“Overkill” by Colin Hay

“Fantasies don’t include repercussions” (92), Susanna reflects. But skirting the line between reality and constructed fiction, she’s burdened by stray thoughts and complications each day. 

Susanna’s decision-making can occasionally seem erratic, but under it all, she is incredibly analytical and cautious. Each word is meticulously planned. But the same attention isn’t put into her relationships and commitments with others — as seen in Colin Hay’s “Overkill.” Commitment is difficult when you’re “think[ing] about the implications of diving in too deep and possibly the complications.” 

Susanna admits that others weren’t aware of her self-harm before she is checked into the mental hospital — but clearly, based on the character and Hay’s song, she has way too much on her plate. Susanna’s bluntness can be uncomfortable and maybe best displayed in her description of her butterfly chair from the 1960s — “In the sixties, everyone in Cambridge had a butterfly chair. The metal edge of its upturned seat was perfectly placed for wrist-banging” (152). And to me, this type of banging his repetitive, loud, and quite frankly, the same “Overkill” we hear in the song. 

"In the Middle" by Lily & Madeleine

But just as the song which builds in volume and meaning, she says “it was cumulative injury, [and that] each bang was tolerable” (152). “In the Middle” by Lily & Madeleine

To Susanna, even the love of the man from Reed is frivolous and has no future. She “paid [him] no attention. He lived in a world with a future and [she] did not” (135). But this future has less to do with her time in the mental institution and more with her hopelessness in and out of the healthcare system. 

Lily and Madeleine describe themselves being stuck “In the Middle” in a melancholic tone that mirrors the forlornness of Susanna’s mental state. She certainly thinks about integrating herself into society again, but she’s ultimately held back by her lack of faith and aspiration. 

This section of the story is titled “topography of the future,” which is ironic considering Susanna’s refusal to consider any life for herself outside of the mental hospital or her illness. No matter the hopes or praise of those around her— like Valerie’s— Susanna’s mental image of herself and the singular location she can reside is stagnant. 

Susanna, in a Sylvia Plath fashion, truly resides “in the middle”— of fiction and reality, of sanity and mental illness, of desire and helplessness. Though her interactions can vary from the slightly stilted phone conversations with Reed boy to conversations with herself, Susanna’s behavior is what Lily & Madeleine might refer to as “some kind of eloquent echo.” 

“Headlights” by Tor Miller

Susanna experiences parallel worlds — she is diagnosed, tested, and analyzed. And her analysis of herself is almost entirely obscured by others’ perceptions. Life in the institution has made her hyperaware of her thought process, and Susanna shows a distance and feeling of helplessness she attributes to her “insanity.” 

Tor Miller might be singing of a romantic loss, but Susanna is similarly vulnerable and consumed by others’ expectations for her. Like Miller’s narrator, Susanna cannot navigate “the weight of [her] own head” and the thoughts within. She overanalyzes others’ actions — like the Lisas’ imaginary phone calls and Reed boy’s mistaken affections for her. But she still questions herself gradually and consistently, like the tempo of the song. 

Susanna lives in a “life of second guessing” like Miller’s lyrics depict. Sitting almost as a test subject in front of the world, Susanna sees herself as a captive being within the mental hospital. Even Reed boy’s marriage proposal appears to be feigned to Susanna — whose reasoning becomes muddled with thoughts of the “vacant life” of Miller’s song. 

Looking back at Susanna’s experience in the mental institution, she so clearly believes herself to be stagnated and “trapped back in these same four walls” just as Miller sings. But what might be most notable about the song is its gradual deflation. It becomes quiet and upset with the reality of hollowness, and so does Susanna. 

Paper Cuts

To me, nothing is as simple and seemingly harmless as a paper cut. But as the ripping, fissuring sounds of scissors pull apart their paper medium, so does Susanna fragment and frustrate her thoughts. 

Susanna would be cautious to cut within the lines, often hesitating to listen to her intuition or any thoughts that would confirm her self-worth. Her experience with others, though, is vastly different. She might initially “cut” lightly through the thoughts and conceptions of truth she sees in others. But she steadily devalues and distances herself from reality — the paper is cut, and the thought is abandoned. 

The grittiness of the scissors as they slice through the paper reminds of the fugacity and uncertainty of life. She crumples, cuts, and regrets her reality — leaving any certainties in life paper thin. When the blades of the scissors speed or intensify their sound, Susanna, too, operates on jumbled decisions and whims. These elements cloud her confidence in her ability to relate to others, and they lead her down a destructive spiral — just as the paper is slashed then crumpled. 

Type Away

I will be the first to tell you that my typing is really quite loud. It’s elephant-level volume. But in uncomfortable circumstances — picture a crowded study room in the library — this volume can take on a different intensity and speed. And just like this subtle but clear difference, Susanna sees that “insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast” (75). 

For Susanna, insanity is the slowness of her thoughts when depressed, when words seem to drag and confuse her own sense of purpose. But in observing others, her moments of wisdom loudly and ceaselessly key away. Through a first person narrator, the audience never watches Susanna’s actions from the sidelines. Rather, they are gradually welcomed into her thoughts — erratic and cautious, complicated and carefully paced. 

As the narration persists, Susanna’s moments of anxiety and depression become more active, occurring in invasive bouts. Like the quickness and seemingly fluid typing of the keys, Susanna’s focus on her mental state and personality disorder intensify. She ultimately says she is floating between two “realms of consciousness” (141), two realities and temperaments. She’s “treading on the ground of craziness — a place where false impressions have all the hallmarks of reality.” 

The typing is tightly confined within seconds yet within the time period, there exist so many different strands of thoughts, speed, and confusion. 

See Saw

Reality is not stable for Susanna, who worries her thoughts are equally irrational and dangerous. She teeters back and forth between aspirations for her future and the weight of depression holding her back from accomplishing them. 

For the majority of the book, Susanna remains in the mental hospital. But almost as the sounds of the consistent and gradually more labored breathing, Susanna’s release from the institution don’t ease her breathing or faith in herself. 

Instead, she continues to spiral, to hear perils not actually facing her, to heave herself forward and backward between her thoughts of “insanity” and those of rationality that she has so clearly within her. This sound hopes to emulate the same constant cycle of transitions, while also providing the audience a sense of consistency amidst the chaos of anxiety and depression. 

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* Before reading my reflection on the editing process, please enjoy the initial version of my Sound List *

Sounds like time for a Sound List Reflection

The Sound List was unlike any other project I'd taken on before. Sure, I have made mix tapes before — after all, I am a product of the 1990s. But the idea of telling a narrative solely through the use of audio stimuli was fascinating and a bit overwhelming to me. Perhaps the part that required the most revision and second thinking was the creation of a relationship between textual analysis of Girl, Interrupted and performance of whatever audio feature — song or sound — that I chose to include. 

After the first draft of this project, I felt confident I had accomplished what I had set out to do. But luckily for me, I realized that what I had originally set out to create lacked some of the collaboration and interdependence my final piece required. 

In extensive edits for the piece, I rewrote each and every selection of  the Sound List, simplifying my language and making my points more accessible and interesting to readers on this type of online interface. While I'm still very pleased and proud of my original analysis of the work, I'm so excited to have embraced a slightly more informal and conversational tone in my revised Sound List.

Other than the tone of the writing, another topic I discussed with Professor Anderson in our feedback conference was the piece's hefty dependence on text rather than sound. He made the point that while listening to the audio and reading the analysis, he felt both were unnecessary elements to each other. The analysis, so textually based, made logical sense without any music at all. So in recreating the Sound List, I took extra precautions to avoid such a listening experience. In writing all of my sections of analysis, I even listened to the audio segment while constructing the paragraphs. This way, I'm more comfortable that the piece is accessible in a short sitting and reads less like a traditional essay — which to me, is a central tenant of Boost Literature! 

1. Original Sound List for Susan Kaysen's "Girl Interrupted"