Girl, Interrupted By Susana Kaysen

In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.

The film “Girl, Interrupted” is a true story adapted from the original memoir by Susanna Kaysen. Set in the 1960s, it relates her experiences during her stay in a mental institution after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder following a suicide attempt. Many films include characters with a mental illness; the actors who play these characters have the immense challenge of staying true to the illness they portray.

Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.

Girl Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen 's memoir a series of recollections and reflections of her nearly two year stay at a residential psychiatric program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. She looks back on it with a sense of surprise. In her memoir she considers how she ended up at McLean, and whether or not she truly belonged there. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of her experience. Founded in the late 19th century, McLean Hospital had been a facility for troubled members of wealthy and aristocratic families. By the late 1960s, however, McLean had fallen into a period neglect. This was a time of great change in the mental health care field. Kaysen grew up in a wealthy and prestigious family. Like most teenagers, she was rebellious at times, confused and unsure about her future. She didn’t want to go to college and slept with her high school English teacher. She witnessed firsthand the widening generation gap that was developing in the late 1960s. Older generations looked at Kaysen’s generation 's world with alarm.

In this essay I intend to explore the narrative conventions and values, which Oliver Smithfield presents in the short story Victim. The short story positions the reader to have negative and sympathetic opinion on the issues presented. Such as power, identity and bullying. For example Mickey the young boy is having issues facing his identity. It could be argued that finding your identity may have the individual stuck trying to fit in with upon two groups.

While reading the story Opening Skinners Box wrote by Lauren Slater there was a chapter that made me look at the world like I do and how sometimes the world relates to a story. The chapter was On Being Sane in Insane Places” while reading this chapter I seen and I was thinking that some of the things being said in the book was true. Sometimes people make wrong choices and they chose paths that lead them to bad consequence. Then we have those people that are born with this, bad consequences. Sometimes we have to face the world and how the world is. Sometimes it is not their fault that they are the way that they are. Some of them are just born that way because of their chromosomes that are way too much or some that don’t fully develop.

In her first journal entry Kaysen tells how the decision for her to go to McLean Hospital was based on a twenty minute conversation with a psychiatrist. Kaysen had been picking at her acne and been acting out in ways which would not be considered unusual for teens today, but at the time it was a sufficient excuse for commitment to an institution. In an interview, Kaysen further develops the idea that her illness was influenced by outside factors saying, “ [Her] retrospective account of her confinement at McLean Hospital makes a cultural intervention that challenges the notion that mental illness is rooted solely in the individual.” (Kaysan, 18). Being surrounded by girls with serious illnesses forced Kaysen to assume the role of a girl with a real mental illness. Society forced her to find something wrong with herself in an attempt to fit in. Kaysen questions what mental illness truly is. She asks,“Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?” (Kaysen 41). Because Kaysen was labeled as being mentally ill although she was not, it became hard for her to tell what truly pronounced someone as mentally ill. Was everyone slightly crazy or were just some better at hiding it then others? Living in such an uptight society, people had no choice but to put on an act of perfection. When someone began to “drop the

There are many components involved when analyzing a short story such as, main characters, point of view, plot, theme, and setting. Sometimes the answer is in black and white and other times it takes critical thinking to come up with a response. Some short stories have an important real life lesson while others are simply easy to relate to. Symbolism also plays a role in short stories by giving an event, object, or words being said a deeper meaning than the surface that brings importance to the story. “The Fat Girl” by Andre Dubus, “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich, and “An Ounce of Cure” by Alice Munro are stories that contain most of the components of analyzing short stories.

Racism has always been a hot topic issue in America. Starting, of course, with slavery and enduring long after its abolishment. Many try to put an end to it, but this is one of those things that will take many, many years to completely eradicate from society. In this paper, I will briefly discuss both the Clark Doll Experiment and the film A Girl like Me, discuss my opinion on racism in America, demonstrate how racism effects the schools, and discuss how and why my interpretation of this compares with the views of another culture.

Girl Interrupted is a movie based on Susanna Kaysen’s novel, which was inspired by her stay in a mental institution in the 1960s. Incidentally the main character, played by Winona Ryder, is named Susanna. She is eighteen years old and begins the movie by reflecting back on the events leading up to her visit to the psychologist. She has just graduated from high school and other than being an aspiring writer, has no plans for her life. In addition she has flashbacks of her attempted suicide, though she denies taking a bottle of aspirin with vodka. When she was brought to the hospital they found bruises on her wrist, but she claimed she had

Girl, interrupted is the film adaptation of a book written by Susanna Kaysen. Kaysen conveyed licentious behavior as a teenager and was taken to the Claymore Mental Hospital to be examined. During her stay at Claymore, she became aquatinted with a number of girls she would not have met had it not been for the circumstances in which she was in. Eery day she became closer to the girls, which made their stay a lot more easy. The group consisted of Lisa, “the criminal,” Daisy, “daddy’s little girl,” and Torch, “the sweetie”. Each one of the girls was believed to have psychological problems. From Anorexia, to obsessive compulsive disorders and even homosexuality, each of their cases varied from the next patient.

For this portion of my summer assignment, I read Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha VanLeer. I have selected twelve important and meaningful passages from the novel as well as a “Quote of the Book”. Between the Lines is about a girl, Delilah, and a book character, Oliver, that despite the limits of the story, connect and can even speak to one another. Oliver had never felt as if he’d belonged in his book and dreaded living the same plot over and over every single time someone opened his book. So, he asked Delilah to help him get to her world and leave the book. After many failed attempts, Delilah, with the help of a boy named Edgar, is able to get Oliver out of the book, but only because Edgar willingly switches places with Oliver. Finally, the passages I have selected are ones that are important, if not necessary to the book, and it was difficult to only select thirteen total.

Girl, Interrupted is a captivating and striking film about the struggle of coming to terms with mental health and overcoming personal obstacles to allow treatment and support. While the main character Susanna Kaysen stays in the Claymoore psychiatric hospital, she is introduced to a whole new world, one where she is forced to confront the fact that she has a mental illness and needs professional help.

Amy Dunne at first expression is a nice, cool, stylish female who would be an ideal daughter and wife. She is her parents’ inspiration for a children’s book series called “Amazing Amy”, which was about a perfect girl who overcomes all obstacles that come her way. To her husband Nick Dunne, she is a dedicated wife, who loves him dearly, and struggles to make her marriage work. Okay now let’s give you the real Amy, analyzing her throughout the book it seems she should be diagnosed with Borderline personality disorders.

One time, I noted Jack’s anxiety of being homeless because of the lack of appropriate after-care programs. One day, I noticed Jacob’s gloominess because of his hopeless perspective of perceiving that people stopped being ingenuous and compassionate. One evening, I detected James’s helplessness because of his fear of the stigma of being labeled as mentally ill. At McLean Hospital, I learned numerous concerns of patients’ from different walks of life. At times, I sensed their suffering and agony because I had these concerns as well.