was not the case with Ross Carlson, a teenage boy diagnosed with three-fold character Disorder. As the news goesIn the summer of 1983, the bodies of Rod and Marilyn Carlson were found beside a road in Douglas County, Colorado. Both had been shooter 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 masses who pressure 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 both cases, the truth hurts that people who are your family and who are  supposed to nurture and treasure 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 nonessential 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/deliverance/multiple_personality_disorder.htmSheldon, S. (1998). Tell me your dreams. in the altogether York HarperCollins Publishers Inc.