Beginning Susanna’s journey is her trip to see a doctor, following her suicide attempt to overdose on drugs. Sitting in the doctor’s office, she does not want to believe that she is crazy. While telling the doctor of her suicide attempt, she recounts that she could not decide whether or not she wanted to digest the bottle of aspirin: “Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate” (37). Her psychosis is immediately apparent here as she explains how her mind is absent from her actions, and she complains that she is constantly trapped between 2 ideas. Kaysen is at a constant battle within herself, but refuses to believe that anything is severely wrong with
…show more content…
In Kaysen’s analysis program, one of her doctors arranges for her to have grounds privileges at the hospital, enabling her to travel around the property without an escort. Susanna begins taking walks by herself, and she discovers the tunnels: “There are tunnels under this entire hospital. Everything is connected by tunnels” (120). By walking through them, Kaysen contemplates everything that she has experienced at McLean. To her, they symbolize the essence of the hospital and her leaving the “shadowy” world behind her. As in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave where “the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all”, Susanna believes that the shadows left behind her in the tunnel represent her false diagnosis and time spent in care. At every opportunity she sees, she proves how she should not have been placed in the institution in the first place. In order to prepare for her life outside again, Kaysen finds out what it means to be “crazy” in this world. Looking for a job makes it obvious that she is different than others. She needs a doctor’s note in order to do anything while she is still a registered patient under the McLean Hospital: “Someone who acts ‘normal’ raises the uncomfortable question, What’s the difference between that person and me? What’s keeping me out of the loony bin?” (124). Although she is almost fully healed, her psychosis follows her. Whenever …show more content…
Susanna runs into many of the girls from the hospital later in life, and sees how they have changed as people. She sees Lisa years after her release, and she has a son, with whom she wants to start over: “I want us to be a real family, with furniture, and all that” (163). Susanna is shocked by how Lisa has changed from her personality in the psychiatric ward. Is it the way she always was, deep down? Or was it merely Kaysen’s naivety not paying attention to anyone but herself back at the hospital? Karma states that by becoming our friend, it teaches us to create a bright future, which is what Lisa has taken and changed for the better of herself. Years later, Kaysen visits a museum with her rude, wealthy boyfriend. She returns to an old favorite painting titled Girl, Interrupted at Her Music: “Interrupted at her music: as my life had been” (167). Kaysen tears up as she looks into the sad eyes of the girl in the painting, and relates it to all of her life’s interruptions. She had been taken away from her young adult life, and everything else by being taken into a hospital. She cries publicly in the art gallery, drawing attention to herself but not caring because of her needy personality. She needs to feel sorry for herself, because of her disorder, as she always has
In Kaysen’s analysis program, one of her doctors arranges for her to have grounds privileges at the hospital, enabling her to travel around the property without an escort. Susanna begins taking walks by herself, and she discovers the tunnels: “There are tunnels under this entire hospital. Everything is connected by tunnels” (120). By walking through them, Kaysen contemplates everything that she has experienced at McLean. To her, they symbolize the essence of the hospital and her leaving the “shadowy” world behind her. As in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave where “the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all”, Susanna believes that the shadows left behind her in the tunnel represent her false diagnosis and time spent in care. At every opportunity she sees, she proves how she should not have been placed in the institution in the first place. In order to prepare for her life outside again, Kaysen finds out what it means to be “crazy” in this world. Looking for a job makes it obvious that she is different than others. She needs a doctor’s note in order to do anything while she is still a registered patient under the McLean Hospital: “Someone who acts ‘normal’ raises the uncomfortable question, What’s the difference between that person and me? What’s keeping me out of the loony bin?” (124). Although she is almost fully healed, her psychosis follows her. Whenever …show more content…
Susanna runs into many of the girls from the hospital later in life, and sees how they have changed as people. She sees Lisa years after her release, and she has a son, with whom she wants to start over: “I want us to be a real family, with furniture, and all that” (163). Susanna is shocked by how Lisa has changed from her personality in the psychiatric ward. Is it the way she always was, deep down? Or was it merely Kaysen’s naivety not paying attention to anyone but herself back at the hospital? Karma states that by becoming our friend, it teaches us to create a bright future, which is what Lisa has taken and changed for the better of herself. Years later, Kaysen visits a museum with her rude, wealthy boyfriend. She returns to an old favorite painting titled Girl, Interrupted at Her Music: “Interrupted at her music: as my life had been” (167). Kaysen tears up as she looks into the sad eyes of the girl in the painting, and relates it to all of her life’s interruptions. She had been taken away from her young adult life, and everything else by being taken into a hospital. She cries publicly in the art gallery, drawing attention to herself but not caring because of her needy personality. She needs to feel sorry for herself, because of her disorder, as she always has