Thursday, June 11, 2009
Presentation
For my Final Presentation, I plan on having the class read and discuss two articles. One article is about animals taking Prozac, and the other is about the economy affecting mental health. We're going to read them out loud as a class, and then the class will make blog posts about the articles in groups; they can write their comments and opinions that they have after reading the articles. The class will then share their blog posts with everyone else.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Book 3: Quotes
For this book, I also marked quotes. Again, below are only some of them, but the full list is on my Google Docs page.
“I wasn’t a danger to society. Was I a danger to myself? The fifty aspirin- I’ve explained them. They were metaphorical. I wanted to get rid of a certain aspect of my character. I was performing a kind of self-abortion with those aspirin. It worked for a while. Then it stopped; but I had no heart to try again” (Kaysen 39).
At the beginning of the novel, Kaysen takes a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka, because she "had a headache." She explains that she wasn't trying to kill herself necessarily, but rather kill a part of herself. Afterwards, she realizes that what she did didn't really work at all; she was just trying to avoid her problems.
“Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much, Don’t talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and shining like oil in the sun. I don’t want to hear about the tiger in the corner or the Angel of Death or the phone calls from John the Baptist. He might give me a call too. But I’m not going to pick up the phone” (Kaysen 125).
After her stay in the mental hospital, Kaysen seems to realize that it is all just mental; everything is uncontrollable. She knows that some things might appear to be unreal, but she is going to ignore them from now on, and focus on what is real to get her life on track.
“In a strange way we were free. We’ reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: All of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves” (Kaysen 94).
In the hospital, Kaysen realizes that everyone there has nothing left; though their privacy was gone and they were monitored 24/7, they were free because they could be themselves. The patients could get no lower than a mental institution, they didn't need to pretend: they were free because they were around people like themselves.
“I wasn’t a danger to society. Was I a danger to myself? The fifty aspirin- I’ve explained them. They were metaphorical. I wanted to get rid of a certain aspect of my character. I was performing a kind of self-abortion with those aspirin. It worked for a while. Then it stopped; but I had no heart to try again” (Kaysen 39).
At the beginning of the novel, Kaysen takes a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka, because she "had a headache." She explains that she wasn't trying to kill herself necessarily, but rather kill a part of herself. Afterwards, she realizes that what she did didn't really work at all; she was just trying to avoid her problems.
“Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much, Don’t talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and shining like oil in the sun. I don’t want to hear about the tiger in the corner or the Angel of Death or the phone calls from John the Baptist. He might give me a call too. But I’m not going to pick up the phone” (Kaysen 125).
After her stay in the mental hospital, Kaysen seems to realize that it is all just mental; everything is uncontrollable. She knows that some things might appear to be unreal, but she is going to ignore them from now on, and focus on what is real to get her life on track.
“In a strange way we were free. We’ reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: All of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves” (Kaysen 94).
In the hospital, Kaysen realizes that everyone there has nothing left; though their privacy was gone and they were monitored 24/7, they were free because they could be themselves. The patients could get no lower than a mental institution, they didn't need to pretend: they were free because they were around people like themselves.
Book 3: Movie Version
All of these books were made into movies, but Girl, Interrupted won an Oscar in 2000 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Angelina Jolie for playing Lisa Rowe). The movie is slightly different than the novel, but follows basically the same plot lines. This is the trailer for the movie.
Right now, it won't load the video. So until it works, go to youtube, search "girl interrupted trailer" and click on the second result.
Right now, it won't load the video. So until it works, go to youtube, search "girl interrupted trailer" and click on the second result.
Book 3: Girl, Interrupted
The last book that I read was Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen; it is another memoir, like Prozac Nation. The title refers to one of Vermeer's paintings, Girl Interrupted at her Music. Kaysen's memoir takes place during the 1960s, when she voluntarily signed herself into a mental hospital after attempting suicide at 18 years old. The book has pages of her actual file, with some lines blacked out, inserted into to the chapters. Readers follow Kaysen's reflection of being a patient in a psychiatric hospital during the 60s, and learning to accept her diagnosis: borderline personality disorder. She makes friends in the institution, and questions "normal." After two years, a marriage proposal sets Kaysen free from the mental hospital, but it limits her freedom.
Book 2: Quotes
While reading, I marked some quotes in the novel. The ones below are just some of them, the rest are on my Google Docs site.
“Virgin suicide/What was that she cried?/No use in stayin’/On this holocaust ride/ She gave me her cherry/She’s my virgin suicide” (Eugenides 176).
In the book, this is actually a song from a fictional band, Cruel Crux, that Lux listens to until her mom forces her to burn all her rock records. Of course, this is where Eugenides got the title for his book.
“ “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl” (Eugenides 7).
Cecilia, after her first suicide attempt, ends up in the emergency room, with a doctor bandaging her wrists. He can't comprehend why such a young girl would do this to herself; Cecilia knows that he won't understand what it is like to be a teenage girl.
“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together…We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them” (Eugenides 43-44).
The book is told from the point of view of the neighborhood boys, years after this all happened. At the time, they were obsessed with the Lisbon girls and years later, after growing up, they still are. By watching the girls, collecting their things, they feel their pain almost; the boy were able to understand that the girls were beyond them.
“Virgin suicide/What was that she cried?/No use in stayin’/On this holocaust ride/ She gave me her cherry/She’s my virgin suicide” (Eugenides 176).
In the book, this is actually a song from a fictional band, Cruel Crux, that Lux listens to until her mom forces her to burn all her rock records. Of course, this is where Eugenides got the title for his book.
“ “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl” (Eugenides 7).
Cecilia, after her first suicide attempt, ends up in the emergency room, with a doctor bandaging her wrists. He can't comprehend why such a young girl would do this to herself; Cecilia knows that he won't understand what it is like to be a teenage girl.
“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together…We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them” (Eugenides 43-44).
The book is told from the point of view of the neighborhood boys, years after this all happened. At the time, they were obsessed with the Lisbon girls and years later, after growing up, they still are. By watching the girls, collecting their things, they feel their pain almost; the boy were able to understand that the girls were beyond them.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Book 2: Suicide Pacts
The Virgin Suicides' five sisters all die eventually by suicide; this is slightly strange because only the first that died, the youngest Cecilia, actually appeared to be depressed. The other four sisters, though shut up in a house for months with no outside contact with the world, did not display many symptoms and signs of depression. Readers do not know their exact motivation for killing themselves. On the night of their suicides, the anniversary of Cecilia's first attempt to kill herself, the girls invite the neighborhood boys to come over at midnight; they communicate with flashlights. The boys arrive, Lux waits in the car for "her sisters to finish packing," and the boys wait patiently. Eventually, the boys find Bonnie hanging and leave as fast as possible. All four sisters died differently, but it was a suicide pact; neither wanted to live, probably because of the effects of Cecilia's death. Awareness is increasing of suicide pacts, among teenagers and internet suicide pacts. These pacts are previously agreed upon between two or more people who decide to kill themselves at the same time, or close to the same time. This article talks about a possible teenage suicide pact in England.
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