Girl Interrupted

Have any of you seen the movie, Girl Interrupted, or better yet have you read the book? If not I highly recommend this classic the next time you are bored on a rainy day. There are several scenes and or scenarios that left me feeling flabbergasted, astounded, and or enthralled with the books chaotic style and themes. The driving force in which motivated me in my decision to choose Girl Interrupted for this week’s blog topic is the fact that the books distinct chaotic aura arouses interesting debates and discussions. After I sat back and reflected I realized a few situations in the book that proved to fuel these fiery debacles, such as whether or not a stream of conscience was used, multiple controversial topics, and the articulately defined and developed characters.

Stream of conscience is a term derived from William James in 1890 (tnellen.com). To put this type of literary tool in laymen’s terms, stream of consciousness is a unique tool for narrating used to "capture the full spectrum and the continuous flow of a character's mental process (tnellen.com)". In the book this is more relevant to the fact that in certain scenes one is left pondering whether or not the scene was taking place in reality or if the scene was a mere figment of the main characters', Susanna Kaysen's, imagination. Here is an impeccable example, Jim Watson’s visit which oddly enough was her only visitor for her entire two year stay and was only mentioned in the book once. Another odd fact about this scene is the significance of Jim Watson; he is known worldwide for his discovery of the double helix in DNA and won the noble prize. This fun fact strikes me as out of the ordinary because it does not seem like these two characters would likely cross paths in their daily lives, since he is famous and Susanna is sick and in medical care for borderline personality disorder; weird yet interesting.

More and more weird yet Controversial subjects are overflowing like a clogged toilet in Girl Interrupted. It is definitely difficult for me to narrow the subjects down to discuss because of this abundance of important issues presented, and I feel that all of these issues are all revolving around the era the book depicts, which is the 1960’s. In my opinion when Susanna agrees to marry while she is still in the hospital, McLean, she is getting married because she feels that it will help her get out of the hospital and magically vanish all of her mental instability. As we all know getting married on these ground rules is a recipe for disaster.

As I mentioned above, Susanna is in a medical ward called Mclean Hospital which is the basic setting of this tale. Most of the main characters are patients at McLean and interact on a daily routine type of schedule. Every character narrated in the book is intricately defined and conjured. The author paints a perfectly detailed masterpiece while introducing these characters and their quirky personalities. By the time I had finished the book I felt as if I personally knew each and every character as if they were a part of my family or even famous. These personalities are what creates the allure and passion for Girl Interrupted and at the end I could not turn the pages fast enough to see what resulted in the chaotic life of Susanna Kaysen.

Yet again I would like to spread the word that this book is now one of my top five favorite books of all time. If I have not sparked a light in any one’s heart I promise that these characters will rekindle that flame. Between the insane characters, the flashbacks, and the common controversies of the sixties, this book and even the movie should leave you wondering what actually defines a person as insane or possibly sane?