Insanity; Illness or Judgment?
The Book, Girl Interrupted, by Susan Kaysen, is an autobiographical piece about her two years at Mclean Mental Institution. Kaysen tells the story of the people and experiences she encountered at Mclean. She struggles with why she is there, how she got there, and if she is truly sick. The line between sane and insane, normal and deviant is a blurry one. More importantly, it is a distinction that, except in the most severe instances of mental illness, scarcely captures the personality it seeks to classify. The ethical issue is that the need to classify people into categories of social norms can cause much harm. People are defined by a few characteristics and then decisions are made that change their lives forever. In some cases doctors seem to rush to these decisions causing more damage than good.
Kaysen begins the book by telling the story of her last day before she entered the hospital. "Perhaps it's still unclear how I ended up in their. It must......
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Approximate Word Count: 1298
Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |