Summary Of Girl Interrupted By Susanna Kaysen

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen – a Boston student struggling with an elusive form of mental illness does a stint in McLean Hospital, befriends inmates with serious disorders and identifies with them to the point of becoming wholly absorbed in their world. The death of a friend and other dark incidents motivate her to find her way out of the institution to a healthier life. Susanna Kaysen answers the call to fight her own self destructiveness, endures the tests of a mental institution and the hardships of her fellow patients, to reach the ultimate boon of finding her own acceptance.
Girl, Interrupted is based on author, Susanna Kaysen’s, personal anecdote of her stay in a psychiatric hospital. Set in the 1960s, during the women’s liberation movement; a failed

suicide and her constant promiscuous behavior lands Susanna at McLean Hospital. While there, Susanna meets Valerie, a nurse who sees right through Susanna’s self-destructive ways; and Lisa, a sociopath who tries to take Susanna on a downward spiral with her. Susanna also comes face to face with a plethora of real disorders and problems, from women who need more than just guidance. After experiencing life in confinement, Susanna starts anew with McLean to continue on her path of discovering a constructive future.
With every Hero’s Journey the adventure always begins at home; Susanna’s home happens to be one of a psychological state.

Susanna is constantly plagued with deep thoughts of negativity, and suicide. In a time when women did not have as many rights as men did, women who viewed the world differently where considered damaging to themselves. “There is little to signify that the story is taking place during the flamboyant sixties, a period that would encourage some to comment that the whole country was crazier than most of the so-called loonies in the psychiatric centers” (Karten). For Susanna, the call to move beyond the known, is having to suppress those thoughts the only way Susanna knows how, attempting to silence them with a bottle of aspirin and vodka. An indirect cry for help encourages Susanna’s conservative parents to arrange Susanna’s stay at McLean, a psychiatric hospital, to receive the help she needs. Susanna, though disoriented from her attempted suicide, accepts the call immediately. Signing herself in to McLean, there is a glimpse of the real Susanna yearning to recognize the need for help. But she cannot do it alone. Susanna will need her supernatural aids to accompany her on the

journey.