Analysis Of Girl Interrupted

For this applied paper I chose to read the novel Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. In her biography she writes about her time at McLean Hospital, a residential psychiatric facility in Massachusetts. She tells about the experiences she had there, the people that she met, and most importantly her diagnosis; Borderline Personality Disorder. Through reading her novel I was able to see what caused her diagnosis, the symptoms that she portrayed, and the treatment she received to have the status of recovered.

     The movie, “Girl Interrupted,”is about a teenage girl named Susanna Kaysen who has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. People with Borderline Personality Disorder “are often emotionally unstable, impulsive, unpredictable, irritable, and anxious. They also are prone to boredom. Their behavior is similar to that of individuals with schizotypal personality disorder but they are not as consistently withdrawn and bizarre” (Santrock, 2003). In “Girl Interrupted” Susanna Kaysen the main character, goes through many episodes that give a picture of the disorder she’s suffering from. The first such incident occurs when the psychiatrist is talks to Susanna about her

The movie Girl, Interrupted is based on the memoir written by Susana Kaysen. In this film, Susana Kaysen, the main character is first introduced in the hospital where she was taken shortly after overdosing on aspirin and alcohol. Despite taking a whole bottle of aspirin and alcohol Susana claims that it was not a suicidal attempt. In the hospital scene, there is also evidence on Susana’s wrist that she is what is known as a “wrist banger”, Susana claims that she does this because there are no bones in her hands. Shortly after, Susana is evaluated by a family friend and former psychiatrist and is strongly encouraged to check herself into a mental institution not too far from her, by the name of Claymoore. At Claymoore, she is evaluated by psychiatrist Melvin Potts. He asks her why she took so much aspirin and she replies that she wanted to make the time jumps, depression, and wrist banging stop. Susana is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder once she arrives at Claymoore.

The main character in “Girl, Interrupted,” Susanna Kaysen, played by Winona Ryder, was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. According to the DSM-IV-TR (2000) borderline personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability in relationships,

Girl, Interrupted provides an in-depth look into Susanna Kaysen’s experience of living with a mental illness and staying in a mental hospital. Twenty-five years after she leaves McLean she learns of her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and discusses it in her memoir. Kaysen reads about her disorder from the DSM-III-R and views her diagnosis as:

“Cold, shiny, hard, plastic.”, one of the most popular quotes from the movie, Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters and screenplay by Tina Fey. This film is loosely based on a book called “Queen Bees and Wannabees” by Rosalind Wiseman which is a self-help book that describes all of the cliques in high school and how they can have a huge effect on girls. But the movie itself is about the sociopolitical climate of the average American “high school”. The movie was made in 2004 and set in Evanston, Illinois, but the film was shot in Toronto, Canada. The film stars Lindsey Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and many more comedic actors and actresses. I chose to do an analysis on the movie, Mean Girls, because I wanted to see if people would agree with my perspective, which is that this movie does correctly show the real life mean girl situations and how girls can overcome the popularity contests.

In this world, there are two sides to everything. Whether it may be a message, a film or a novel, each platform of literature has two different windows. The first being the depiction of the author and the second being the interpretation of the audience. This concept is evident within both works this essay seeks to explore. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, a charismatic criminal, Randle P. McMurphy is admitted to a state asylum due to his will of serving out of prison sentence in a mental hospital rather than the penitentiary. McMurphy brings in the outside world to the admitted patients after being legally declared insane through a condensed interview with a psychiatrist. He symbolizes freedom, life and the power of an

Authors tend to use literary elements in their memoirs to exhibit their true intentions. In Girl, Interrupted and Night, Susanna Kaysen and Elie Wiesel manipulate these devices to reveal how enduring agonizing moments in life, can assist with finding one’s individualism. Susanna Kaysen highlights the difficulty with being institutionalized for two years in her memoir, and Elie Wiesel narrates his journey of being imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Within the memoirs, Girl, Interrupted and Night, authors Susanna Kaysen and Elie Wiesel utilize rhetorical questions and similes in a variety of equivalent and different ways to demonstrate that traumatic events have a forceful impact on one’s search for self-identity.

Girl, Interrupted (1999) directed by James Mangold is largely based on a semi- autobiographical book by the same title. The movie chronicles eighteen year old Susanna Kaysen’s experiences surrounding her stay at a mental institution. It is 1967, a time of social change and unrest. Susanna makes a half-heart attempt at suicide, ingesting a bottle of aspirin and chasing the pills with a bottle of vodka. She is taken to the emergency room, her stomach is pumped and she survives. Afterwards she meets with a psychologist who explores her more recent feelings and experiences. The psychologist concludes, with her parents assent, that she would benefit from a stay at Claymore, a private mental institution. The next year and nine months forever

The television show that I spent time watching was Girl Meets World. Girl Meets World is a coming of age sit com shown on the Disney Channel. The target audience for the show seemed to be middle school age. The series is a sequel to Boy Meets World, the series centers around the life of Riley and her friends and family, particularly their school life, in which her father Corey is their history teacher. Riley shares a strong relationship with her best friend Maya, who assists her in learning to cope with the social and personal issues of adolescence.

Girl Meets World greatly impacts their young audiences learning in the classroom by how they represent middle school students. When students see this show they see characters their age going through real life problems; growing up, first crushes, homework assignments, and building relationships with the people around them. The realistic situations greatly outweigh the fantasy portion of the show making it an excellent depiction of what real life middle school students face in their growing daily life.

18 year old Caucasian woman by the name of Susanna Kaysen was voluntarily admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital after an overdose of aspirin and alcohol. This young lady explained that she was not intentionally trying to harm herself, but was only trying to get rid of a headache.

In the movie Girl, Interrupted the plot surrounds a period in the life of Susanna Kaysen played by Winona Ryder who was institutionalized at the Claymore mental hospital in the 1960s. In the movie, the main character Susanna is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and undergoes treatment to which at the end of the movie she is released. It is at this hospital that Susanna encounters many other patients of which she shares many experiences with. One of these patients was the longtime resident and popular amongst all the other patients Lisa Rowe played by Angelina Jolie whom Susanna became close with and would mid-movie escape the hospital with to only return on her own and find that Lisa would be back a few days later. Lisa, while being the protagonist of the movie, was very charismatic in her own way and based on her behavior and revelation in the movie is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, particularly a sociopath in the movie.

"Cold, shiny, hard, PLASTIC," said by Janice referring to a group of girls in the movie Mean Girls. Mean Girls is about an innocent, home-schooled girl, Cady who moves from Africa to the United States. Cady thinks she knows all about survival of the fittest. But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when she enters public high school and encounters psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teen girls deal with today. Cady goes from a great friend of two "outcasts", Janice and Damien to a superficial friend of the "plastics", a group of girls that talks about everyone behind their back and thinks everyone loves them. Adolescent egocentrism and relationships with peers are obviously present throughout the film. I

Throughout the film the portrayal of mental health and the corresponding medical help, in modern times, would be scrutinized for the fact that her questionable psychiatrist was unsure of how to diagnose or treat Susanna. Additionally, throughout the film, there seemed to be a very loose control of Susanna and her actions, almost as if she had gone away to summer camp rather than somewhere she could receive medical help. And if her doctors had believed she was acting childish, immature, and rash this environment would surely only add to the problems. Furthermore, if the filmmaker’s intention was to spread awareness about borderline personality disorder they did not provide an accurate portrayal. The filmmaker left the reasoning and causes for this diagnosis too ambiguous. Susanna was told that she was torn between being sane and insane, however, this isn’t enough evidence to declare she has BPD. In fact, it is more likely that Lisa’s character had BPD as she portrayed more of the symptoms such as instability in moods and behaviors, impulsive actions, and unstable relationships. Susanna was closer in symptoms to someone suffering from depression, but the movie mainly focuses on her struggle with BPD.