Pages 150- 168

Susanna tells of how she hasd to hire a lawyer to get her records from McLean. This is ow she finds out that she has Borderline personality Disorder. She has some disagreements to this claim. She relates some aspects of the disorder to her life but there are also other aspects that are totally wrong and can realte to everyone. She tells of how many of the symptoms can be traced back to many girls her age such as promiscuity, and self damaging activities. Susanna tells about all fo the girls and where tey are now. georgina is out and living in Canbride, her and Susanna keep in touch. She is married. A few years later Susanna runs into Lisa in Harvard Square. She is much more reformed than she was while in the jospital. She has a young son now and cares for him very well. Susanna tels the brief story of her short affair with her high school English teacher. This seems ot be a part of her self damaging activities due to her disorder. Susanna ends the story with a short paragraph briefly stating that all people wish to be young, beautiful, and joyful to others.

1. In your opinon, does Susanna show obvious signs of Borderline personality Disorder?
2. How has Lisa changed?
3. Has Susanna changed since leaving the hospital?

Pages 131-150

Susannas 1 and a half years living arrangement with McLean is coming to an end. She is trying to figure out what to do when she is out. She becomes offended when her social woker tries to force her to become a dental assistant. Susanna doesn't want to be pressured into her future. She is also offended because Susanna tells her that she wants to e a writer and the social workercalls it a "nice hobby" (133). Susanna is let out of the hospital in 1968, at the age of 19 because she receives a marriage proprosal. Susanna meets her future husband at a play aorund Christmas time in Cambridge. Their relationship is not a romantic one and Susanna and him ultimately break up. Susanna says that "[She] wanted to be going on alone to [her] future" (136). Susanna gives a description of how a sane mind ans a psychotic one work differently. She describes how a psychopath would see a tiger rather than a bureau in a room. She discusses how analysts are writing about the mind while neuroscientists write about the brain. Susanna gives an excerpt from the DSM III that talks about Borderline Personality Disorder and what its symptoms, effects, and patterns are.

1. How well will Susanna do once she is out of McLean?
2. Why is Susanna so offended when the social worker tells her to be a dental assistant?
3. Does the description of Borderline Personality Disorder fit the description of Susannas issues?

Pages 104-131

Susanna has an abcess tooth. Valerie takes her to her dentist in Boston to get it removed. When Susanna wake sup form her surgery she is shocked by how fast time went by. She has no recollection of it because she was under anesthesia. She demands to know how much time it took for te surgery. Susanna demands that "[She's] lost some time and [she needs] to know how much. [She needs] to know"(109). A new girl comes to live in the hospital. Her name is Alice Calais. She was unintroduced to many modern products. The girls were fascinated by her. After about a month, Alica has a freakout. She begans yelling and throwing things around. Lisa goes into Alices room one day and sees that Alica nd her entire room are covered in her own feces. Susanna's Analyst, Melvin, dies. She attempts to analyze his id, ego, and superego. Susanna discusses how difficult it is to get a job and attempt to have a real life while living in the hospital. The address gives awaythe fact that they are institutionalized and this gievs the girls far less of a chance to get a job. She also tells of the negative reactions that they receive when they tell others where they live and that they were at McLean.

1. What does Susannas loss of time represent?
2. Why do you think Alice doesn't know of many modern products?
3. What reactions are received when the girls tell potential boss' that they stayed at McLean?

Pages 75-104

Susanna intoduces the head nurse, Valerie to us. She is well respected and admired by the girls. The girls see their therapists once a day. These sessions last only about 5-10 minutes. Susanna also introduces us to Mrs. McWeeney. She is the night nurse and all of the girls dislike her, she is shrill and rude. There are also interns that come and help at the hospital. The girls live vicariously through them because they are able to live the lives that they were denied. A hispanic girl named Torrey comes to live in the hospital. The girls become very fond of her and when she is told that her parents are coming up to take her home the girls protest it. Susanna also has a psychotic episode. She becomes obsessed with her hands. She attempts to bite through her hand to make sure that it is real. This causes her to be given a heave dosage of thorazine that tranquilizes her.

1. How do Valerie and Mrs. McWeeney affect the girls?
2. How do the girls live through the interns?
3. What does Susannas episode prove?

Pages 43-75

Susanna describes the layout of her wing of the hospital. She tells of the blackboard that names all of the girls and their locations, the seclusion rooms, and their own dormitories. Every week the girls go out to ice cream at a local parlor. They were told to behave as well as they could but some still chose to act out. They just wanty to behave as themselves because as they say "It was all [they] had-- the truth" (51). Susanna explains the routine of checks that go on in the hospital. The nurses routinely open the dorrs to the patients rooms and say "checks" as they scan the room for the people they are looking for. Another Lisa comes into the hospital. She is also a sociopath and falls under the wing of the original Lisa. She ecentually escapes and becomes a junkie. Susanna debates on how long it took her to be admitted into the hospital. The doctor claims that it took much longer than she believes.

1. What purpose does the blackboard in the wing serve?
2. How would yopu react if you were subjected to 5, 10, or 15 minute checks.
3. How did the girls react to the second Lisa, specifically the original Lisa?
4. Who do you believe in the theories of how long it took Susanna to be committed?

Pages 5-42

Suasanna is admitted into McLean Hospital after a 20 minute session with her psychiatrist. She is institutionized because she is depressed and suicidal. Susanna discusses what makes a person "insane". Susanna introduces the reader to the girls she is living with. These girls include Polly, Cynthia, Daisey, Lisa, and Georgina. Lisa continuously runs away. She is seen as the leader of the girls. Susanna has a visitor, Jim. He is a former friend of hers and they begin to date. We are also introduced to georginas boyfriend, a fellow inmate named Wade. The is also the first time we see Daisey. Daisey is a depressed aneorexic. She only comes for certain weeks thorughout the year. Susanna talks about her attempted suicide, which involved her swallowing pills and going out in the street.

1. Do you think Susanna needed to be admitted into McLean?
2. What disorder do you think she has?
3. Is it beneficial to the girls living in the hospital to have significant others in or outside of the hospital?
4. Does it seem like Susanna really wanted to kill ehrself? Or was she just reacting to all of her emotions inside?

Images

Susanna always dreamed of being a writer, this dream was fulfilled when she wrote this book on her life.


Susanna is very careless and would go on many shopping sprees, which is a part of boraderline personallity.


Susanna would sit in a butterfly chair and do wrist banging, this is when she would bang her wrist to make it become black and blue.


Susanna got her wisdom teeth taken at during her time spent at the hospital.


Susanna takes Thorazine to help her cope with borderline personality.


Susanna meets her husband at a Christmas play in Cambridge.


Lisa gets pregnant once she leaves the hospital.



Susanna gets married once she leaves the hospital.


Alice was put into a jail cell because she was so crazy. She wiped feces on the jail cell.


Valerie wore her hair in a tight braid that only Lisa could coaxed her from untieing it.


The supervisor is allowed to smoke, but Susanna is not allowed to. Also, patients are delegated to a certain amount of cigarettes a day, also only at certain times of day.


Cambridge Ma. is where "Girl Interrupted" takes place.


Suanna's hand that was involved in her most violent incident. She attempted to bite through her hand because she feared that it was not real.


The apartment that Dasiy's dad bought her for a Christmas present.


Susanna Kaysen, author and who this book is about.


Lisa, the sociopath.


Paitents go into a secluded room when they get out of control.


Susanna freaksout at the checkered floor of the ice cream shop.


The workers write where each paitent is on the blackboard.


Dasiy's father brings her cooked chickens that she keeps under her bed.

Links

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/persdisorders.html
-This website is a general psychology website on personality disorders. It explains what the Cluster A, B, and C consist of. It explains all the different types of disorders and the effects of each.


"http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1527890/psychological_analysis_of_girl_interrupted.html?cat=72"
-This website is a psychological analysis of the book we are reading. It explains the main character and her disorder. It also explains the other characters and what they have also.

"http://www.queendom.com/advices/advice.htm?advice=283"
-This website is a girl asking a question about how her dad is a borderline sociopath. It is a therapy help website and people can ask questions and the health professionals answer. It is powered by Psychology Today.


http://www.mcleanhospital.org/
- This is the direct website to the McLean Hospital website. It has information about the patient care and education of the hospital. The girls in the book live in the McLean Hospital in Cambridge.

http://borderlinepersonality.ca/ginterrupt.htm
- This is a website for a review of the movie, Girl Interrupted. The book was made into a movie and this reviews both the movie and the book.

http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/newpd.pl
- This is a website where you take a personality test to see how you really feel about life and yourself. Many people who have been in a institution have taken tests such as these.

http://www.psyke.org/bookstore/biography/
-This website is a biography on the author and her four books, Skin Game, Prozac Nation, Wasted, Girl, Interrupted.

http://www.exploringwomanhood.com/interviews/kaysen.htm
This is a written interview of the author, Susanna Kaysen, and exploring womanhood.com

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html
This is a website where it outlines the profile of a sociopath. It has the DSM-IV definition and overview of the disorder.

http://sociopathx.com/
-This website describes the relationships, traits, symptoms, and etc of a sociopath.

http://www.mediacircus.net/girlinterrupted.html
- This website is another movie review of Girl Interrupted, but it also compares the novel to another novel we read in class, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/000839.html
- This is a list of the top 10 psychiatric mental hospitals, mcLean being number 4.

http://www.besthealthmag.ca/embrace-life/mental-health/quiz-are-you-happy
-This website is a happy quiz, the girls sometimes would take tests like this.

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/mental_health/cutting.html
- This is website is about teens who cut their wrists and how they can be helped.

http://www.medicinenet.com/anorexia_nervosa/article.htm
-This website is about anorexia and its causes. Many of the girls have anorexia in the novel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO0hecDCmY0
-This is a real girl's story of her life and suffering borderline personality disorder.

http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Have-Borderline-Personality-Disorder/1960
- This is a support group website for people with borderline personality disorder, people discuss their stories and experiences.

http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Self-Injury/forum/4698338-wrist-banging-may-trigger
-This website is about wrist banging, this is another version of cutting your wrists except banging. Susanna does this in the novel.

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Borderline-Personality-Disorder/Effects-on-Children-When-Untreated-Mother-Has-Disorder/show/505283
-This website is about the effects of children who's mother has untreated borderline personality disorder. Although she was treated and had a child, this is for people who were untreated.

http://unputdownables.net/2011/04/11/girl-interrupted-by-susanna-kaysen/
-This is another overview of the author and her book. IT discusses the novel and the movie.

Quotations/Literary Terms

1) "Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco" (6). This is an example of an allusion because she feels as if she is in a prison. It alludes to the fact that on Alcatraz every woindow can see the outside world of San Fransisco. This is comparible to the fact that the windows of McLean Hospital all show a view of the outside world of Boston, MA.

2) "And somewhat more dangerous things, like putting a gun in your mouth" (17). This is an example of a similie. Susanna is talking about suicide.

3) "50 asprin is a lot of asprin, but going onto the street and fainting is like putting the gun back in the draw" (17). This is Susanna talking about her own attempt of suicide, using a simile.

4) "We might get out sometime, but she was locked up forever in that body" (19). This is an example of an allusion because she is describing Polly and how she is stuck with her burnt body forever.

5) "The fifty aspirin-- But I've explained them. They were metaphorical. I wanted to get rid of a certain aspect of my character. I was performing a kind of self abortion with those aspirin. It worked for a while. Then it stopped, but I had no heart to try again". (39)
Susanna used her attempted suicide as a metaphor to purge herself of the things she did not like. After her abortion she felt somehwat better but this feeling soon faded, and her suicidal thoughts returned.

6) "Polly was walking like a motorized corpse" (23)
The author uses a simile to describe Polly's actions and personality towards life after her attempted suicide.

7) "Something had been peeled back, a covering or shell that works to protect us. I couldn't decide whether the covering was something on me or something attached to everything in the world. It didn't matter, really; wherever it had been, it wasn't there anymore" (42).
The author uses this layer as an allusion to the covers they use to hide their faults.

8) "It's as if she spent her life in a closet" (112).
The author used a simile to describe the isolated life of a patient.

9) "Although you can make yourself dizzy going from vase to faces and back again, you can't undermine your sense of reality in quite such a visceral way as you can with the train" (140).
The author uses a simile to describe the brain facing with reality compared with a train.

10) "Interpreter 1: There's a tiger in the corner.
Interpreter 2: No, that's not a tiger- that's a bureau.
Interpreter 1: It's a tiger, it's a tiger!
Interpreter 2: Don't be ridiculous. Let's go look at it" (139).
The author uses an example of borderline personality disorder in dialouge to show two sides of the mind and having trouble deciding which side is reality.

11) "Her skin was like an accordion; it kept expanding, more and more, until she was holding the flap of skin a foot away from her body" (164).
The author uses a simile to describe Lisa after she had kids.

12) "You ever think of that place?" (164)
The author uses irony to describe that Lisa is living an ordinary life after being in McLean hospital for a long time. Also, she was known as the craziest. When Lisa sees Susanna all she asks is if Susanna ever thinks of it.

13) "First their wonderful smell: They smelled of laundry, clean and hot and slightly electrified, like warmed wiring. Then the temperature: eighty at a minimum, and this when it was thirty-three outside, probably twenty-five with windchill (though in the innocent sixties, windchill, like digital time, hadn't yet been discovered). Their quavery yellow light, their long yellow-tiled walls and barrel-vaulted ceilings, their forks and twists and roads not taken, whose yellow openings beckoned like shiny open mouths. Here and there, on white tiles embedded in the yellow, were signposts: cafeteria, administration, east house" (120).
The author uses imagery to describe the tunnels in the hospital. Susanna becomes obsessed with the tunnels and always visited them.

14) "The rooms were not really rooms. They were cells. They were seclusion rooms, in fact. There wasn't anything in them except bare mattresses with people on them. Unlike our seclusion room, they had windows, but the windows were tiny, high, chicken-wire-enforced, security-screened, barred windows. Most of the doors to the rooms were open, so as we walked down the hall to see Alice, we could see other people lying on their mattresses. Some were naked. Some were not on their mattresses but standing in a corner or curled up against a wall" (113).
The author uses imagery to describe the secluded cells at McLean Hospital. These are the cells people go in when they can barely function, while security watches them at all times.

15) "My legs felt like mattresses, they were so huge and dense" (104).
The author uses a simile to describe how Susanna felt after Valerie gave her Thorazine.

16) "It didn't look special from the outside. It didn't even have extra doors. But inside it was different. The windows had screens like our windows, but there were bars in front of the screens. Little bars, thin and several inches apart, still, they were bars. The bathrooms had no doors, and the toilets had no seats" (113).
The author uses imagery to describe the secluded cells that Alice stays in.

17) "Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside" (95).
The author uses a simile to describe how patients in the hospital are like designated hitters within a family.

18) "I banged the inside, where the veins converge. It swelled and turned a bit blue, but considering how hard and how much I banged it, the visible damage was slight" (153).
The author uses imagery to describe Susanna's wrist-banging. She did it instead of cutting her wrists, to feel pain.

19) "I spent hours in my butterfly chair banging my wrist. I did it in the evenings, like homework" (153).
The author uses a simile to describe that it was like a duty for Susanna to bang her wrist. Wrist-banging became part of her schedule.

20) "The idea of suicide worked on me like a purgative or a cathartic" (158).
The author uses a simile to describe Susanna's suicidal thoughts.

SOAPSTONE

S- Susanna is the speaker. She attempted to commit sucuide by swallowing 50 asprin. She has borderline personality disorder. She was committed by her psychologist to McLean Hospital.

O- 1967, The McLean Hospital

A- The audience of this book is other young girls who have suffered from depression or sucuidal thoughts.

P- The speaker wants to share the story to see herself and her struggles through her time in the hospital.

S- The topic is psychological disorders within young girls.

TONE- The tone is casual and slight sarcastic, she writes it in the format of a jounral entry.

Characters

Susanna- She is the main character and has borderline personality disorder. She is an 18 year old girl and was recently committed to McLean Hospital for attempted sucuide. Purpose: Susanna is in the novel because she tells the whole story to the reader about what happens in the hospital.
Lisa- Lisa is a sociopath. She is the leader of the girls throughout in the hospital.Purpose: Lisa is in the novel to show she is against the hospital and has been there for a while. She also is looked at as the most dominant patient.
Georgina- Georgina is Susanna's roomate. She dates a boy named Wade and he has anger management. Purpose: Georgina is seen as a setady character throughout the novel. She has no obvious quirks and remains out of trouble.
Polly- Polly is a patient at the hospital who set herself on fire and screams at night but acts happy during the day. Purpose: Polly is in the novel to show a patient in the hospital that is dealing with depression.
Daisy- Daisy is anexoeric, her dad bought her her own apartment and her father "wants" her. Purpose: Daisy is in the novel to show a patient that has anorexia in the hospital. Also, her background about her Dad shows that it may be the reason why she is there.
Cynthia- Cynthia is another patient in the hospital who gets electricshocks. She is an unimportant character as of now. Purpose: Cynthia is in the novel to show the effect of electricshocks. She comes back shaky and quiet.
Wade- Wade is Geoginia's boyfriend who has anger management. He wants to be like his father who he claims is a spy. Purpose: Wade is in the novel to show another patient facing problems.
Valerie- Valerie is a nurse at McLean hospital. She is the main nurse at the hospital. Purpose: Valerie is in the novel because she creates order in the hospital, and the girls usually respect her.
Mrs. McWeeny- Mrs. McWeeny is the night nurse, and patients say that she acts insane herself. Purpose: Mrs. McWeeny is in the novel to show the corruptness in the staff and the carelessness about workers in the hospital.
Dr. Wick- She stays with each patient for short amounts of time and doesn't let the girls swear around her. Purpose: Dr. Wick is in the novel to show that the girls need someone with them at all times and cause trouble.
Lisa Cody- Lisa Cody came to the hospital and tried to compete with the actual, dominant Lisa. She would say she was a sociopath. Purpose: Lisa Cody is in the novel to show that no matter what, Lisa will always be the top patient that is the most crazy and will stay there for a very long time. Also, her character shows that Lisa is competitive about other girls being as crazy as her.
Melvin- Susanna's alayst, his first year as an analyst was with Susanna, he ends up dying. Melvin is in the novel to help explain Susanna's thought process when she goes to see him.
Alice Callous- Alice was a girl who didn't know much and acted like she spent her whole life in a closet. She ended up going into the disturbed cells in the hospital. Her purpose in the novel is to show a very bad case in the hospital.

Reading Schedule

April 26th 2011- Read pages 5-42
April 28th 2011- Read pages 43-75
May 2nd 2011- Read pages 75-104
May 4th 2011- Read pages 104- 131
May 6th 2011- Read pages 131- 150
May 8th 2011- Read pages 150- end of book