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Girl Interrupted

             The movie Girl Interrupted, directed by James Mangold, is based upon the book of the same title by Susanna Kaysen. Girl Interrupted is about mental illness and the fight for self realization. The role society has defined for the main character, Susanna Kaysen, is a portrayal of a woman searching for the true meaning of life in a mental hospital. She is a woman who wants to be a writer, rather than fall in the footsteps of her homemaker mother. She is institutionalized not for being clinically insane but because she doesn't fit into the role that society has defined for her in the 1960's and thus she has turned in on herself by attempting to commit suicide. The central focus of the story is the actual institutionalization of the writer and her first hand accounts of life in a mental institution. Mangold handles the movie with extreme sensitivity as he chose to highlight several details to emphasize how the patients cope with the use and abuse of drug treatment in the facility.
             First, Mangold depicts Susanna as an unsympathetic protagonist. She is a teenager just out of high school that hasn't a clue as to what she is feeling, or where she is going. She is having premarital sex and didn't enter into college like most of her peers had during the Vietnam War, so her peers and elders see her as a problem. However, Susanna feels that she is the only sane person within miles. She can't seem to understand why she must take the medications given by the nurse. Mangold brings us this disturbing look into a young woman's mind. .
             Another detail is the use of the sterile halls of an up-scale mental hospital to portray the cold atmosphere of the institution. All of the women are given medications daily and nightly. They do not have the option to refuse their medications. They are warned about being "difficult" for even questioning what medication is for. It seems to be the goal of the staff to sedate the patients as much as possible to keep them from being any trouble.


Essays Related to Girl Interrupted

1. Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted Book Report: Girl, Interrupted Sane or normal people have wondered at one time or another what it is like in a hospital that houses the insane. ... Girl, Interrupted, written by Susanna Kaysen, is a documentation of her tay in a psychiatric hospital including events building up to her taxi ride to the hospital and her recovery period outside the hospital. ... She viewed a Vermeer titled Girl Interrupted at Her Music which she remembered seeing twenty years ago with her high school English teacher. She had made a connection with the painting all those years ago and now...

  • Word Count: 1226
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Girl Interrupted

Girl Interrupted The non-fiction I have chosen to write about that had a very powerful impact on me is "Girl Interrupted" by Susanna Kaysen. ... I was drawn to Girl Interrupted and whatever room I left it in. ... Girl, Interrupted leaves you wondering what exactly Susanna Kaysen makes of her past. ... Emotionally gripping, Girl, Interrupted is very honest and thought provoking, causing the reader to look inside themselves as well as the common nature of humans. ...

  • Word Count: 1385
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Girl Interrupted

The main character is Susanna Kaysen a troubled young girl. ... She really does not fit into this setting, until one day a girl name Lisa arrives. ... After a few months all the girls in the clinic decide to break into Dr. ... Suzanne gets a lawyer to retrieve her file from the hospital and with this information she writes the book "Girl Interrupted". ...

  • Word Count: 404
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Girl, Interrupted review

GIRL, INTERRUPTED. ... Apart from Georgina, Susanna talks quite a bit about some of the other patients, among them a girl named Lisa. ... Another girl named Polly set herself on fire using gasoline at an age when she wasn't even old enough to drive. ... She is viewing a Vermeer titled Girl Interrupted at Her Music when she remembers she has seen it sixteen years ago when she went off with her English professor. Back then she made a connection with the painting all those years ago and now she realizes that the girl had been interrupted from her music just how she had been interrupted fr...

  • Word Count: 1114
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Girl Interrupted

I read the book Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen for my book review. It is a non-fiction story of a mentally ill girl who is admitted into a psychiatric hospital. The book is filled with her own thoughts, which is quite interesting to know exactly what a mentally ill person is thinking about. S...

  • Word Count: 410
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Girl Interrupted

On the outside she looked like a normal teenage girl going to high school. ... Susanna mentioned that the girl in the painting looked up from her work to warn her. Sixteen years later she went back to that same painting that bares the title of the book "Girl, interrupted at her music." ... Polly was a young girl who attempted suicide by lighting herself on fire. ... All of these girls became very close and formed strong and lasting relationships. ...

  • Word Count: 1200
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Girl, Interrupted by Susan Kaysen

Susan Kaysen's autobiographical novel "Girl, Interrupted", is a story based on her struggles with a personality disorder and her time spent in the women's psychiatric ward at McLean Hospital. ... Then another new girl arrives, who is named Torrey. ... Another new girl arrives, whose name is Alice. ... When the girls go to visit her, her room is disgusting and the living conditions are horrid, which makes the girls vow to never let the same thing happen to them. ... "Girl, Interrupted" shows what the life of girls with these various disorders was like, and also the effects of them. ...

  • Word Count: 876
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography

8. Where is the Love

Anyone who doesn't have a re-collection of that film before, during or after 'Girl, Interrupted', is not a movie fan or has a very short memory. ... To its obvious credit, the saving grace in 'Girl, Interrupted', comes from its bonding of the characters involved. ... GIRL, INTERRUPTED and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO"S NEST are films set in mental institutions during the 1960's. ... But GIRL, INTERRUPTED is a movie for the nineties. ... It is with this highly evolved nineties perspective that GIRL, INTERRUPTED describes the atmosphere of 60's institutions. ...

  • Word Count: 1520
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

9. Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen

The book Girl, Interrupted, is more of a collection of brief essays on Susanna Kaysen's experiences rather than a story, contains more of Susanna's personal insight on her disorder and allows the reader to become more intimate with Susanna. ... She describes the other girls in her ward: a sociopath, a pathological liar, a girl that is sexually abused, a girl that lit herself on fire, etc. ... There is no plot, the book is simply a gathering of her observations from her inner self, other patients and their lives, and the world in that year in which Susanna's life was interrupted...

  • Word Count: 1433
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

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