"Overkill" by Colin Hay

“Fantasies don’t include repercussions” (92), Susanna reflects. But skirting the line between reality and constructed fiction, she experiences the repercussions of indecision and stray thoughts each and every day. 

Though the decisions that result in Susanna’s placement in the mental hospital might seem erratic or bold, as an individual, she is incredibly analytical and cautious. Each word is almost meticulously planned, in direct contrast to the little emotion she is willing to invest into relationships with others. Colin Hay’s “Overkill” reflects this avoidance of commitment as the narrator “think[s] about the implications of diving in too deep and possibly the complications.”

And fittingly, Susanna, too, anxiously encounters the reality of her feelings of frustration and lack of fulfillment and communication with others. She admits that no one had knowledge of her self-harm prior to her time in the mental hospital— but it was too much to manage or mitigate on her own. Her bluntness evokes a discomfort from the audience, as well as a very visual understanding of the harrows of anxiety. This is perhaps best displayed in her frank 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).

Bang by bang and thought by thought, Susanna’s mental state became destructive— an overkill— to her relationships and capability for interacting healthfully with those around her. “It was cumulative injury,” she says. “Each bang was tolerable” (152). 

"In the Middle" by Lily & Madeleine

Although she contemplates reintegration into broader society, Susanna is nonetheless held back by the bounds of her hopelessness. The man from Reed graduates, maintaining interest in Susanna’s eclectic interests and thoughts. But Susanna restrains herself from developing aspirations for the future or even a relationship as frivolous as a crush. Instead, she “paid no attention. He lived in a world with a future and [she] did not” (135). 

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.” 

Ice Cubes Ricochet

For Susanna, insanity is not a foreboding threat, but rather, an eventuality. She writes that “insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast” (75)— and so do her thoughts. At times her words seem to drag, rapt in confusion, depression, or a mixture of the two. But when Susanna is incited, challenged, reinvigorated, her thoughts spiral. They accumulate and distort her perceptions of herself and of the world around her, constantly shifting without explanation. 

Like the ice cubes which hit with a “plop” against the surface of water, Susanna’s moments of wisdom loudly and ceaselessly rattle against the concrete notions of relationships and sanity that she maintains. Through a first person narrator and an amalgamation of additional written or medical diagnoses, the audience never watches Susanna’s actions from the sidelines. Rather, they are gradually enveloped by her thoughts until they too feel the pressures of the mental hospital.

As the narration persists, Susanna’s droplets of anxiety and depression become more active, invasive. Like the transition from ice cubes falling to an ice box moving, Susanna’s focus on her mental state and personality disorder intensifies. Describing herself as floating between two “realms of consciousness” (141) at first, Susanna then says she is “treading on the ground of craziness— a place where false impressions have all the hallmarks of reality” (141).

“Trembling Hands” by The Temper Trap 

Even when discussing herself, Susanna is strikingly distanced from her emotions and sense of self. Susanna recognizes that she is changed. Whether it was her time in the mental hospital, or the many experiences that compiled and necessitated the mental hospital— she has lost the inklings of confidence and assurance she ever possessed. Rather than personalizing the experience, Susanna objectifies herself, detailing her emotional journey as if it were that of another in the hospital. “It is easy to slip into a parallel universe,” Susanna bluntly explains— demarcating the “worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well” (5).

This allows her to make cutting commentary about her interest in reentering the world outside of the mental hospital. Her emotional management of her “relationship” with Reed boy is just another reminder for her that interactions she would have once seen as customary or normal— like dating or marrying another— have now been clouded by what she sees as a lack of sanity. 

The Temper Trap’s “Trembling Hands” resonates with its almost pulsated sound and questioning tone, as well as its lyrics of identity crisis. As Susanna navigates relationships with those outside of the hospital, she returns to environments which she has visited— “treading the ground [she] used to know,” as the band puts it. No matter the regularity of an interaction, Susanna’s understanding of life is tainted by diagnoses and feelings of exclusion from functioning society. 

Deep Cuts

It seems no matter her circumstances, Susanna displays a hesitance to listen to her intuition, to the thoughts that could affirm her self-worth. She makes decisions only when it is absolutely necessary— and many of her most stark realizations appear in some way unfinished or ambiguous. 

Throughout the story, Susanna places herself in the experiences of others— despite her discomfort with addressing her own feelings of emptiness and confusion. Thus like her thought process, the paper’s initial noise represents the lightly-tread thoughts or conceptions of truth that Susanna recognizes. But just she readily will devalue and distance herself from her notion of reality, the paper is cut— and the thought, abandoned. 

Susanna often remarks on the fugacity and uncertainty of life, but ironically, she does depict behavioral patterns that repeat— mimicking the constant crumpling noise. She formulates some understanding of the world around her, of herself in various social interactions or settings. So quickly after, though, she submits to an overwhelming self-doubt that prompts her to disavow or disregard whatever wisdom or peace of mind she could have gained. The sharp and slightly erratic cuts of the scissors embody the jumbled decisions, misinterpretations, and whims that cloud Susanna’s confidence in her mental health and opportunity to relate to others.

“Headlights” by Tor Miller

Susanna Kaysen writes of parallel worlds, of the confusion and white, slate walls of her clinical existence. Though she is constantly diagnosed, tested, and analyzed, her analysis of herself is so rarely unobscured by others’ perceptions. Life at the mental hospital has stagnated and perpetuated this feeling of uncertainty and hyperconsciousness of her mental processing. Particularly when interacting with the world outside of the hospital, Susanna demonstrates a kind of distance and helplessness that she attributes to her “insanity.” 

Though Tor Miller is most likely discussing the lost potential of romance or a life with another individual, Susanna describes herself as being similarly vulnerable and consumed by others’ expectations for her. She readily and profoundly makes analytical observations of those around her— the Lisas imagining their phone conversations, the Reed boy and what she believes to be a mistakenly placed affection for her. But to Susanna, her substance and intellectual ability— or even her most basic ability to function— is constantly in question. She, like Miller’s lyrical narrator, is continuously enduring ambiguous and empty emotions— “with the weight of [her] own head”— which weighs too heavily on her mind. 

Frequently, Susanna makes reference to her own captivity in the mental hospital— within its physical edifice, others’ concepts of who she is and from what she suffers. Even Reed boy’s marriage proposal appears to be an example of feigned or misattributed emotion to Susanna. So despite the presence of others or even of her own thoughts, Susanna exudes feelings of entrapment of the “vacant life” depicted in Miller’s song.