what was deanie's mental illness?

Do you think there was a world before you were born that maybe you don't understand, or are you that one dimensional that you could possibly believe that the ideas you find "offensive" were always offensive? Wait to hear what your Grandkids have to say about the way you lived your life in 2005!

It's the only part of the film that doesn't (never) worked. I saw it on its initial release. Even then, audiences thought: "Huh? She goes that nuts 'cause she got laid and didn't get married?" Unfortunately, that "part" of the film motivates everything else.

William Inge (wrote the play) was a product of his time in more ways than one. He was a closeted homosexual whose plays almost always involved repressed, forbidden sexuality and their "penalties."

"Splendor in the Grass" is a beautiful, even electrifying film, in places (Barbara Loden's interaction with her father, hinting at incest?). But it was fundamentally flawed then, and now. Sexual "hysteria" is so antiquated a notion as to be laughable. We're not talking sexual psychopathology. We're talking the quaint notion that getting laid out of wedlock (no other explanation for Deanie's degeneration is ever indicated) is sufficient cause for hysterical behavior and institutional confinement. That didn't hold even in the late '20's, in which the story is set. It only held in Inge's sexually hysterical imagination.

But the film and play are brilliantly constructed to utterly ignore that central flaw. Most notably in the direction, cinematography, performances and writing (forget the silly, even then, central premise: there is some magnificent dialogue and character evolution here).

By the time Deanie (Natalie Wood), after her release from the mental institution, visits Bud and Angelina Stamper (Warren Beatty and Zorah Lampert), the emotional undertow is magnificent and wrenching.

It's just that the core of the piece is constructed around an adolescent, conformist, inexperienced sexuality and acquiescence to social repression and convention that was childish even then -- as critics of Inge have remarked of virtually all his plays.

Still splendid, though.

I think she had a nervous breakdown because she knew that Bud slept with somebody else,and the looks she got from schoolmates overwhelmed her.Sometimes people have fantasies about losing virginity with the one you love (and he's losing his with you).Deenie wanted that and the fact that someone beat her to it,that she couldnt handle.

She went insane because she was broken hearted! Haven't any of you ever fallen in love when you were very young....the feelings so strong that nothing else mattered but being with that other person? It's intense, stong, and passionate beyond words....as we age we are able to control these feelings but when we are young....nothing will do except for the first and best love of your life. The movie was very well done, I felt that way once and I know I am not alone. I barely escaped Deanie's future...perhaps watching the movie helped me avoid the looney bin? That twist of fate still scars me after all these years, try 13 now. I will always wonder how things could have been, would have been...

Deanie didn't go insane because she was getting laid or because her sexuality was dangerous to her mental health.

Obviously many have you have not experienced a severely broken heart.

Coming from someone who has had their heart severely broken; this movie is accurate in terms of what some people go through. I watched this movie about a year after the incident and realized that much of my actions were similar to Deanie's. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I yelled at every little thing that bugged me, I cried at ANYTHING that reminded me of him. At some points, I literally wanted to die, because I didn't feel I had any reason to live and I blamed myself because the boy dumped me for the same reasons Bud dumped Deanie. To some degree, my dad came in and mentioned him and I literally went crazy. I got up, started screaming, crying, yelling, hitting my father. (Please keep in mind that I was about the same age Deanie was when this happened to me as well).

The only reason I didn't go mad, like Deanie had, was because my mother wasn't nearly as psycho as her's and I was able to go to my parents when feelings like this arose. Back in the 1950's, many thought that teenagers as young as Deanie and Bud couldn't have such strong feelings of love, sex, etc. But, in today's society, it is acknowledged, even expected that teenagers develop feelings of romantic love in their relationships. It's more accepted in society so, unlike Deanie who had to keep her feelings to herself because of her psycho mother and the society at the time, just had a nervous breakdown and thats why she went mad. Pressure from society, holding in feelings she really needed to let out, her psycho mother, and complete and utter heartbreak of losing her first love.

I promise you, there is no other pain like losing a first love.

Actually it started before the water scene, beginning with Bud being involved with another girl who was in her class. This film is a personal favorite of mine, but it so sad that they end up not together after all....

I think she had a nervous breakdown.

Music Eternal

Plain old nervous breakdown. As for your other points, I think the film is a deliberate portrayal of dated ideals that had potentially tragic consequences, but is not dated itself in it's portrayal of mental illness. If you're going to pull the gender card, keep in mind that Bud almost dies of (for lack of a better term) blueballs. I suppose you could make the argument that his illness being physical and hers being mental is steeped in dated conceptions of gender, but why bother. The fact is, emotionally strenuous situations, heartbreak, grief, etc...can have tangible mental and physical affects on a person. It has happened before and is still happening today. Was her reaction extreme? Yes, but it could have realistically been even more extreme.