Kaysen And Suicide Essay

For this rhetorical analysis, I have chosen to discuss Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted. The novel is based on Susanna Kaysen’s experience of being hospitalized in a mental hospital after her attempted suicide in which she overdosed on a bottle of aspirin which she washed down with a bottle of vodka at the age of 17. What we see in Girl, Interrupted is Kaysen’s strident view on the reality of mental illness and how it affected her and those she shared a ward with. “In a strange way we were free. We’d reached the end of the line.

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 focused on an eighteen year old girl by the name Susanna that was admitted into a private mental hospital after being accused of a suicidal attempt. The movie follows Susanna on her journey in the institution as she encounters women with different admittance stories. The one who intrigues Susanna the most is Lisa. Lisa is thought to be a sociopath with the way she manipulates those around her to get her way. She is constantly in and out of the institution causing those around to fear, yet admire her. My main focus will be on Lisa and although it was not specified in the film just how old she is, she seemed to be around the same age group as Susanna. This means that, according to Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages, she is on stage five or six. Stage five happens during adolescence where ones primary task is their identity versus their own role in society whereas stage six happens in young adulthood and one faces intimacy versus isolation. The article incorporated gives more insight on how Erikson’s stages play hand in hand with one another and can potentially affect the mental state of someone if not successfully fulfilled. There is also a possibility that, with the ‘symptoms’ of a sociopath, Lisa could have had past problems during what Sigmund Freud considered the anal stage of her childhood.

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.

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess different sociological explanations of suicide. (21 marks)

Entering the taboo world of mental illness, stigmatized as the crazy and psychotic by decades of

The current suicide rate among 15- to 24-year olds is quite disturbing. Growing in numbers since 2007, the latest toll taken in 2013 on suicide within college settings is 11.1 deaths per 100,000 people (Scelfo, 2015). According to the article Suicide on Campus and the Pressure of Perfection, Pennsylvania State University had six students commit suicide in a 13-month stretch (Scelfo, 2015). Suicide within college settings are usually linked with severe depression. As mentioned by Kevin Breel in the Confessions of a Depressed Comic Ted Talk, depression is not sadness, real depression is being sad when everything in your life is going right and this, this I can personally relate to.

Another side could be that the time this happened wasn’t a time of mental illness enlightenment, resembling the day and age we live in now, knowledge of different cases, studies, and illnesses are so readily known that you aren’t going to just be classified as just “Crazy”. At that time and most likely prior to this incident with the shooter. if you started saying that you felt yourself changing or, you were having thoughts that didn’t meet with the norm, you were just “Crazy” that was it, cut and dry . If you did

The novel, Girl, Interrupted is a memoir of author Susana Kaysen’s life and her journey through early adulthood as she suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. The novel captures her time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Kaysen divides the novel into separate anecdotes of events and fellow patients she encountered during the two years she was admitted at Mclean.

Suicide rate is a grow problem in the United States according to the American foundation for suicide prevention more than 41,149 suicides were reported in 2013. The highest rate of suicides is committed by adults between age 45-64 and this is especially true amongst the elderly. Older adults are inflected with a terminal disease, loneness and depression and because of this they are committing suicide at a higher rate. Suicide amongst the men is steadily higher than women, in 2013, 77.9% were male and 22.1% were female. Men success rate for suicide is much higher, because their attempt is more lethal, for example, men are more than likely to shot themselves, whereas women are more likely to use poisons to end their life. Suicide Rate committed race/ethnicity was higher among Whites 14.2%, American Indians and Alaska Natives 11.7%, Asians and Pacific Islanders 5.8%, Blacks 5.4% and Hispanics 5.7%. According to the mean method used to commit suicide is a firearm, then suffocation and poisoning. The main cause of suicide is due to mental health condition and depression is at the foremost leading factor.

 Thesis: While Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, I believe That Suicide is wrong.

Girl Interrupted is a discerning, unwavering document that gives long-lasting and precise dimension to our explanations of stable and insane, mental illness and recovery. This intense novel uses language, literary terms and structure to express the struggle that author Susanna Kaysen went through in her lifetime. This story contains a strong use of literary Language and terms. The Terms are stated firmly and clearly through the entire book. For example when Susanna says, "And somewhat more dangerous things, like putting a gun in your mouth", this is an example of a simile when she is speaking about suicide.

Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted: Telling Susanna’s journey through therapy and being sent to McLean Hospital when she wasn’t sure if she needed the help or not. She meets new people, and goes through many new experiences. Susanna thought at first that she was wrongly admitted to the hospital, then ends up not wanting to go back into the world unprotected.

Common stigmas with mental illness include feeling as though you will somehow be threatened by the individual whose mind is not well. It is also thought that someone with mental illness may be obviously identifiable, such as someone who is unkempt, or does not exercise good hygiene. The media does its fair share of perpetuating and instilling these images that many of us have of someone who is mentally ill. Another stigma is that the person on the corner who may be talking or mumbling to himself and is wearing torn, tattered, and dirty clothing must be a drug addict and couldn’t possibly be very intelligent. We do not stop to think that his mind may be in the process of being tortured by voices and magnified sounds.

The more a question is argued the better that question becomes it is often said. That question begins to grow and the side effect of this is the more people it reaches. Whether that question can be put into a category of right or wrong it begs to be answered. Knowledge is something that people instinctively need to function when faced with a problem, an answer must be found or it begins to form eminent possibility in any direction. The problem is a question that no one can truly answer for anyone other than the person faced with it, which is one's own self. The arguments from either side of this philosophical problem must not be centered around one's own belief but all that share the dilemma, which is in fact every human being.