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Girl, Interrupted by the Efforts of Time - Book Review



EssayChat / Aug 1, 2017

Girl, Interrupted explores the experience of Susanna Kaysen as she is confined to the McLean Hospital, for issues with mental health, for two years. The event begins during the spring of the year 1967. One of the most prevalent motifs within the written work is that of time. Time structures the literature both in a disorganized manner and an organized manner, to be explored within this paper. The importance of time is not lost on Susanna Kaysen and it should not be lost on the reader. While seconds or minutes on their own may seem inconsequential, it can end up being the most unassuming of instances which can have the most devastating and far-reaching impacts on an individual's life.

This was the case with Susanna. The most telling of times do not take place in huge, monumental, calendar-dated events. Rather, it is the little intervals of time, the seconds or the minutes that we take for granted, which often have the most impact on the remainder of one's life, which can also be considered as the culmination of their time on Earth. In Susanna's case, it is the knowledge of and the seeming loss of time which she becomes obsessed with throughout the piece. Seconds are so small and insignificant. Surely, many might attempt to contend, their importance is equally minimal in the big scheme of things. This type of arrogance with respect to time can have detrimental effects on the rest of the time experienced by an individual; as this is the case, readers will be well served to remember that time as a whole is important and seconds should not be taken for granted.

Book Girl InterruptedThe literature, which is a memoir, is heavily structured by time. In many respects, this is applicable to anyone's everyday life, which is structured by either work or school, night time and day time, which meal is next with respect to the time of day and so on. However, while time occurs in a linear progression for the audience and for the majority of the books which are read by audience members, Girl, Interrupted is structured by time in a non-linear manner in order to emphasize its impact and importance.

From the start, Kaysen indicates the importance but altogether different effect time has on her life when she is incarcerated to the mental hospital of McLean. "It is easy to slip into a parallel universe" (1). The term parallel universe implies that the experience is similar but altered. So, too, is the book structured by time. While the events take place, they are documented out of order and based on Kaysen's reflections; in her 'insanity' time is fluctuating in how she now views it. She is no longer thinking of days, months and years for the most part. She is thinking in terms more indicative of her stay in the hospital. She restructures time in her mind in order to acknowledge this. Time also fluctuates with respect to its impact on her life. While a girl might be interrupted, time is interrupted throughout the piece as well. It is interrupted by memories occurring prior to her incarceration and highlighted by consequences that were never previously imaginable. She continues to explain the parallel dimension in which she now exists and focuses on the distinction of time; "Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then" (1).

Susanna gets sent to the hospital after a visit with her doctor, wherein she actually has very little conversation with the man. She got up early, picked at her pimple, switched trains twice and was tired when she got to the doctor's office. She nods a bit throughout the 'conversation', as it were, but makes no real effort to be involved. Leaving the room briefly, the doctor informs her that she will be going to rest for a few weeks. "I've got a bed for you" (2). The conclusion seems to come rapidly; however, when the reader comes to the next portion of the book, the doctor writes in his memo to the hospital that he visited with Susanna for more than three hours. The reader now can no longer be sure of time, as evidenced by the parallel universe aspect of the book, only that time can either be or seem to be an interval it may not logically be. The reader is left as confused as Susanna is with respect to time until much later in the work, when explanations are finally given.

The book is organized by time, but not in any manner indicative of simple cause and effect. Rather, there is a cause and it spans into a web of effects, always coming back to the same cause. Throughout the book, dealing with the consequences of this visit with the doctor, there is a multitude of effects. It is not limited to simply being hospitalized, the meeting with the doctor had a severe effect on the way Susanna thinks, the way she process information, the way she views the world and the way in which she thinks about her life in general. Once in the hospital, she is able to expand her thoughts and go back in time to see what it was that happened to her and how she came to be so in need of "a rest", as the doctor put it. Examining Georgina, the girl who set her body on fire, Susanna admits, "I had an inspiration once. I woke up one morning and I knew that today I had to swallow fifty aspirin" (4). The doctor's memo suddenly has more credence.

The beginning chapters are vital to the book because they set the tone for all the ways in which time structures the book. While time is primarily a web for Susanna, she does use it to try to organize the little semblances of her life she can still consider her own. She uses time implementations to do so. For example, "Mornings were often noisy" and "Dusk is a dangerous time" (4). Susanna clings to time in order to structure her life.

The hospital as well utilizes time in order to structure and organize itself. Susanna draws upon this, as well, to organize herself and her time. In this respect, Susanna shares a likeness with the hospital. Specifically, the likeness is to structure ones events and experiences through the checks of the nurses in the hospital. Even in a place where the minds of those inside cannot be relied upon to, in an understandable manner to the outside world, take place in the time of 'reality' or the time of the outside world, the staff offers their own structure of time in a manner which can be noticed, understood and organized by the patients. "Checks. Five-minute checks. Fifteen-minute checks. Half-hour checks...."Checks,"...Click, turn the knob, swish, open the door, "Checks," swish, pull the door shut...Five-minute checks. Not enough time to drink a cup of coffee, read three pages of a book, take a shower." (17-18). While the time in between checks was not enough to do any substantial type of activity, it organized the hospital, day and night. "It never stopped, even at night it was our lullaby. It was our metronome, our pulse. It was our lives measured out in doses" (18).

Throughout the book Susanna returns to the few minutes or hours, the reader is initially confused as to the validity of time as experienced by Susanna, which sentenced her to this experience. "It must have been something more than a pimple. I didn't mention that I'd never seen that doctor before, that he decided to put me away after only 15 minutes. Twenty, maybe. What was it about me that was so deranged that in less than half an hour a doctor would pack me off to the nuthouse?" (12).

Later, she continues her reflection reading the memo, "The doctor says he interviewed me for three hours. I say it was twenty minutes. Twenty minutes between my walking in the door and his deciding to send me to McLean" (22). After doing the math, the reader is left wondering about time, but more understanding of Susanna's obsession with it. "At the top-right...11:30 am...Subtracting the half-hour waiting to be admitted...takes us to eleven o'clock. Subtracting the half-hour taxi ride takes us to ten-thirty. Subtracting the hour I waited...takes us to nine-thirty. Assuming my departure from home at eight o'clock for a nine o'clock appointment results in a half-hour interview"; she concludes triumphantly to the audience, "There we are, between nine and nine-thirty. I won't quibble over ten minutes. Now you believe me." (23). Susanna has vindicated herself in her own mind and within that of her readers. Nonetheless, she remains suspicious and obsessive when it comes to the concept of time.

When Susanna is removed from the structure of checks which she uses to organize her life in McLean, she becomes upset and frazzled. At the dentist, she is put under general anesthesia. When she is awakes, she is very upset and confused. She is sure that her time has been stolen and that she has lost a significant amount of time. She asks Valerie for help, explaining, "I want to know how much time that was," I said. "See, Valerie, I've lost some time and I need to know how much. I need to know." Then I started crying. I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it" (37). This experience duplicates the experience Susanna had with the doctor, who recorded on paper that he interviewed Susanna for three hours, whereas she contends it was only minutes. She seems to be worried that someone will steal her time from her again, lying about it to manipulate the situation.

Susanna cherishes her ability to track time. It is as if she can track the time, she is not really losing it. She is not really losing the last two years of her adolescence as she transitions into adulthood. When Susanna "loses time" in the dentist's office during her procedure, she if forced to accept the fact that her life is slipping away from her. She cannot maintain a grasp on her own life because she is unable to alter what is happening to her and how the passage of time occurs, whether she can mark it and make sense of it or not. Her life is continuing. Her life, and time, go on regardless of how active she is in the comprehension of it. In the novel, time is understandably important to Susanna.

Time is a lesson learned not only by Susanna. The motif serves as a reminder that all should be more aware of time and the consequences of even the seemingly smallest action or inaction. Moments which take a mere second of thought and direction can end up in incarceration, whether in jail, in a hospital, or, in the case of insanity such as Georgina's and Polly's, within one's own mind or body.

Works Cited

Kaysen, Susanna. "Girl, Interrupted." Girl, Interrupted. N.p., n.d. Web.


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