Girl, Interrupted

In Girl, Interrupted author Susanna Kaysen recounts her two year stay at a Boston psychiatric hospital and her experience of what she calls the "parallel universe" of madness, she makes the reader consider how thin the line is between 'madness' and 'sanity'. Susanna describes herself as "sane in an insane world". It does seem like it may be an insane world when we look at how society reacts to something they do not understand, fear breeds prejudice, "possessed by the devil" "bad, and must be isolated and punished" We are forced to question what role Susanna's gender had in her diagnosis and hospitalisation. She is diagnosed with "Borderline personality disorder" to which the diagnosis states,

" This disorder is more commonly diagnosed in women"

Susanna is given the title "promiscuous" to which she points out,

"how many girls do you think a 17 year old boy would have to screw to earn the label 'compulsively promiscuous'?"

She is offended by this label due to its sexist nature so she plays up to her part as defiance to society's prejudices,

"we were just sitting there on the sofa alone. And he said 'Do you want to fuck?"

Was Susanna put into the institution because of a wicked society determined to put away an unconventional woman? Or did she really pose a threat to herself, hallucinating, seeing things so differently that she would be unable to function in society?

'Crazy' is measured by our adherence to what society expects us to do, what is appropriate. In many ways our sanity is determined by our commitment to playing by the rules. Susanna starts to wonder if her inability to conform to the rules is a sign of madness,

"I was the only person who had trouble with the rules"

Because she is in the minority she feels that she may be abnormal. But it could be said it is a sign of madness to accept these rules when you think them absurd, just because society dictates that it is the correct and 'sane' thing to