English Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

Zara Hoffman May 16, 2011 8P When people hear the phrase mental institution they probably think of the setting

described in Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, a hospital filled with people who exhibit bizarre behavior. Keseys fictional story was inspired by his working as a night aide at a mental institution and his own experimentation with drugs. Susanna Kaysen gives us the nonfictional account of her stay as an inpatient at McLean Hospital. Her book is a doorway to the psyche of an inmate at an insane asylum and demands to know what determines who is crazy and who is not. Girl, Interrupted is told from Susanna Kaysens retrospective point of view. Although the plot has a linear component, a journey form Point A to B, she often takes two steps forward and one step backwards. Snapshots of her experiences at McLean, when pieced together by the reader, coalesce into the narrative. Although each individual vignette is lucid, Kaysen tends to go out of chronological order. She describes an event and then goes back in time, writing a chapter with events that occurred earlier. She jumps around on the time line without any warning and it is up to the reader to be able to connect the dots; at times it is very confusing. For example in the chapter, If You Lived Here, Youd Be Home Now, Kaysen summarizes Daisy, a girl who frequently leaves and returns to the ward. At the end of the chapter it reads: Girls, said the head nurse. I have some sad news. We all leaned forward. Daisy committed suicide yesterday. It was her birthday, wasnt it? asked Lisa. The head nurse nodded We all observed a moment of silence for Daisy. Then, a few chapters later, in The Prelude to Ice Cream: Daisy was at the top of the chart: full towns and grounds. Nobody could understand why. Daisy is alive and well, despite the fact that we have just read that Daisy is dead. Another instance of her interrupting a linear plot is when Lisa Cody, Another Lisa, comes to the ward. Similar to Daisy, there is an overview of Lisa Cody as a character and then she escapes. In the following chapter she is sitting with the group. One must assume that the group scene happened before her escape. However, despite the often jumbled order of events and the fragmented scenes that Kaysen describes, the reader is still able

to see the world through Kaysens eyes. She reveals a shattering reality through her caustic observations. Girl, Interrupted is as much a critique of society and its differences as it is an autobiography. The book begins with a portrait of how crazy people view the world and confronts the blatant fact that most people naturally alienate those who are different from them; they only care about the ones on the inside so they can ensure they stay on the outside. For example, on the first page she writes: People ask, How do you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I cant answer the real question. This blunt statement is one of many that serve to illustrate her point. She explains the mind of a so-called crazy person to prove that they are not as different from those on the outside, after all. A chapter that includes the word Topography in the title normally implies an analysis of how someone deemed insane sees the world. Although most people dont necessarily associate logical thinking with lunatics, Kaysen addresses this by shedding light on the thought processes that motivate acts such as suicide. Before I read this book, suicide seemed like a rash act, an impulse. Although Kaysen doesnt refute that for some people it is an impulsive act, she also offers insight into the thought process that can lead or deter a person from committing suicide. Kaysen talks about her own suicide attempt by taking 50 aspirin and how she realized afterwards it was a mistake. She references Polly, one of her fellow patients, who burned herself. She lit the match, says Kaysen and wonders about what drove Polly to do such a thing and what kept her from chickening out. Kaysen continually tries to understand the fine line that exists between a person with suicidal thoughts and a person who puts those thoughts into action, but regardless, she proves that there is a thought process involved. In a chapter called Do You Believe Him or Me? she plays on our instinct to believe a person who is considered sane as opposed to someone who is not. The doctor who sent her to 2

Mclean Hospital did so, according to Kaysen, after only a 15-minute interview. In his referral, he indicated that it was at least a three hour-long session. She tries to convince the hospital that she is right, but they continue to believe the doctor. She thinks this is so because of his position and sanity. The doctor diagnoses her as having Borderline Personality Disorder. This disorder, says Kaysen in My Diagnosis, was a fairly accurate picture of [her] at eighteen Its accurate but isnt profounda generalization. She then goes on to give a more comprehensive version of her diagnosis in accord with The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 3rd Editions definition of Borderline Personality Disorder and how relevant it is to her life. At one point she explores the possibility of her being treated differently, had her diagnosis not been a Borderline Personality. She says, If my diagnosis had been bipolar illness, for instance, the reaction to this story would be slightly different. Thats a chemical problemI would be blameless, somehow. And what about schizophreniathat would send a chill down your spine. After all, thats real insanity. People dont recover from schizophrenia. Youd have to wonder how much of what Im telling you is true and how much is imagined. The last sentence goes back to the credibility of someone who is considered crazy. The label affects our reactions. In Milgrams Obedience experiment, participants followed the orders of people in white lab coats more than people who were not wearing the lab coat. They looked professional and people didnt question them. The same theory applies to more than just obedience. It is the same for whether or not we believe someone who is sane or insane. I do not think that Susanna Kaysen condemns the reality of our conceptions of normal and abnormal, but I think that her intent in writing her own story was to, at least, make us reevaluate what classifies a person as being placed in one category and not the other. It also addresses the fact that people fear those who are different from them; consequently they attach a label that mandates what makes a person part of we or they. 3