Girl, Interrupted
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Girl, Interrupted is a memoir by Susanna Kaysen. In the book she relates her experiences as a patient in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s. The memoir's title is taken from the Vermeer painting, Girl Interrupted at her Music.
In 1999 the memoir was used as the basis for the film Girl, Interrupted, starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, and directed by James Mangold.
Plot of Girl, Interrupted
The "plot" of Girl, Interrupted does not follow a linear story line, but instead the author provides personal stories through a series of nonchronological vignettes and personal reflections on why she was institutionalized.
Susanna Kaysen, eighteen-years-old in April of 1967, voluntarily enters McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts, after attempting suicide. Kaysen is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends two years.
Fellow patients Polly, Lisa, Georgina, and Daisy highlight Kaysen’s experience at McLean as she describes their personal issues, insanities, and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Kaysen also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney.
Kaysen reflects on the nature of her illness, including difficulty making sense of visual patterns, and suggests that sanity is a falsehood constructed to help the "healthy" feel "normal." She also questions how doctors treat mental illnesses, and whether they are treating the brain or the mind.
During her stay, Kaysen undergoes a frightening period of depersonalization, where she bites open the flesh on her hand after she becomes terrified that she has "lost her bones." Also, during a trip to the dentist, Kaysen becomes frantic after waking from the general anesthesia and no one will tell her how long she was unconscious. She fears that she has "lost" time.
Some years after leaving McLean, Kaysen visits Georgina, now who is married and still quite unconventional. Kaysen bumps into Lisa outside of a subway station, who has a boy and lives in Brookline. Daisy commits suicide, and Polly’s whereabouts are unknown.
Controversy
Recently, the book has become noted as "vulgar" by a mother of a student at Orono High School in Orono, Maine. The book was placed on a required reading list for freshmen at the school. The book at first was taken off the list for reconsideration, and then replaced on it after the school found it was necessary for the students to read either that book, or a book similar to it.
Some of the "vulgar" aspects of the book include allusions to incest, sexuality, strong words, suicide, and other controversial subjects.