Girl Interrupted Susanna Kaysen Summary

Susanna Kaysen’s “Girl, Interrupted” is a memoir of an impacting component of her life. Her story follows a part of her life as she enters into a psychiatric hospital in order to better herself during the 1960s because of a drug overdose. Even though Kaysen plans on staying just a few short weeks, she ends up staying there for nearly two years. While remaining in the psychiatric hospital, readers are introduced to some of her experiences that she has dealt with and tells the stories of others who are residing there as well. While Susanna Kaysen was 18 years old, she was discovered taking a plethora of pills which doctors thought to be a suicide attempt because of the overdose that followed. All the while at this tender age, she has already

All of these girls are in the hospital for different significant reasons, but still are there to better themselves as well. Throughout the story, Susanna describes some of their personal experiences as well. With many disfigurements on her body, Polly is admitted for setting herself on fire and is a victim of depression and schizophrenia, similar to Georgina, who is Susanna’s roommate. Lisa Rowe is hospitalized for being a sociopath and trying to escape McLean Hospital on numerous occasions and is always in confrontation with Lisa Cody, who is also a sociopath. Daisy is sent there seasonally during Thanksgiving up until Christmas because she suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder in which she keeps the carcasses of chickens. Torrey is hospitalized because of her drug addiction to meth. Even though every single one of these girls that are hospitalized is here for different reasons, they all are placed at Mclean Hospital for one reason only, to work on themselves. Although they are there to work on themselves, they end up helping each other out by comparing themselves to one another with the rhetorical question “Am I that

Liberty is a theme in certain sections in the story because that is what was taken from them. Susanna and the girls have many limitations on what they can and cannot do. Since they are at McLean Hospital, all of them also have many expectations placed upon them in order to leave the hospital. Those like Lisa Rowe and Torrey wanted their freedom back by trying to escape. They no longer have the freedom to do what they want. Their everyday lives were taken from them. These ladies are grown women who have to be monitored. “Girl, Interrupted” teaches you to cherish the freedom you have and to always remember that someone else is going through a rougher time than you are. Responsibility is a theme in “Girl, Interrupted”. While staying in McLean Hospital, the girls have to learn to accept responsibility for their own actions. Also, while being hospitalized, none of them are in school or have jobs, so they do not really have to focus on those things like other people their age. All they are supposed to focus on is how to better themselves and realize that their actions are not only affecting them but others around them as well, seeing as how their loved ones sent them