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Sanity Vs. Insanity In Girl, By Susanna Kaysen

692 Words3 Pages

Sanity vs insanity; a choice most will face during their lifetime. The definition of sanity is ‘The ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner; sound mental health’. But what is normal behaviour? Sanity vs insanity is society’s version of placing people in boxes with neatly wrapped bows; a way to ensure conformity or face punishment. In Girl, Interrupted examples of society’s expectations and how they can be the downfall of someone’s proposed ‘sanity’ are clearly seen.

Susanna Kaysen is the poster girl for the posed question. She struggles with the question of sanity vs insanity, pushing herself to be the former. Susanna talks to a retired family friend and psychiatrist, Dr Crumble, who seems to want the session to be over …show more content…

Cynthia isn’t mentally ill, she just has a different sexual preference to the majority of the population. We aren’t explicitly told why Cynthia is there, but from Lisa calling her a ‘dyke’ we an assume that is why. This makes her a social outcast, and in the 60’s being admitted to a mental hospital was frequently the answer for people like Cynthia. Then we have Polly, a burn victim with severe body image issues. While Polly’s issues are understandable, she isn’t crazy. She could easily function in society, but she knows that society will reject her outer appearance so she shields herself at Claymoore. Without the pressures of what society considers ‘beautiful’ Polly would be perfectly fine and able to lead a normal life. Even Lisa, master manipulator, could function easily in society. It is never found out why she was admitted, if there was a specific event that ensured her admittance, but she isn’t insane. Lisa is a sociopath, and sociopaths are inherently selfish people who manipulate others. There are plenty of people in this world who do the same thing, even worse, but where’s their excuse? Maybe it’s because these people are usually men and Lisa isn’t, maybe it was just because she did something terrible. As a whole, many of the patients at Claymoore seem to be driving themselves and each other insane, but they didn’t arrive that

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Rosenhan would also not take the medication by later spitting it out in the bathroom, just like the other patients in there. Rosenhan says, “… how all the other patients were doing this too, being fed their medication and heading en masse to the toilets, and how no one much cared so long as they were well behaved” (Slater 61). They should not be able to get away with this. Rosenhan also talks about how the mental patients are “invisible” to the nurses there, “unworthy of account.” “He describes a nurse coming into the dayroom, unbuttoning her shirt, and fixing her bra.”

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Insanity is a deranged state of the mind. Not everyone has the same experiences nor the same symptoms which lead to their mental disorder. In her story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents a peculiar case of insanity. The main character is put on bed rest to overcome her temporary nervous depression. However, while being stuck inside the room, the unreliable narrator increasingly becomes more and more symptomatic.

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The governess understands her place in the household. She knows what her job is and does not fail to carry out her duties in terms of protecting the children. A sane person is one who can carry out their regular duties without being affected by their mental state. Because of the governess fits this description, it is obvious that she can only be classified as sane because she not only feels compassion for the children, but fulfills her duties by putting their needs before her own.

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In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Susanna is told that she is mentally ill. They treat her for borderline personality disorder when she does not feel that she has any mental illness at all. When she arrives at the institution she feels as though she does not fit in as she does not see herself as crazy. In Kaysen’s memoir, she is being hyper-treated by the doctors and nurses

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What exactly defines one as “insane” versus “sane”, and where is the boundary between the two? Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores exactly that: the short story initially seems to be a tale of a 19th century woman forced into the notorious rest cure popularized at the time by male doctors--however, as the plot progresses, it becomes a much deeper commentary not only on societal limitations imposed on women, but also on the blurred line separating sanity from insanity. Gilman explores the boundary between sanity and insanity with the usage of different literary elements; she expresses how the boundary is “paper-thin” through the usage of symbolism, shows the subtle conversion to insanity by utilizing a stream of consciousness

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In the book Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, one of the biggest focal points is mental illness. Mental illness can be tough to talk about, simply because the phrase “mental illness” encompasses such a wide range of conditions and conjures up images of deranged people, but it is very important, especially in this book. There is a certain stigma that people who are put into mental hospitals because they have medical problems or are insane and a possible danger to society. While this is sometimes true, it is far more common for patients to need help for a disorder, but just don’t know where to go or what to do, and can end up putting themselves or someone else in danger.

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Psychoanalysts’ understand human personality through behaviors by looking into experiences, including the origin of emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Through the analysis of the movie Girl, Interrupted, many of the characters behave in all sorts of manners, ranging from being unreasonable, frightened, happy, sad, or disturbed due to their varieties of behaviors. All the characters include different ailments that affect the way they act, respond, and interpret situations. In accordance with personality theories, the movie Girl, Interrupted explores the memoir of a young woman through personality disorders, traits, and humanism during her stay in a McLean psychiatric institution during the 1960’s. Susanna Kaysen, the protagonist, is diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder, due to her attempt at suicide by consuming an entire bottle of alcohol with aspirin.

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Girl, Interrupted, written by Susanna Kaysen in 1967, is a thought provoking memoir following her and fellow parents’ tragic and twisted experiences in McLean Mental Hospital. As a young adult Susanna Kaysen tried to commit suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills and following it with a bottle of alcohol. Her parents were very worried about her and suggested her to go to a doctor that her dad once knew. Kaysen visited the doctor who, after talking to her for a while, requested that she be sent to one of the best mental hospitals in her area. She had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

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