logo

88 pages 2 hours read

Girl, Interrupted

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1993

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.

Symbols & Motifs

Meat

Kaysen uses the image of packaged meat to represent her own emotional pain and feelings of confinement. She explains that when she fainted in the grocery store the last thing that she saw was packaged meat. After she survived this experience, she was repulsed by meat, and became a vegetarian. She attributes this to the fact that both she and the meat were “bruised, bleeding, and imprisoned in a tight wrapping” (42).

Kaysen’s metaphor comparing herself to meat starkly explains her attitude and detachment toward herself that led to her attempted suicide. The image of meat is conjured throughout the memoir further as patients burn themselves, searing skin, and when Kaysen participates in self-harm. She describes her compulsion of wrist-banging as “slow, steady, mindless” as if she is tenderizing herself like one tenderizes meat for consumption (139).

Patterns

Kaysen explains that part of her confusion as a teen had to do with feeling irritated and anxious about patterns, such as on rugs, curtains, or tile floors. She explains that in addition to her imagining different things within the patterns, she also felt anxious about the contrasts that patterns forced her to think about. For Kaysen, patterns represented opposing forces in life.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
Unlock IconUnlock all 88 pages of this Study Guide

Plus, gain access to 8,600+ more expert-written Study Guides.

Including features:

+ Mobile App
+ Printable PDF
+ Literary AI Tools