Pleitez 1

Erika Pleitez

Prof. Kane

English 115 MW

17 December 2018

E3.2: Susanna Kaysen as a Narrator

Sanity and insanity are separated by a borderline that distinguishes between people who

are aware of the reality they reside in and those who have lost their sense of the world because of

false interpretations. People who are sane, by societal standards, function well and have the

ability to distinguish real events from fantasy, but those who are insane are unable to do so and

are more likely to resort to uncontrollable behavior as well as being labeled “mentally ill.” In the

memoir, Girl Interrupted, author Susanna Kaysen, who was diagnosed with borderline

personality disorder as an 18-year old, describes her experiences when she resided at the McLean

mental institution. Judging by Susanna’s obsessions and the delusion that she believes she is not

mentally ill and thinks she is correct in all her observations, it makes her an unreliable narrator

for the fact that we do not know if her interpretations of the environment and patients around her

are truthful or exaggerated because of her diagnosis and how much it can cause a disruption in

her head.

It is difficult to believe that Susanna Kaysen is a reliable narrator as she constantly battles

between her own arguments of proving that she is not mentally insane, the contradicting

descriptions of her own behavior, and as well as claiming she is correct in her observations

without realizing others who may have hard evidence, such as the doctor. She claims insanity is

just a “matter of dropping the act” and believes that other people suffer from the same troubled

perceptions while pretending they do not see them at all (41). She may appear to be balanced on
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the borderline between sanity and insanity for her awareness of the world, specifically residing at

the mental institution, but in several experiences, it is proven that she has dived further into

insanity based on her impulses, obsessions, and false interpretations. In one experience, Kaysen

challenges the reader to either believe her or the doctor regarding her evaluation, which took

about three hours according to the doctor’s report, corroborated by one admission form;

although, she claimed it was only thirty or twenty minutes which is corroborated by a different

admission form and proceeds to present evidence like “the Time Admitted line from the Nurse’s

Report of Patient on Admission. From that I can reconstruct everything. It reads 1:30 P.M.” and

argues that she is correct while the doctor is incorrect (71-72). This verifies she has an obsession

of proving she is not crazy and wants the reader to believe in her perceptions of sanity vs

insanity. Susanna then challenges her diagnosis. She questions what exactly is borderline

personality disorder and continues to relate to other illnesses, such as, manic depression or

schizophrenia and states “that’s real insanity” unlike her own where it is more of a definition of

adolescence (151) and compares similar symptoms of depression, manic episodes, or having a

distorted self-image with her own diagnosis. However, Susanna contradicts herself when she

admits to some instabilities, such as, practicing self-mutilation or having a distorted self-image

that interferes with her life even though she believes she is not a danger to herself or thinks

nothing is wrong with her compared to others who are diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar

disorder.

Throughout her memoir, Susanna constantly battles in trying to prove that she lies on the

borderline of sanity and insanity but it is a contradiction to her character when she tries to do so

for that she is on the line of insanity. She asks herself “Had I stopped arguing with my

personality and learned to straddle the line between sane and insane?”(154). On the other hand,
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another experience contradicts her argument of being sane where she wonders whether or not she

is human by self-mutilating her hand to find bones (102). Susanna’s doubting mind is trapped in

believing she is not insane and that it dives into the idea, stated in Descartes: The Solitary Self, “I

am, I exist...I am a real thing and really existent; but what thing?” and continues to harm herself

to prove that point (Bramann). She later admits after Nurse Valerie gives her Thorazine

following her paranoia about existing brought on by identifying with Torrey’s fatalism and

Torrey’s relationship with her parents, “now I was really crazy, and nobody could take me out of

there” (104). This admission relates to how it is difficult to see if she is a reliable narrator due to

the drastic measures she takes to prove she stands on the borderline of sanity and insanity.

Moreover, she constantly contradicts herself in several other experiences where she has, indeed,

passed the borderline from sanity to insanity, for example, having difficulties distinguishing

faces of other people or contemplating suicide by imagining herself dying in different ways

because of certain situations like avoiding writing a paper (36).

Susanna may be seen as an unreliable narrator for that we do not know if her descriptions

of her experiences at McLean or about the patients are exaggerated because of her diagnosis;

although, she has described a few experiences that consists of logical and abstract reasoning that

may possibly define her as a reliable narrator. For example, she further analyzed the inner

consciousness claiming that it contains two interpreters: one that reports from the world and

needs data, and one that is the analyst and needs an overview; in other words, she describes the

sensations from the five senses and the perception from the brain; additionally, Susanna

describes an example where the interpreters have trouble distinguishing a tiger from a bureau or

if a train is moving (138-141). This view provides clarity because not only do mentally ill people

experience these interpretations, normal people also experience the same and, in Susanna’s
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words, “doubting one’s own craziness is considered a good sign: It’s a sort of flailing response

by the second interpreter” (141). Here, she does not show signs of insanity but more of logical

reasoning. Furthermore, she makes a connection to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” where

chained up men interpret their perceptions based on the shadows projected on the wall by a

bonfire inside the cave with a neurosis: you see the symptoms but not the underlying problem.

Susanna concludes, “everything in the world is just a shadow of some real thing we can’t see”

(122). Susanna’s interpreters can be seen as “deceptive; and it is wise never to rely entirely on

those who have deceived us once” (Bramann). She also proves to be reliable when she describes

her experience, which precedes her time at McLean, working as a typist where she had a difficult

time following rules and being reprimanded by her boss (131-133). It was odd when Susanna

believed it was her madness but she came to realize that all typists were women and came to the

conclusion that it was only sexism since the 60s were the time of fighting for women’s rights so

her perceptions were, indeed, correct and not exaggerated by her diagnosis.

Susanna dives so much into trying to prove that she is not insane that it does make her

seem insane; although, she may in fact be less crazy than other patients in McLean for those

experiences she encountered. For example, she can be seen as less insane compared to the

patient, Alice Calais, who, at first, seemed normal but Susanna and the other girls saw that she

was taken into maximum security and her room was smeared with her own feces. Susanna is also

less insane than Daisy who is obsessed with chicken and laxatives and her room is even filled

with chicken. In the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Billy, who suffers from stuttering,

may be on the same level as Susanna where they might both have a distorted self-image. The

distorted self-image Billy feels is the insecurity with confidence, such as standing up to people of

high authority like Nurse Ratched or his mother because of the fact that he is so timid, fearful,
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and believes he is not strong enough to face the world. Susanna’s self-image is also distorted as

she states, “I saw myself, quite correctly, as unfit for the educational and social systems” and

also mentions that her parents saw something else, “Their image of me was unstable, since it was

out of kilter with reality and based on their needs and wishes” (155). Susanna also attempted to

commit suicide by trying to consume fifty aspirin and almost succeeded except, for Billy, he

eventually succeeded before anyone could prevent him (37). Throughout the memoir, Susanna is

labeled as the insane by her diagnosis and how her own parents had this distorted self-image of

her. However, it is almost as if she will not rest until all of her readers agree with her so that she

will not further stay with the label of insane. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, however, the

main character, Randle McMurphy, fakes mental illness in order to escape prison and expects to

live in luxury or at least his ease in the mental institution. He does not focus too much in proving

that he is not insane and rather lets things play out, as well as motivating the other male patients

to enjoy life. Throughout the film, however, he makes plans to escape by betting the other male

patients so he can watch the World Series along with supposed deaf and mute patient, “Chief”

Bromden. Additionally, at one moment in the film during a therapy session with Nurse Ratched,

McMurphy tries to challenge hospital rules about being committed and being able to freely come

back to the mental institution because he sees that authority is a big factor in the area and wants

the patients to experience some sense of freedom. This demonstrates how both Susanna and

McMurphy have that idea of distinguishing between the sane and insane, even if McMurphy

wanted to escape for a series and and how both want to escape from the limitations set by society

against those who are mentally ill and to question why the several who are insane are

automatically committed and yet not able to have freedom outside. This connects how both

Susanna and McMurphy have that idea of challenging the sane and insane even if both their
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goals are different where McMurphy wants to only escape for a series and Susanna wants to

prove her sanity and share her experiences of the institution. There can also be an agreement that

both McMurphy and Susanna are, indeed, mentally ill with Susanna diagnosed with borderline

personality disorder while McMurphy could possibly hint signs of antisocial personality

disorder, judging by the interactions with the male patients, such as, not paying any mind that the

other patients could get caught at the hospital party or using them to fulfill his needs like turning

on the television.

The reader can conclude that Susanna Kaysen is not a reliable narrator based on how she

describes her experiences at the McLean hospital even if there were times where she may have

been reliable. At times, she can be reliable, such as her experience with her typist job or facing

difficulties distinguishing what’s moving or not moving but because of her constant questioning

of the world, how much she challenges her own diagnosis, how much she challenges whether or

not she is insane or sane, people may assume that she is crazy or her questioning is an act of

defense and resistance so that she can escape quicker and not fall back into that loop of constant

questioning only because of her diagnosis.

Work Cited

Bramann, Jorn K. “Descartes: The Solitary Self – Abridged.” (from The Educating Rita

Workbook).

Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. 1st Vintage Books ed., New York: Turtle Bay Books, 1993.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Directed by Miloš Forman, Fantasy Films, 19 Nov. 1975.

Plato. “The Allegory of the Cave.” The Republic.