Villanueva 1

Carla Villanueva
Professor Kane
English 115 mw
28 November 2016

E3.1: Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysens Girl, Interrupted recounts her two years at McLean Hospital after
being admitted from a failed suicide attempt at the age of 18. The probability of recounting false
past experiences is very high, especially after 25 years. There is a chance that she could have left
important information on her insanity out. However, from the parts of her experience at McLean
Hospital that she chose to include in her book, it seemed as if she was sane enough to be released
since she had made significant progress from before she was admitted.
Susanna was voluntarily admitted to McLean because of her suicidal attempt at 18. The
premise of going to a mental institution is so that the insane can go back to their sane selves to go
back out to society. To be sane can be defined by being able to think rationally and with reason
whereas those who are insane can be defined by not acting rationally and neglecting their own
health. In Susannas case, she was insane because she tried to take her own life by taking 50
aspirin. During her time at McLean, there is a chance that she might have omitted some parts of
her story, but from what she had chosen to write in her book, she did seem insane. On August 24,
1967, there was a progress note that read that Susanna suffered an episode of
depersonalizationat which she talked about wanting to cut herself to see whether she would
bleed to prove to herself that she was a real person(105). This episode shows her insanity
because she is neglecting her personal health by harming herself to try to prove to herself that

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she is real. However, after she was released, she didnt mention any suicidal attempts and
through writing this book she seems to have the capability to think rationally.
Susanna is not a reliable narrator because she is writing with her own personal bias. We
are seeing things through only one perceived reality and that is what she is experienced. Even
though she did experience these events happening as they did, they could not be accurate because
she wrote those 25 years after their occurrence. She is writing this based off of her memory and
the documents that she had acquired to write this book. Memory is unreliable which can cause to
misremember past events so it is possible that not all the events that happened, could have played
out the way they did or many essential details could have been left out. When remembering past
events, especially ones that happened 25 years ago, theyre not remembering the event with a
fresh mind, they are remembering the last time they recalled that memory. Each time Susanna
Kaysen reflected back to those memories at her time at McLean hospital, it's possible that each
time was just a little different than the last and she even says, Youd have to wonder how much
of what Im telling you is true and how much imagined.(Kaysen 151). The book she wrote is
from her altered memory of her experiences at the hospital which means it is unreliable.