Discourses of Adolescent
Girl and Normality
in Girl, Interrupted
Outline
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Introduction
Film:
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Madness and Causes
Treatments
Back to Normality
Solution and Compromise
The Film and the Novel
The Novel’s Critique of Discourses on
“Girlhood”
References
Next Time
Introduction (1): Intertexts
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Novel: Girl, Interrupted (1993)written by Susanna
Kaysen (1967 McLean, 2 yrs) – a best-seller on
New York Times chart for many years
Film: Girl, Interrupted, directed by James Mangold
(1999), Winona Ryder as executive producer
Title: from the painting Girl, Interrupted at her music
by Johannes Vemeer
Novel: McLean as a “parallel universe”; another Ivy
League school
The film: TV & The Wizard of Oz – Dorothea finding
her way “home”
Introduction (2): Background
and Theme
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Background: 60’s –
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an age of revolution and political upheavals—
Vietnam War, assassination of Martin Luther
King
Girls go to girls’ college
Plot: a girl (would-be writer) finds her way
back to society after staying in
Claymoore/McLean for two years.
Questions: Interrupted by what? At what
place? Return (向前走) to what?
Madness vs. Normality
Are they sane? Or Mad?
The characters:
 Susanna Kaysen –borderline personality
 Lisa--sociopath
 Georgina—pathological liar
 Daisy --anorexia
 Polly Clark –burns victim
 ? A dyke
Sane or Insane? (Susanna
Kaysen)
(monologue)
“Have you ever confused a
dream with life? Or stolen
something when you
have the cash? Have you
ever been blue? Or
thought your train moving
while sitting still? Maybe I
was just crazy. Maybe it
was the 60's. Or maybe I
was just a girl...
interrupted.”
Sane or Insane? (Susanna)
events
“sanity”
50 Aspirins and a “killing the headache”
bottle of Vodka
“insanity”
Attempts to suicide
No bones in
hands;
“they (bones) come
back”
laws of physics can be
suspended;
No control of time
Reading medical
profile (BPD)
“That is everybody” Lisa Psychoneurotic
(50:00)
depression…
Insane
Stoned?
Need rest
“You’re hurting
everyone around
you.”
Sane or Insane? (Daisy)
Diagnosis: Eating disorder and
other unspecified (chap 10)
Symptoms: Eating in private,
father’s chicken only, keeping
bones under bed, attempted suicide
(later after moved out)
Claims: Eating=Dumping (privacy—
sexual implication)
Possible causes: Incest (father)
 Suicide (button being pressed)
Sane or Insane? (Lisa Rowe)
Diagnosis: Sociopath
Symptoms:
Indifference, disregard
for the consequences...
Susanna: “Her eyes are
empty now”
Sane or Insane? (Georgina
Tuskin)
Diagnosis:
Pathological liar
(“my father is the head
of CIA”)
Susanna: “G lies to
people who want to keep
her here…Sometimes I
think she wants to live in
Oz forever.”
Sane or Insane? (Polly Clark)
Diagnosis: Unspecified
Symptom: Refuse to grow up
Possible Cause: Childhood trauma (burn victim)
 Innocent?
 Curious about sex trigger her memory
Susanna: “sweetness and purity aren’t
genuine at all, but a desperately attempt to
make it easier for us to look at her”
Dependence & Escape
Dependence
 Lisa: rebellion against the institution;
others’ dependence.
 Daisy: Colace (a stool softener);
chicken; her father.
 Polly: doll; Ruby
 Georgina and many others: Lisa
Escape, Regression and Mutual Support
 They smoke constantly, swear, bully
and console each other.
 Susanna: finds no comfort from her
family  finds Lisa a pal.
 Play child games.
 Rebellion: reading the diagnoses.
Causes? Constructions of
“Girlhood”
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50s -- relatively conservative
 “viewed their children's world with
alarm and confusion and
embraced few of the cultural changes.”
60s – Peace, love and sex.
-- drafting, death and Anti-war 
hippy
-- Rise of feminism
70s  Conservative
Women’s Choices
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More opportunities?
1) Education -- Going to college (RadcIiffe.
WeIIesIey)  Pro.’s wife: “Women should
make up their mind.”
Teacher: “Women nowadays have more
choices.”, S: “No they don’t.”
Between being like her mother and burning
bras and going for demonstration, Susanna is
forced to make a choice. Bias on females:
2) Definition of “promiscuity”
Suzanne’s Diagnosis
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Diagnosis: “Increasing patternlessness of life,
promiscuous might kill self or get pregnant” (11).
(film: chap 18) “How many girls do you think a
seventeen-year-old boy would have to screw to
earn the label “compulsively promiscuous”? Three?
No, not enough. Six? Doubtful. Ten? That sounds
more likely. Probably in the fifteen-to-twenty range,
would be my guess—if they ever put that label on
boys, which I don’t recall their doing.
And for seventeen-year-old-girls, how many boys?”
(158)
Treatments -
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Hospitalization: Necessity?  Susanna
Admission  Voluntary? She signs herself in
has no right to leave.
Discharge qualification  Daisy?
Standardized management:
(medicine administration, name calling, room
checks, indifferent attitude and no privacy.
“fascist torture chamber”)
Treatments
Exercise, Narrative therapy
Medicine: Necessary?
 abused in treatment
 cause abuse (e.g. addiction to Valium)
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) and
Seclusion: treatment or punishment?
ETC: possible permanent amnesia.
damaging neurons
Treatments
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Counseling:
(“Ther-rapist,” “their-rape-me,”
“diag-non-sense,”
criticizing Freudian therapy:
confessing one’s secrets. clip 40:00))
Dr. Melvin: unsuccessful, without
understanding patients.
Dr. Wick: understanding, insightful?
“Alternative” Treatment
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Interpersonal bonds like being in a girls’
school (chap 15) -socializing
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Nurses & orderlies: Valerie (talks about her family),
the other one, about her boyfriend;
Sisterhood (Tunnel Adventure, Ice Cream Shop,
Playing Guitar)
Others
pet -- Ruby
TV
Turning Points for Susanna
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Toby’s visit: Susanna decides to stay
because “[she has] friends in here.”
(Sisterhood / Toby is not the one)
Runaway with Lisa borderlines – drug,
homosexuality / Returning: start to
realize the deadly consequences 
seeing “death”
(“Jamie” / Daisy’s death / Lisa’s cruelty)
Valerie: narrative therapy; Susanna
learns to “get it out and put it away” –
”talk cure”
2nd Tunnel: “Press others’ buttons”
The Film’s Conclusion—Finding
her Way Back (1)
1.
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Self-Correction:
Dr. Wick and Valerie – S as a "lazy, selfindulgent little girl driving herself crazy"
The girls have to find their ways home
(Wizard of Oz)
Sympathy for Daisy: (how it hurts to smile);
knows the seriousness of death
Avoid Self-Distortion:
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Lisa"So many buttons to press …so why is
nobody pressing mine?"
To Lisa: “You’re dead already.”
The Film’s Conclusion—Finding
her Way Back (2)
2. Self limitation (“The point is control”)
in order to “fit in the fucked-up world”
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Others: pretends to not see “purple
people” anymore;
Lisa: “Florida—Cinderella and Snow
White”.
Suzanne: works at a bookstore, stays in
touch, sees Dr. Wick twice a week, and
plans to write.
The Film’s Conclusion—Finding
her Way Back (3)
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Definition of madness:
Matter of degree.
Social standard: majority = norm.
“Crazy isn't being broken...... or swallowing a dark
secret. lt's you or me......amplified. lf you ever told
a lie......and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you
could be a child forever. They were not perfect...but
they were my friends.”
Deleted Scenes in Film
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Susanna’s hallucination
(blood flood in supermarket, boneless
hands)  She looks more normal in
the film’s final version
Fewer coincidences  Film is more
realistic
No museum scene  no explanation
to the topic
From the Memoir to the Film
Dramatization and Addition:
 Going to Daisy’s house and Lisa’s final threat to
Suzanne
 The memoir – juxtaposition of the hospital diagnosis
 Introduction Lines:
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Fiction  self in “parallel universe”  more social critique
Film  “unclear boundaries”  self-development
Endings:
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The film: Lisa -- "I'm playing the villain," "They were not
perfect but they were my friends."
The memoir's endings:
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Suzanne: out of the hospital because of her
engagement
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seeing Lisa with her baby on the street
“Parallel Universe”
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“There are so many of them: worlds of
the insane, the criminal, the crippled,
the dying, perhaps of the dead as well.
These worlds exist alongside this
world and resemble it, but are not in it”
(Kaysen 5).  those excluded by
“normality” in social discourses.
Kaysen’s disa Kaysen’s
Resistance: the social views
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My self-image was not unstable. I saw
myself, quite correctly, as unfit for the
educational and social systems. But my
parents and teachers did not share my selfimage. Their image of me was unstable,
since it was out of kilter with reality and
based on their needs and wishes. They did
not put much value on my capacities, which
were admittedly few, but genuine. I read
everything, I wrote constantly, and I had
boyfriends by the barrelful. (155)
Kaysen’s Resistance: Borderline
Personality & Gender
Re. the doctors’ views:
 Many disorders, judging by the hospital population,
were more commonly diagnosed in women. (157)
 In the list of six “potentially self-damaging” activities
favored by the borderline personality, three are
commonly associated with women (shopping
sprees, shoplifting, and eating binges) and one with
men (reckless driving). One is not “gender-specific,”
as they say these days (psychoactive substance
abuse). And the definition of the other (casual sex)
is in the eye of the beholder. (158)
 A chapter on “”
Borderline Personality
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“something of a catchall, describing people with
intense narcissism, unstable personal relationships,
self-damaging behaviors, and a need to create
conflict among those around them. People receive
the diagnosis because they manage to succeed at
basic life tasks even though they often appear to be
crazy.
Some psychotherapists will say, however, that the
term borderline personality disorder is just another
way of expressing that they hate the patient.
Unfortunately, borderlines do not respond well to
pharmacotherapy, unlike people suffering from
more common diagnoses such as depression, now
treated almost exclusively with medication. (Krin
Gabbard)
Interrupted by Whom? The Teacher
Vermeer’s “Girl Interrupted at Her Music”
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It’s the painting from whose
frame a girl looks out, ignoring
her beefy music teacher,
whose proprietary hand rests
on her chair . . . I looked into
her brown eyes and I recoiled.
She was warning me of
something— she had looked
up from her work
to warn me. Her mouth was
slightly open, as if she had just
drawn a breath in order to say
to me, “Don’t!” (166)  the
affiar with the teacher
Interrupted by Whom? Painting as a Social
Discourse
Vermeer’s “Girl Interrupted at Her Music”
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Interrupted at her music: as
my life had been, interrupted
in the music of being
seventeen, as her life had
been, snatched and fixed on
canvas: one moment made
to stand still and to stand for
all the other moments,
whatever they would be or
might have been. What life
can recover from that?”
(167).
(ending) –we can’t see her
clearly.
Reference
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Marshall, Elizabeth. “Borderline Girlhoods:
Mental Illness, Adolescence, and Femininity
in Girl, Interrupted.” Lion & the Unicorn 30.
1(2006 Jan): 117-133.
Gabbard, Krin. "Therapy's 'Talking Cure' Still
Works—in Hollywood." Chronicle of Higher
Education (11 Feb. 2000): B9+.
Next Time
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Two Chapters by 林芳玫;
“Faces of Madness”
Quiz – due in two weeks (very likely at
EngSite).