88 pages • 2 hours read
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Susanna Kaysen was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1948 and published Girl, Interrupted in 1993. Kaysen shares that she felt exhausted, depressed, and overwhelmed during her adolescence, during which time she attempted suicide. She documents her 18-month stay at McLean Hospital, in which she examines her own state of mind as well as the microculture of the McLean Hospital residents in the broader setting of American society in the 1960s. Her work serves as both a personal testimonial and an exploration of approaches to mental health and recovery in the 1960s, with an emphasis on the female experience.
Kaysen is credited with making a valuable contribution to destigmatizing struggles with depression and other disorders by sharing her experience, and in doing so helping to change the culture around mental health in the US. Her perspective and prose provide a personal and lyrical way to encounter institutionalization from Kaysen’s lived experience.
Lisa is a fellow patient at McLean, who has been diagnosed as a sociopath by McLean staff. Lisa became one of Kaysen’s closest friends at the hospital, and she is mentioned frequently throughout the book. Kaysen views Lisa as a funny, irreverent, and irrepressible person who thoroughly resented being hospitalized and had a knack for escaping McLean for days at a time.
Plus, gain access to 8,600+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Addiction
View Collection
Books Made into Movies
View Collection
Books that Feature the Theme of...
View Collection
Feminist Reads
View Collection
Health & Medicine
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
Jewish American Literature
View Collection
Memoir
View Collection
Memory
View Collection
Mental Illness
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
National Suicide Prevention Month
View Collection
Pride & Shame
View Collection
Psychology
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
The Past
View Collection