Dorothy Parker’s poem quoted in the film

interrupted girlsa 1999 film directed by James Mangold, had the credit of launching a sensational Angelina Jolie from the Oscars, but also to draw attention to an increasingly controversial issue today: our concept of normality.

The film is based on an autobiographical novel Suzanne Caisen, The girl interrupted (TEA, 2017), which recounts her experience of being hospitalized in the teenage ward of McLean Hospital, the same psychiatric hospital where the poet Sylvia Plath was hospitalized.

“Have I ever been crazy?– the main character Susanna, played by a young and brilliant woman, asks sadly in the finale. Winona Ryderand concludes with the dramatic truth:Madness is you or me reinforced“.

The same dark secret is hidden in the poem quoted in the film. Angelina Jolie pronounces it in a monotonous voice, playing cards with a cigarette in her mouth; sounds like a bad nursery rhyme, but it’s not. Has a name Summary a writer and journalist Dorothy Parker who was, in her own way, an “interrupted girl”.

Is there really a “concept of normality”? What does it mean to be “mentally healthy”? Mangold’s film attempts to answer these questions by deconstructing bias and prejudice, to the point of giving us answers that are as true as they are confusing, which we may not be quite ready to accept.

Also unsettling are Parker’s verses, which are so beautifully inserted into the film that they seem to be tongue twisters concocted by the sociopathic Lisa played by Jolie. IN Summary

Parker lists seven effective ways to commit suicide, but in the end bitterly concludes that “worth living“.

Summary of Dorothy Parker, poem quoted in Girls, Interrupted.

Razors hurt;

The rivers are wet;

acid leaves traces;

Tablets cause convulsions.

The weapon is illegal;

loops break;

the gas has a terrible smell;

It’s worth living.

Dorothy Parker Summary: The Meaning of Poetry

SummaryAs the name suggests, this is a masterpiece of coincidence. Dorothy Parker lists seven possible ways to kill herself that would lead to her effectively ending her own life, but discards them one by one out of a kind of annoyance: she is discouraged from doing so, for example, because of the humidity. water or the smell of gas. Finally, he almost humbly concludes that “worth living“.

In the original English, the last verse sounds even more categorical because it is expressed in the second person singular: “you too could live”:

With the same success you can live.

Is this an absolution or a commandment?

Finally, we understand that all of the above is not just an “excuse” to postpone a crazy act, but real reasons not to resort to suicide, no matter how superficial and trivial they may seem. It is curious, for example, that Parker never mentions the terrible suffering inflicted on the body by such means, but focuses on seemingly silly details such as the “smell of gas” or the spectacular stains caused by acid.

Summary it is a poem that uses irony as a weapon and metaphor as a tool to convey a precise message: there is no point in ending one’s life. Life is better than death, Parker concludes, and does so in his critical, blunt, sometimes controversial style, which uses satire to depict a basic, tragic reality. The existence of Dorothy Parker herself, as bitterness tells us Summary

didn’t shine at all. She, too, was in her own way an “interrupted girl” who, thanks to writing, managed to gather her strength, to save herself, at least for a certain period before the dramatic fall of the latter. No, Dorothy Parker did not commit suicide, it was her heart that suddenly gave out, torn apart by alcohol abuse and the excesses of a hectic life.

Who was Dorothy Parker, the interrupted girl

In James Mangold’s film, “Girls Interrupted” are essentially all non-adult girls who refuse to grow up or express their identity due to past trauma or wrong and too harsh family upbringing. After all, the moral of the famous 1999 film is that the label of normality is often overrated; it is nothing but a social construct.

Dorothy Parker she lived in 1920s New York but was not too spoiled by its atmosphere. He attracted attention with the director’s poems Vanity Fair who, after publishing one of her poems for twelve dollars, finds her a job as an editor Fashion. Dorothy, known as “Dotty”, will be describing fashion illustrations for the magazine. Fashionthen switch to Vanity Fair where she will work as a literary and theater critic. She had a real talent for writing, which manifested itself in everything she wrote: from advertising captions to poetry, from novels to enthusiastic book reviews. During her long career, she has also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, receiving many awards. However, in real life, contrary to what he says in the Summary, Dorothy Parker tried to commit suicide three times.. He mentioned the first with a razor in the first verse, saying: “razors hurt.”

She did this after she became pregnant by playwright Charles MacArthur using a razor left at home by her husband. Fortunately, the attempt was unsuccessful. In the last years of his life, Parker went on a downward spiral, giving himself up to smoking, alcohol and drugs. Her heart left her in June 1967 while she was in a hotel room. His last farewell message is written on his epitaph, which reads:sorry for the dust

“. It was the tragic prediction of a script that looks tasteless: in 2020, the writer’s ashes were in danger of being evicted from the Baltimore garden in which he was buried. It was the last ironic parody of the girl who had always been an interrupted girl.