ROSELYN C.

EVANGELISTA
N103
MR. FRANCO REINALDO GRANACIAS

1. The voice that narrates Girl, Interrupted may at first strike readers as cool, intellectual, rational, and
controlled, qualities normally associated with sanity. It is a voice full of humor, characterized by an
understatement that leaves much to the imagination. How, as we go deeper into the movie, does the voice
play against what it is describing--or heighten it? What is the overall effect of this voice?

The voice of the narrator is indeed strikingly intellectual and rational, and one may doubt how she can
possibly be suffering from a borderline personality disorder when she can sanely talk to her psychiatrist and
even put up a discussion on the meaning on ambivalence and promiscuity. On the first part of the film the
voice tells about situations which may imply what precipitated her ending into the hospital. Situations like
confusing life and dream, stealing even when someone has cash, a moving train and so on while on the last
part of the film she talks about her sentiments about craziness being a phenomenon that can happen to
anybody but can be treated.
Although nearly emotionless, the narration reflects both the detachment Kaysen feels from life as an
adolescent, and a desire to leave certain conclusions to her readers. As she explores the nature of sanity
and social conformity and the manner in which they interrelate, the narrator avoids outright condemnation
of the system that confined her.

2. At what point, if any, does your perception of the narrator (whom for convenience we call "Susanna")
change? Does Susanna's "unreliability" as the narrator suggest something about the nature of madness
itself?

My perception of Susanna would have been just a teenage girl during the 60’s trying to be carefree as any
teenage girl can be if it weren’t for that scene where she talks about her wrist missing its bone and growing
back again when she was talking to her therapist.

3. What does the author accomplish by juxtaposing her actual medical records and case notes with the
narrative? How do these documents contribute to your impression of Susanna's psychic state? How would
this book be different without them?

Susanna frequently contrasted the twenty minute consultation to the actual time that she was really there
which she thought as more than one hour. This is the part where she fails to switch from her parallel
universe to the real world.

4. The narrator reveals little about her life before entering McLean Hospital, and the only biographical
information we receive appears rather late in the book. Why do you think Kaysen has chosen to do this?

The narrator reveals little of her life in the book maybe because of the prominence of the family she belongs
to. Her father is said to be a director of an Advance Study in one university in New Jersey. There can also
be two other possible reasons why she did not mention about her family, either she is protecting her family
members or she doesn’t like her parents that much that she thinks she inherited her insanity from them. I
think she believes that if one member of the family is sick, then the real sickness is in the family and since
not all family members can be at the hospital at the same time, only one is designated to be crazy.

5. The narrator describes her sojourn in McLean as a journey into a "parallel universe," one of many that "exist
alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it." What resemblances or analogies does Kaysen find
between madness and everyday reality? How are the laws of these two universes different? How does one
pass from one universe into another?

The symbolic “parallel universe” of mental illness that the narrator describes gives us insight of the all-
consuming nature of diseases of the mind. Susanna sees difficulties of this sort are as encompassing as a
physical disability, a life of crime, or even death. Georgina's life enters the parallel universe without any
warning when a “tidal wave of blackness” sweeps over her. This frightening description of the sudden and
inescapable onset of profound depression sets the stage for Susanna’s own struggles. She notes that even
from within the parallel universe of illness, one is aware of the reality left behind. Susanna and the other
patients are trapped in more than one kind of parallel universe. Behind the barred windows of the hospital
 ward, the girls are conscious of the events taking place in the world around them but are unable to
participate.

6. Kaysen gives us two ways of experiencing her parallel universe. One way is to make us understand how
madness feels; another is to show how madness is treated (or, more accurately, controlled). What effect
does she create by giving us two opposing ways of understanding insanity?

Giving us two opposing ways of understanding insanity gives the effect of co-existence in her parallel world.
They say that you would never know how to deal a problem unless you actually experience it. By this way of
presenting insanity, Susanna succeeded in letting the readers / viewers understand better the situation of
psychiatric patients, their struggles, determination to get well again and / or withdrawals from the treatment
especially those giving up the chance to be “normal” again. Learning the ways of a psyche patient from an
insane perspective could be a better tool to make other people understand madness.

7. Most of the early sections of Girl, Interrupted are devoted to the narrator's observations of her fellow
patients. To what extent, if any, do these women seem "crazy" to you? What difference do you see in the
book's treatment of "Susanna," the character, and its treatment of the other patients?

Among the characters in the book / movie are the following:

 Susanna Kaysen - The main character, Susanna Kaysen is admitted to a psychiatric ward to be treated
for borderline personality disorder following a suicide attempt. She is admitted after a short
consultation with a psychiatrist. She frequently contrasts the time of the consultation, twenty minutes,
to the time she ended up spending there.
 Polly - Suffers from schizophrenia and depression. Polly has severe scarring on her body, the result of
setting herself on fire. She throws tantrums at times and usually curious with what is happening
especially when Susanna was visited by her friend Toby. She inclines to music.
 Georgina - Hospitalized for schizophrenia, Georgina is Susanna's roommate at the institution. Georgina
apparently experienced her first symptoms after an episode in a movie theatre where she suddenly felt
as if the darkness had surrounded her completely. During the last part of the film when Lisa was
reading about her in Susanna’s diary, that’s the only part when I thought she is sick. All throughout
the film except that scene, she is the next healthiest patient in McLean, next to Susanna.
 Lisa - She is diagnosed as a sociopath. Lisa periodically escapes from the hospital, only to be found a
week or two later and re-admitted. She is usually happy enough to be back though she does put up a
fight when restrained. She is an ex-junkie who never sleeps and barely eats, and enjoys making
trouble for the staff. She apparently takes some pride in her diagnosis.
 Daisy –A thin girl suffering from bulimia. She has a single room, where she spends most of her time.
She is addicted to laxatives and will only eat chicken, and only in her room. She peels off the meat
and keeps the carcasses, saying that when she has 14 carcasses, it's time to leave the hospital,
possibly due to obsessive compulsive disorder. Daisy eventually commits suicide.
The other patients, just like how the movie / book presented the life of Susanna, were introduced without
bias and were fairly described to the readers / viewers. Kaysen's narration is purposefully void of emotion
or judgment. We know that the scenes and dialogue she creates are fictionalized to some extent. Kaysen
allows her readers to draw their own conclusions. Lisa's behavior is presented almost objectively. Kaysen
has extensive experience with the consequences of pre-judgment, and so trusts her readers to make their
own decisions.

In the movie, major characters had their respective moments. Moments that can be said normal. The part
when they had their bonding at the bowling alley and the part when they read about their cases are the
most sane and nicest parts of the film / book.

8. How does Kaysen describe McLean's "keepers"--its nurses, doctors, and therapists? How do you account for
the difference between the hard-bitten full-time staff and the wide-eyed student nurses?

The "keepers" had the endless task of controlling the performance of angry, rebellious, self-destructive
patients in McLean. Nurse Valerie is described as down to earth and rarely uses the psychiatric terms used
by the therapists. Kaysen recalls her as honest and direct. Mrs. McWeeney is described as the exact
opposite of Valerie and very disliked by the patients. The chief therapist, Dr. Wick, is described as very old-
fashioned and easy to embarrass. Her direct contact with the patients is very limited.
 Nurse Valerie is the most liked personality in the ward. The patient, unaware they are, all seemed to like
her and respected her in their own ways. They might not be able to always obey her orders, but you would
see in the film that there is an atmosphere of respect for the head nurse. The student nurses on the other
hand are friendly, but they have the possibility to be swayed especially when threatened.

9. In many ways McLean seems like an orderly place whose patients might easily be bored, slightly neurotic
college students killing time in the dorm. Madness, real madness, creeps in insidiously, taking both reader
and patients by surprise. At what points do we see madness intruding into McLean?

Madness intrudes McLean every time Lisa (Angelina Jolie) comes back to the hospital after fleeing. Being a
sociopath, she has her way of spoiling the stability of a character. She has this magnet that draws chaos
and unhappiness to people in the hospital. Some patient snaps when they see unpleasant things, things that
remind them of unhappy moments of their lives. They get angry when they become jealous of others
especially those who are stamped recovered. Yes, generally the hospital is orderly, unless an untoward
incident occurs the place remains a therapeutic milieu for its patients.

10. At certain points the author suggests that there is something comforting, and even seductive, about
insanity. What might make madness comforting to a young girl in the late 1960s--or, for that matter, to
anyone at any time?

During the 60’s, the era of the hippies, teenagers gone far to being almost insane, doing pots, heroines,
engaging in casual sex. This is the period when young ones were so carefree and careless at the same time.
Parents were troubled by the self-destructive behaviors of the teenagers. They burned themselves with
cigarettes, cutting their arms with razors, making their own tattoos, and worse. Psychiatric specialists say
that "hippiephrenia" was replacing schizophrenia. They looked and acted crazy by conventional standards
but they did not fit into any of the predefined diagnostic categories. During Susanna’s time, psychiatric
wards as mentioned by Nurse Valerie, are like a five-star hotels, making them grandiose experiences and
self-serving places.

Insanity can be a very good excuse. This is the biggest benefit that one could get from madness. Lisa once
said to the professor’s wife (the professor who Susanna once slept with) when they were in the ice cream
house, “Don’t put your finger on crazy people!” as if implying vulnerability thus soliciting understanding from
the rational ones. It could be noted that nobody was ever sent to jail for pleading insanity.

11. A girl named Daisy kills herself in between hospital stays. Is this foreshadowed by what we already know
about her? Why this patient, rather than another? To what extent is the behavior of any of these characters
foreseeable?

Daisy's father visits her quite often, and it is implied he has incestuous feelings for her. Incest is one of the
most humiliating and degrading experience a lady or anyone, for that matter, could experience. Daisy is
reclusive and often refuses to be social. She hates when anyone goes near her and is hostile when people
approach her. However, she does allow Lisa to enter her room. During the visit of Lisa and Susanna to her
apartment, it was revealed in the film that she had cuts in her arm. Being alone and having no one to talk
to often heighten someone’s tendency to commit suicide. Especially Daisy’s case, she has these very
dreadful experiences with her daddy.

12. Susanna has no apparent reaction to Daisy's death, but after Torrey, another patient, is released into the
custody of her neglectful parents, she has an episode of what her case report calls "depersonalization" and
mutilates her hands to see if "there are any bones in there". Why? What is she looking for underneath her
skin? What is the effect of the graphic physicality of this chapter?

It is possible that due to extreme depression that she experienced, after her 2 friends went away,
depersonalization occurred to her. She mutilated herself maybe because she wanted an evidence of her
existence, to prove that she is still real. The graphic physicality of this chapter showed to what extent
sometimes an insane person goes to when depression or anxiety attacks. Sometimes they become
physically numb and unable to feel pain.

13. The narrator sums up her release from McLean in the following way: "Luckily, I got a marriage proposal and
they let me out. In 1968, everybody could understand a marriage proposal." What does this passage say
 about the choices available to female psychiatric patients--and, by extension, to any woman--at the time
this book takes place?

We could say that females during the 60’s had very limited choices. The passage implies that either a
woman marry or stay in the ward for as long as it takes if she cannot do anything more beneficial to the
society. Other choices are not given to psychiatric females such as access to activities for self improvement,
engagement to sports and other social functions, choice to practice rights as a citizen--the rights to be loved
and treated equally by other male individuals.

14. The narrator describes 1968 as a time when "people [outside the hospital] were doing the kinds of things
we [the patients] had fantasies of doing"; a patient's paranoid "delusions" might turn out to be accurate
descriptions of the U.S. government's clandestine activities. What other connections does Kaysen draw
between her characters' disturbance and the social paroxysms of their time? In what way is this book a
document of the 1960s?

As mentioned in answer to question no. 10, 1960’s is the time where American teenagers engaged to self-
destructive activities like extreme cigarette smoking, doping, engaging in casual sex and more. This is the
period when teenagers did not mind anything but their selves and abused the freedom they were given
with. The book portrayed the struggles of Susanna in her life experiences, how she was confused by the
situations around her. The setting pictured the era of the hippies, take Liza for example, and the men whom
the Susanna and Liza hitched to when they escaped from the hospital.

It was also during the 60’s that the hospital setting for psychiatric care was changed from custodial care to
milieu therapy. Custodial care pertains to how McLean treated their patient like princesses / princes, where
premiere care, food and recreational facilities were provided. This was evidenced by the used-to-be
functional bowling alley which was closed and hidden to the patients. By the time Kaysen was admitted,
McLean had lost much of its old-fashioned charm. The hospital had been transformed from a rest home into
a treatment center specializing in long-term, intensive psychoanalytic therapy. They created within the
hospital a therapeutic milieu, a corrective psychological and social environment that would buffer their
anxiety, assist their reality testing, and help them control their impulses.

15. One reviewer has noted that someone with Susanna's symptoms would today be given "60 days in-patient
[treatment] and a psychotropic magic bullet. In 25 years, the cultural metaphor...has changed from
incarceration to neglect." Is "neglect" preferable to "incarceration"? How do you think Kaysen might answer
such a question?

16. Another critic begins her review of Girl, Interrupted with the observation: "When women are angry at men,
they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy" (Susan Cheever, "A
Designated Crazy," The New York Times Book Review, June 20, 1993). In what ways is Girl, Interrupted a
book about the sexual constructs of madness? What role does the narrator's gender appear to have played
in her diagnosis and treatment? How do gender relations inside McLean mirror those in the outside world?

17. What is the significance of the Vermeer painting "Girl Interrupted at Her Music" that appears in the last
chapter? How did Susanna feel about the painting the first time she saw it? And how did she feel about it
later, after her hospitalization? Why does the gaze of the music student in the painting so haunt her?