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Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen

Important Quotations Explained

Sections 31–34

Key Facts

Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.
These words, from the opening chapter “Toward a Topography of the Parallel Universe,” illustrate the “parallel universe” inhabited by the mentally ill. Kaysen describes the ease with which a person can slip into this other reality, tempted by glimpses through the thin “membrane” that separates the sane from the insane. Once inside, a new set of rules replaces the conventions of life on the outside. The cruel irony of life in the “parallel universe” is embodied by a person’s perfect awareness of the reality left behind. The afflicted mind is still very much aware of the world it has abandoned. Kaysen compares this alternate reality to a prison, but notes that even the worst prisons occasionally allow glimpses of something beautiful. Thus, being mentally ill can be worse than being in prison.
Freedom was the price of privacy.
Kaysen describes the patients’ loss of freedom in the chapter “Applied Topography.” Locked in the dehumanizing world of the hospital ward, the girls are stripped of privacy. The only private space on the ward is the seclusion room. The nurses banish the violent or rowdy to seclusion, but Kaysen discovers that the experience can be something other than punishment. The seclusion room is the only place where a patient can find reprieve from the relentless watch of nurses and the oppressive feeling of the wards. The seclusion offers a brief reprieve from the ward in exchange for the ability to move around freely.
“Hey man,” said Lisa, “it passes the time.”
Lisa throws a tantrum in the “Security Room” chapter, demanding that the nurses open her locked window. Lisa yells and curses at the staff, promising to call her lawyer if her needs aren’t met. This is a typical tactic for Lisa, who knows that the nurses value calm and order; they will accommodate her if only to shut her up. Once the window is open, Valerie realizes that Lisa never cared about the window; she was simply entertaining herself. Trapped in an airless hospital ward with nothing but familiar faces and a television, Lisa’s energies require release. She is honest when confronted. With no prospect of getting out of the hospital anytime soon, Lisa is just trying to kill some time.
It’s a fairly accurate portrait of me at eighteen, minus a few quirks like reckless driving and eating binges. It’s accurate but it isn’t profound.
Speaking in the chapter “My Diagnosis,” Kaysen confronts the judgment of her doctors some twenty-five years later. Labeled a borderline personality, Kaysen considers the aptness of the diagnosis. In responding to each of the elements of the borderline personality disorder, she concedes that much of her adolescent behavior fit the definition. Yet in her charge that the designation is “accurate” but not “profound,” Kaysen explores the nature of mental illness and how it is diagnosed. Fads rise and fall with the decades as one diagnosis succeeds another as the popular illness of the day. Many of the behaviors described could also, if examined outside the scope of mental illness, be excused as typical or harmless. Kaysen doesn’t argue that she was healthy; rather, she cautions her readers that a diagnosis isn’t the sum of a personality.

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The answer to question 17 is incorrect

by texasfocus, April 19, 2014




1 out of 1 people found this helpful

Number 5 is incorrect

by danakimberley, July 25, 2015

5. What does Jim Watson offer to do for Kaysen?
Sparknotes says the correct answer is
(C) Help her escape to New York
but the real correct answer is
(A) Take her to England.

Why is question 22, answer A?

by SeeingAuras, January 25, 2016
