A Poetics of Minds and Madness: Fiction, Cognition and Interpretation [1st ed. 2023] 9819952484, 9789819952489

Table of contents :
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
1.1 Narratives and Human Cognitive Life
1.2 The Enigma of Madness
1.3 What This Book Is About
1.4 Synopses of All Chapters
References
2 Narrative Structures and Fictional Mad Minds
2.1 The Nexus of Focalization and Mental Representation
Focalization
Focalization in the Genettian Tradition
Focalization in the Post-Genettian Tradition
Cognitive Approach to Focalization
Mental Representation
The Speech Category Approach
The Cognitive Approach
An Integrated Framework for Focalization and Mental Representation
Focalization: Structural and Mental
Mental Representation: Structural and Cognitive
Mental Representation via Focalization
2.2 Modes of Focalization
Modes of Focalization from a Classical Dimension
The Perceptual Facet
The Psychological Facet
The Ideological Facet
Modes of Focalization from a Cognitive Dimension
A Hypothesis of Attention Windowing in Narrative
Three Cognitive Facets of Focalization
The Interrelations of the Elements
2.3 A Multi-faceted and Multi-layered Model
2.4 Summary
References
3 Intramental Madness
3.1 Cognitive Neuropsychology in Literary Madness
Signs and Symptoms of Madness
The Cognitive Bases of Madness
Three Principal Abnormalities
Metarepresentation
3.2 Dynamicity of Intramental Madness
The Paranoid Schizophrenic Stage
The Recuperating Stage
Toward a Well State
3.3 The Narrative Representation of Intramental Madness
A Synchronic View of Madness
A Diachronic View of Madness
3.4 Summary
References
4 Intermental Madness
4.1 Humanistic Psychology in Literary Madness
The Combine Mind
The Intermental Units
The Linguistic Devices
Normalization
The Social Bases of Madness
Madness as a Social Construction
Madness as an Ontological Insecurity
A Critique of Kraepelinian Psychiatry
4.2 Dynamicity of Intermental Madness
Dialogues with the Combine Mind
Disintegration of the Combine Mind
4.3 The Narrative Representation of Intermental Madness
Embedded Intermental Focalization
Focalization Slipping
Pseudo-intermental Focalization
4.4 Summary
References
5 Toward a Social Cognitive Understanding of Minds and Madness
5.1 Madness as a Scalar Phenomenon
Multi-Focalization for a Polysemous Madness
The Cognitive and Social Dimensions of Madness
A Scale of Madness
5.2 Madness as Cognitive Experimentation
A Cognitive Impairment
A Test for the Reader
Cognitive Engagement
5.3 Novelists as Psychologists
The Core Principles
The Therapy
The Societal Application
5.4 Fictional Narratives as Source Book of Psychology
An “Encyclopedia” of Psychology
The Therapeutic Value
5.5 Summary
References
6 What Do Madness Narratives Offer to Cognitive Science?
6.1 An Object of Reflection
6.2 A Valid Approach
References
References
Index

Citation preview

A Poetics of Minds and Madness Fiction, Cognition and Interpretation x i n r a n ya ng

A Poetics of Minds and Madness

Xinran YANG

A Poetics of Minds and Madness Fiction, Cognition and Interpretation

Xinran YANG School of English Beijing International Studies University Beijing, China

ISBN 978-981-99-5248-9 ISBN 978-981-99-5249-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6 Jointly published with Social Sciences Academic Press The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the print book from: Social Sciences Academic Press. Funded by Beijing International Studies University 2022 Annual Academic Work Publishing Funding © Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

For my mother.

Foreword

I take great delight in congratulating Dr. Yang Xinran on having developed her Ph.D. dissertation, which was successfully defended at Tsinghua University in the summer of 2021, into this monograph. As supervisor of the dissertation and consultant of the subsequent book, I have enjoyed witnessing the creation when the clay began to breathe. When her brainchild is about to see the broad daylight, I will neither oversell nor undervalue it before interested readers, if any, form their own critical judgments except for highlighting a few mentionable features in her authorship, although one is inclined to see more greenness in his own lawn or more roundness of the moon in a foreign sky. Xinran did a doctorate solely out of her intense interest in and strong aspiration for academic research rather than a vanity to hold an advanced degree in name. She was an associate professor of English Language and Literature supervising Master of Arts students at Beijing International Studies University when she worked as a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University seven years ago. She decided to try her own mental powers further although she had a decent job and a comfortable life, while many of her peers felt too old to learn new tricks and some even took “Ph.D.” as an acronym for “permanent head damage”. She knew that once she had started, her workload would more than double and there would be no option for her to “regret doing a useless Ph.D. in linguistics” unless “… in fact [s]he never did do one!” (tongue-in-cheek expressions in Stephen Levinson’s frequent examples explicating “presupposition” in

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his Pragmatics, a Cambridge textbook in linguistics). After her successful admission to the Ph.D. program in Tsinghua in the fall of 2016, she began a life of several personalities, separate but not split—a full-time teacher and part-time researcher, a regular Ph.D. student with many requirements to fulfill, and a responsible guardian for an adolescent boy about to enter college in two years. In spite of the heavy burdens and occasional distractions, she managed her academic work with diligence, perseverance and conscientiousness. After a physically and mentally demanding battery of tests for doctoral candidacy, Xinran presented her dissertation proposal on a cognitive study of literature upon a full recognition that novelists can teach us more about human nature than psychologists (Wellek and Warren: Theory of Literature) and that novelists have most completely pictured man’s life, most deeply explored man’s soul or most successfully analyzed the modern consciousness (E. M. Forster: Aspects of the Novel ). Her focus on fictional representation of mental disorders or narrativization of madness is motivated by a belief that the study of the abnormal is a more effective approach to understanding the normal. While many cognitive literary studies have been carried out on the normal mind in literature, very few deal with the abnormal. Just as the study of verbal regression and aphasic disintegration of the verbal pattern may provide the linguist with “new insights into the general laws of language” (Roman Jakobson: “The Linguistic Problems of Aphasia”), the study of the more obvious abnormalities of the mind, as she and I believe, can take us closer to the nature of the less noticeable and the more aptly taken-for-granted state of the mind. Fictional representation of madness (like Lu Xun’s 1918 short story “Diary of a Madman”) exposes realities more touching than can be perceived by the normal mind, and is thus a useful resource for the study of man’s mental conditions and the reflection on human nature. Moreover, cognitive poetics, along with cognitive stylistics, cognitive narratology or the more general cognitive literary studies, and so forth, attaches much importance to the ways in which actual readers (including text analysts) engage with and react to texts cognitively and emotionally. Against this background, Xinran tried to integrate cognitive linguistic-stylistic-narratological studies of narrative fiction with the scientific study of the mind. In the light that “any description of the brain requires both art and science” (Jonah Lehrer: Proust Was a Neuroscientist ), she tried to combine the two approaches and draw from, and ultimately implicate, relevant issues in Mad(ness) Studies.

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With these motivations, justifications and objectives, Xinran did a number of pilot analyses of literary texts on madness, both classical and contemporary, western and eastern, and finally took Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as the main object of study, principally because of the author’s peculiar experience and the highly credible fiction-making. Compared against other novelists who write fiction based on their own experiences, Ken Kesey is far more extraordinary. For example, Joseph Heller’s experiences of flying combat missions as a bombardier with the U.S. Air Force in Europe during World War II led to the success of his 1961 novel Catch-22, which realistically and surrealistically portrays the airman’s desperate attempts to survive from the paradoxes of (in)sanity in making or not making formal requests to be relieved of flying dangerous missions. Earlier, Lu Xun’s experience of studying medicine in Japan in the early twentieth century made his madman perspective in the diarial monologue more revealing and thought-provoking. Kesey, however, observed the commonly unobservable but, more importantly, experienced the commonly unexperienceable. He served as a paid volunteer experimental subject at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital in California in 1960 and took LSD and mescaline and reported on their effects. His reflections on the thought processes of the real-life models substantiated his representation of the insane mind in his One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and his demonstration of empathy for the Insider’s view of the Outsider’s world is more appealing to the empathetic reader. Although the theme of the societal and technological repression on the individual is not the primary concern for a cognitive literary study, Kesey’s efforts of pushing limits and redefining normal boundaries are relevant and his representation of (in)sanity can be an object of analysis and a resource for the study of the mind. Since abnormalities of speech production and communicative interaction can foreground problems relevant to the faculty of language, just as linguistic and communicative “incompetences” can throw light on “competences”, which is a topic of discussion in my own Ph.D. dissertation a quarter century ago, the study of the fictional insane can be a feasible, if not indisputable, approach to the study of the actual insane and ultimately a better understanding of the sane. The validity of textual analysis from stylistic and narratological perspectives as a complement to, if not a succedaneum for, sociological and psychological studies is another safeguard for Xinran to move on. While focusing on Kesey’s magnum opus, Xinran paid due attention to works by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and

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Marcel Proust, not without Joseph Heller and Lu Xun. In the course of her work, she cautiously wondered, at the comments and suggestions of some helpful reviewers, if some more texts had to be incorporated into her corpus and if the whole context of madness novels of the 1960s should be taken into account. After reflecting on her approach to analysis and goals of inquiry and weighing up the load a monograph can possibly take off with, she had to make choices, to which I agreed. The theory of mind has been implicitly at work in a great many fictional narratives and explicitly employed in a number of scholarly studies, notably by Lisa Zunshine and others. Studies of the problematic mind and abnormal verbal behavior largely sit in the medical sector, and there is a far cry from linguistic-literary analyses to medical rehabilitative practices. But linguistic and semiotic reflections can illuminate clinical observations, as is exemplified by the eminent Russian linguist and literary theorist Roman Jakobson’s pioneering study of aphasia in the 1950s based on his direct contacts with patients suffering from speech disorders at the Karolinska Hospital in Sweden in 1940. Learning from the giant’s insights, Xinran read a lot in cognitive psychology to provide a sound theoretical basis for her cognitive poetics analysis of narrative texts and her attempts at the study of the mad mind in literature. Had she drawn on the professional psychiatrist’s and/or neurologist’s expertise, her reflections and discussions on the mad mind would have been more relevant to their concerns. Had she conducted experiments with the aid of cognitive scientists or experimental psychologists on some actual readers’ responses to Kesey’s textual evocation, she might have contributed more substantively to cognitive poetics. In the age of digital humanities, even with vigorous developments in new poetics and postclassical narratology or “narratologies” after the cognitive and rhetorical turns, the study of literature (or literary studies) is still not a properly defined and delimited academic discipline of “literaturology”, and literary scholars are not confident to claim to be human scientists although a lot of their research work is corpus-driven, digitally retrieved, scientifically guided and logically presented. Literature is art and “art is thinking in images” (Victor Shklovsky: “Art as Technique”) that defy most methods of objective inquiry. However, with the rise of cognitive science, it has been well recognized that literature is made of language that represents categories and processes capable of

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being linguistically and conceptually described, systematically and consistently analyzed, intuitively but consensually interpreted, inter-subjectively checked and empirically verified. In view that linguistics is an important branch of cognitive science along with psychology, philosophy, computer science, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and anthropology, there is some sense to acknowledge the validity of cognitive linguistic-literary studies and their contributions to cognitive science(s), in spite of the essential differences between speculative analysis and empirical experimentation, and between fictional representation and actual characterization of the mind. Since a lot of philosophers, psychologists, neurologists and computer scientists have taken literary texts (especially fictional discourse) as relevant resources for their investigation and reflection, cognitive literary researchers who touch on issues of cognitive science(s) should not be prosecuted as trespassers if they seriously draw from the discoveries of cognitive scientists, subject their own findings to more rigorous empirical verification and contribute to the study of the mind. There is no denying that fictional representation translates the formidable into the informidable and what it looks like into what it feels like in artful ways to the literary mind. Cognitive studies of fictional representation of the abnormal mind can add more to our knowledge of the inner world of homo sapiens and their responses to others’ memories or emotions, and hence shed light on our understanding of human conditions and finding solutions to their problems. I would like to endorse Xinran’s book by asserting that it is not a makeweight book out of an average Ph.D. thesis stereotypically regarded, or discarded, as “nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another” (J. Frank Dobie: A Texan in England). Fully aware of the cliché about the notorious gap(s) between a defendable thesis and a publishable book, she has willingly taken pains in rewriting and restructuring the manuscript during the last fifteen months. She is not under a pressure, as a typical new graduate is, of anxiously finding a scholarship to live on, or, as a junior scholar (q¯ıng ji¯ ao, literally “green pepper”) is, of having to “publish or perish”. She is sharing, as she has done in a couple of journal articles and Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA) Conference papers, her findings and reflections with some interested people in cognitive literary studies. This book is only a beginning, and there are more problems to deal with and more depths to get into. There is always an issue between looking down on the ground and looking up in the sky, and one has to

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see the sixpence at the feet clearly before yearning for the moon beyond the horizon. I look forward to hearing critical comments from prospective readers and seeing Xinran’s further work along this path. Zongxin Feng Professor of Linguistics and English Language/Literature; Former Fulbright Research Scholar Department of Linguistics University of California Berkeley, USA Tsinghua University Beijing, China

Preface

Many previous studies on literary madness have focused on the mad minds in the fictional world or the relationship between madness and narrative fiction. It is often assumed that literary madness is self-contained and can be studied in isolation from the real mind. Even though Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis has been widely applied in various studies on fictional mad minds, it is oftentimes unidirectional—from the real mind to literary madness, whereas the other route is rarely traveled. This book, a bidirectional project from the outset, aims to explore the intrinsic interrelations between fiction and cognition and what relevance madness narratives have to the study of the human mind or cognition. This book is the outcome of an indirect empirical research set on the interface between literature and cognitive science. It draws systematically on theories from both narratology and cognitive science including cognitive linguistics, psychology and cognitive neuropsychology. To investigate fictional mad minds, the American novelist Ken Kesey’s magnum opus One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is employed as the primary sample text, and reference is also made to other texts when necessary. A psychological realism novel per se, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest has achieved enduring fame with, among Kesey’s various masterly designs, its unprecedented depictions of the mad minds, exemplifying an ideal venue for a systematic study of fictional mad minds. The scope of the present study, however, is much wider than a criticism of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s

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Nest. The research findings are to be applied to the said novel in particular and madness narratives and cognitive narratological studies in general. By focusing on the two key narrative issues of focalization and mental representation, the present study comprehensively investigates the narrative representation of madness in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest from both a cognitive and a social dimension. In the process of investigation, the boundary between fictional minds and real minds are often traversed: fictional minds are studied by using the theories and concepts of cognitive science developed from research on the real mind; research findings based on fictional minds shed light on a comprehensive theory of the real mind. In a most condensed fashion, the findings of the present research can be encapsulated into two statements: a multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization is conducive to a multi-dimensional representation of fictional minds; a comprehensive understanding of madness is, inter alia, a social cognitive understanding. Based on the above findings, this book argues that fictional representation of mad minds can be an object of reflection and that cognitive literary studies of madness narratives can be a valid approach to developing a comprehensive theory of the mind. This book differs from other texts in the field by not only stressing the value of the bidirectional borrowing between literary madness and real minds, but also offering a valid framework for such an approach. By venturing into the entangling enigma of madness, this book hopes to make a contribution to our understanding of the fictional mad mind, the real mind, and above all, to decipher a small portion of what makes us human. Beijing, China Châteauroux, France October 2022

Xinran YANG

Acknowledgements

This book comes at the end of an extremely exciting and challenging academic journey of eight years. It is written on the basis of my Ph.D. dissertation, titled A Cognitive Narratological Approach to Madness Representation in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. These eight years are especially memorable in my life—they witnessed how I grew from a layperson in cognitive literary studies to a devoted soul in this career. I owe my gratitude to all the people who helped me along. My greatest intellectual debt is to my supervisor Professor Zongxin Feng at Tsinghua University, whose wisdom, kindness, encouragement and patience infuse me with a keen academic passion and enlighten me like a beacon of light. Without his guidance, neither the dissertation nor the present book could even exist. I am equally grateful to other professors at Tsinghua University who have helped me at various stages of my dissertation: Professor Yongguo Chen, Professor Gang Cui, Professor Xia Wu, Professor Wenfang Fan, Professor Jie Dong, Professor Yehong Zhang and the late Professor Shisheng Liu. My heartfelt gratitude also goes to Professor Bikang Huang at Peking University and Professor Xiaohui Liang at University of Science and Technology Beijing for their thought-provoking and illuminating ideas. I am indebted to Beijing International Studies University for supporting me to pursue my academic work at a high standard and for funding the publication of this monograph. I am also indebted to my colleagues and friends for their kind and generous help. xv

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of my book proposal, and I thank Palgrave Macmillan and Social Sciences Academic Press (China) for all their efforts in making this book possible. Finally, I dedicate this book to my family. Without their love, support, tolerance and sacrifice, I would not have completed this book.

Contents

1

Introduction 1.1 Narratives and Human Cognitive Life 1.2 The Enigma of Madness 1.3 What This Book Is About 1.4 Synopses of All Chapters References

1 2 3 7 12 16

2

Narrative Structures and Fictional Mad Minds 2.1 The Nexus of Focalization and Mental Representation Focalization Mental Representation An Integrated Framework for Focalization and Mental Representation 2.2 Modes of Focalization Modes of Focalization from a Classical Dimension Modes of Focalization from a Cognitive Dimension 2.3 A Multi-faceted and Multi-layered Model 2.4 Summary References

19 19 20 29

Intramental Madness 3.1 Cognitive Neuropsychology in Literary Madness Signs and Symptoms of Madness The Cognitive Bases of Madness

83 83 84 92

3

34 39 40 60 73 77 79

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3.2

Dynamicity of Intramental Madness The Paranoid Schizophrenic Stage The Recuperating Stage Toward a Well State 3.3 The Narrative Representation of Intramental Madness A Synchronic View of Madness A Diachronic View of Madness 3.4 Summary References

99 101 105 111 112 113 117 123 125

4

Intermental Madness 4.1 Humanistic Psychology in Literary Madness The Combine Mind The Social Bases of Madness 4.2 Dynamicity of Intermental Madness Dialogues with the Combine Mind Disintegration of the Combine Mind 4.3 The Narrative Representation of Intermental Madness Embedded Intermental Focalization Focalization Slipping Pseudo-intermental Focalization 4.4 Summary References

127 127 128 142 154 154 158 164 165 170 174 177 179

5

Toward a Social Cognitive Understanding of Minds and Madness 5.1 Madness as a Scalar Phenomenon Multi-Focalization for a Polysemous Madness The Cognitive and Social Dimensions of Madness A Scale of Madness 5.2 Madness as Cognitive Experimentation A Cognitive Impairment A Test for the Reader Cognitive Engagement 5.3 Novelists as Psychologists The Core Principles The Therapy The Societal Application

181 181 182 189 193 198 198 202 207 213 213 219 224

CONTENTS

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5.4

Fictional Narratives as Source Book of Psychology An “Encyclopedia” of Psychology The Therapeutic Value 5.5 Summary References

228 228 233 243 245

What Do Madness Narratives Offer to Cognitive Science? 6.1 An Object of Reflection 6.2 A Valid Approach References

251 252 257 261

References

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Index

275

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4

The structural property of focalization (Source The author) Focalization as a mental activity (Source The author) Speech category approach and cognitive approach: interrelations and differences (Source The author) A multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation (Source The author) The “causative-extended-rest” pattern at stage I (Source The author) The “causative-onset-motion” pattern at stage II (Source The author) The “despite-motion” pattern with shift in balance of strength at stage II (Source The author) The “letting-onset-motion” pattern at stage III (Source The author) The progression of consciousness (Source The author) The tense-focalization-mind triangle in Cuckoo’s Nest (Source The author) The ward unit as a subset of the combine mind (Source The author) The interrelations of the combine mind, the ward unit and the patient unit (1) (Source The author) The “causative-extended-motion” pattern (normalization) (Source The author) The “causative-extended-rest” pattern (denormalization) (Source The author)

35 36 38 77 103 103 104 104 106 122 159 160 161 163

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.5 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4

The interrelations of the combine mind, the ward unit and the patient unit (2) (Source The author) Senses of madness and their interrelations (Source The author) A default view of the mad vs. the reason (Source The author) A Keseyian view of the mad and the reason (Source The author) A scale of madness (Source The author)

164 191 193 195 196

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3

Mental representation via focalization A comparison between the punctual events The interactional, evidentiary and concurrent facets of focalization The Occurrences of “Fog” in Cuckoo’s Nest The Occurrences of “Combine” in Cuckoo’s Nest A comparison of the dialogues on madness between the ward unit and the patient unit (1) A comparison of the dialogues on madness between the ward unit and the patient unit (2) Levels of focalization

39 63 72 101 101 159 162 167

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

It may sound offhanded that science is rediscovering the facts about the human mind that novelists have long discovered—the real tangible facts that the novelists intuit in their fictional worlds. Yet, when Virginia Woolf, a prominent twentieth-century modernist and pioneer in stream of consciousness, constructs the quotidian consciousness of Mrs. Dalloway and Lily in her constant search of the self that binds the split minds in one’s brain, she forebodes the split-brain research findings by Roger Sperry, an American neurologist and the 1981 Nobel Prize laureate of physiology or medicine. As an artist, Woolf has acutely noticed how “the self emerges via the act of attention” (Lehrer, 2007: 181): I remarked with what magnificent vitality the atoms of my attention dispersed, swarmed round the interruption, assimilated the message, adapted themselves to a new state of affairs and had created, by the time I put back the receiver, a richer, a stronger, a more complicated world in which I was called upon to act my part and had no doubt whatever that I could do it. (Woolf, 1992: 488)

In Woolf’s above observation, the particular point of view from which we experience the world is the point where the self emerges, as Lehrer (2007: 181) has concluded: “We bind together our sensory parts by experiencing them from a particular point of view”.

© Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 X. YANG, A Poetics of Minds and Madness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6_1

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The consciousness is an evanescent process, whereas the point of view, or more technically put, focalization, channels how the consciousness is experienced and represented. It is exactly this kind of perennial Woolfian fascination with consciousness that triggered the present research. This book will venture further into this junction of art and science, striving to understand the fathom of the human mind through the looking glass of the abnormal mind.

1.1

Narratives and Human Cognitive Life

Narratives, or stories, are pervasive throughout human culture. A narrative is generally defined as “a sequentially organized representation of a sequence of events” (Herman, 2003: 2).1 Traditionally an artifact of human cultural and cognitive life, stories are, in the age of cognitive science, believed to be both a product of and a way to cognition itself. David Herman, a leading cognitive narratologist, argues that stories are a basic human strategy and they “form part of the basic mental equipment of ‘cognitively modern humans’, in Mark Turner’s phrase” (Herman, 2003: 1). To study the intrinsic relationships between narratives and cognition, two strategies are generally held: making sense of narratives through cognitive science and using narratives as sense-making tools to enhance cognitive abilities and bring new insights into cognition. The former falls within the domain of cognitive poetics, cognitive narratology and cognitive approaches to literature; the latter is a new research interest of many scientists engaged in, for example, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. More often than not, a demarcation between the two strategies is more arbitrary than an ontological issue, as exemplified by Turner’s (1996) The Literary Mind that deals with both. Cognitive narratology, a sub-field of “postclassical narratology” (Herman, 2009), can be defined as “the study of mind-relevant aspects of storytelling practices, wherever—and by whatever means—those practices occur” (Herman, 2009: 30). From the outset, it demonstrates a strong interdisciplinarity—cognitive narratology “blends concepts and methods from narratology with ideas originating from psychology, artificial intelligence, the philosophy of mind, and other approaches to issues 1 Also see Genette (1980), Prince (1982), Chatman (1990) and Rimmon-Kenan (2002).

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of cognition” (Herman, 2003: 20). One of its central areas of investigation is fictional minds, in particular the mental representation of the fictional characters (e.g., Emmott, 2003; Herman, 2002, 2003; Margolin, 2003; Palmer, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2011). “[N]arrative fiction is, in essence, the presentation of fictional mental functioning”, argues Palmer (2004: 5). Palmer develops new descriptive and explanatory techniques for studying the mental representation of fictional characters by using tools borrowed from cognitive science. Besides, he also suggests that studies on fictional minds can help understand the real mind, a traditional subject matter of cognitive science (Palmer, 2003). At the turn of the twenty-first century, Dan Sperber (2001: 48) rightly observed that “our understanding of cognitive architecture is way too poor, and the best we can do is try and speculate intelligently (which is great fun anyhow)”. Now, in the third decade of this century, Sperber’s observation still rings true in general, even though the situation has been greatly ameliorated.

1.2

The Enigma of Madness

Madness, a common human experience, has been intertwined with literature since time immemorial. For long, scholars from different fields have been intrigued by questions about madness and literature and have striven for a better understanding of the intersection between the two. The English word “madness” has been variously shaped in meaning throughout history. To trace its etymological roots, we may examine the word “sane”—an antonym of “mad”. The English word “sane” derives from the Latin adjective sanus meaning “healthy”, and thus, the insane are those who have poor health of the mind (not necessarily of the brain as an organ). However, this “poor health of mind” has been defined in drastically different ways and defies facile generalizations. “As societies and their institutions and values have changed, so too have the ways in which madness has been experienced, understood, and treated” (Eghigian, 2017: 2). In the present day, two types of definition, represented by the psychiatric definition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM ) and the social political definition by Foucault respectively, juxtapose as two academic paradigms. In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition) (DSM-5), madness is considered as a mental disorder, which is in turn defined as a term of psychiatry:

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A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 20)

In the above definition, madness is defined following an objective medical approach; socially deviant behavior and conflicts not resulting from dysfunctions in the individual are explicitly excluded. By contrast, the Foucauldian definition of madness, though extremely influential, can hardly be pinned down as per the above DSM -5 definition. Taking an archeological approach to the history of madness, Foucault defines madness as a concept that is relative to different discourses rather than a natural, unchanging entity. Therefore, for Foucault, madness is a social construction—society constructs its experience of madness. Madness is defined in relation to reason; it is consistently considered as the “other” of reason and as something to be analyzed and corrected by reason: “Here madness and non-madness, reason and non-reason are inextricably involved: inseparable at the moment when they do not yet exist, and existing for each other, in relation to each other, in the exchange which separates them” (Foucault, 1988: x). Without denying the physiological basis of madness (which is not his primary concern), Foucault stresses madness as a social difference. The DSM definition of madness as a mental illness and the Foucauldian definition of madness as a social difference are fundamental in various understandings of madness. Although the concept of madness varies in different historical, cultural, literary and even individual contexts, mental illness and social difference remain constant as the two major components in various judgments—some opting for one side and some taking in both, and hence become the two major senses of the word “madness”. For example, Feder clearly refers to these two components in Madness in Literature:

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The connection among all these [forms of madness] is a concern— however primitive or sophisticated—with mind, with deviation of some norm or thought and feeling, whether as a threat, a challenge or a field of exploration which must yield revelation. (Feder, 1980: xi–xii)

For Feder, madness is both a mental illness and a deviated thought or feeling. Likewise, in his monograph Madness and Modernism, Sass stresses the irrationality in madness but without clearly differentiating the psychiatric or social distinctions: “Madness is irrationality, a condition involving decline or even disappearance of the role of rational factors in the organization of human conduct and experience” (Sass, 1992: 1). By deemphasizing the causes for irrationality, be it a sick mind or a social difference, Sass’s definition can encompass both. Madness, as a signifier, has been endowed with dramatically different signifieds and has undergone different treatments throughout the Western history, from the Dionysian frenzy of ancient Greeks to the madmen during the Middle Ages, from Ship of Fools of the Renaissance to the catastrophe for the insane in the Age of Reason, and all the way down to the modern times when mental institutions are a commonplace, psychological theories suffice and treatments of madness diversify. What remains at the heart of the significantly different judgments on madness throughout the history is either the medical or social sense of the concept of madness or both. Accordingly, I give a working definition of the concept of “madness” in the present research as follows: Madness is either a medical condition of mental disorders or a social decision on an individual difference, i.e., deviant thought, behavior or feeling, and so forth, that does not conform to the social norms of a particular historical, social and cultural context. It can encompass both simultaneously.

Likewise, literary madness, constantly shaped by and reflecting the prevalent view on madness of the day, also hosts a number of unresolved issues. Throughout Western literary history, we may find a natural rapport between verbal art and madness. Take a limited number of the formative works in the cultural history of madness for example: Plato’s Phaedrus, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Racine’s Andromache, Poe’s “The Raven”, Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman”, Dostoevsky’s The Double and The Idiot, Chekhov’s “Ward Number Six” and Kafka’s The Castle. This is only

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a short list out of a formidably long one. Yet, it suffices to demonstrate the everlasting human fascination with madness—madness as a profound enigma and madness representing something more than a disease. Characters that are afflicted by mental illness have never ceased making literary appearances throughout history. Traditionally, mad characters are often portrayed as inspiring fictional madmen, such as Shakespeare’s King Lear, Cervantes’s Don Quixote, Goethe’s Tasso, Gogol’s mad diarist, Poe’s mad narrators and the madmen in the Chinese writer Lu Xun’s short stories. In the twentieth century, writers such as Kafka, Joyce and Tennessee Williams turn to personal breakdowns to depict their understanding of madness. In the present day, literary madness, apart from its links to the precursory figures, presents a stronger affiliation with the scientific understanding of the human brain based on cognitive science. For example, Baxter and Jed, the two characters in McEwan’s Saturday and Enduring Love respectively, both suffer from rare neurological diseases—Huntington’s disease for Baxter and de Clérambault’s syndrome for Jed. Similarly, Mark Schluter, the protagonist from Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker, suffers from the mental disorder of Capgras syndrome. Apart from those that are mentally ill, the madmen that are deviant from the social norms constitute the second type. Some fictional characters, such as Edgar in King Lear and McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, may not be afflicted by mental illness, but they choose to act as if they were mad to eschew normal behaviors and norms. Some other fictional characters display some form of abnormality that isolates them from others, as can be found in Emma in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. By elaborating on the deviant sense of the concept of madness, the authors commonly choose the deviant individuals as mouthpieces to anchor their critiques of the society. Given the two essential components of madness, i.e., a mental disorder and a social difference, it is not hard to understand novelists’ perennial zeal for madness in their literary experiences—the cracked minds are the ideal site to reflect and represent either mental agonies or social struggles or both, the essential ingredients of human cognitive and social/ cultural life. “The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known” (Shklovsky, 1965 [1917]: 12). In the literary representation of madness, novelists very often present the mad minds in their entirety, not in the characteristic way as people know about them. The foregrounding of the mad minds in

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their entirety furnishes a novel point of view of the human mind, making it appear unfamiliar to the reader, thus a defamiliarization technique in Shklovsky’s parlance. This may help remove “the automatism of perception” (Shklovsky, 1965 [1917]: 13), forcing the reader to notice how our mind functions in the normal context under the defamiliarizing effect of the literary representation of the deformed or abnormal minds. Shklovsky famously proclaims that “as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic” (1965 [1917]: 11), and he wittily tells us the danger of habitualization: “Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war” (1965 [1917]: 12). However, when the unmarked human capacity breaks down and hence becomes a marked incidence, we are more likely to notice and learn about this capacity outside of that comfort zone of habitualization. This observation may be further corroborated by the linguistic studies of aphasia. For example, Jakobson insightfully argued some seventy years ago that the study of aphasia as a linguistic problem may offer “the linguist with new insights into the general laws of language” (Jakobson, 1956: 56). Likewise, the study of the abnormal mind or madness in narrative fiction may represent a unique opportunity for us to understand the mad mind in particular and the human mind in general.

1.3

What This Book Is About

This book has it as the overarching goal to explore the intrinsic relationships between madness narratives and the human mind or cognition by investigating fictional mad minds. To that end, I focus on the following three areas: • Narrative structures and fictional mad minds • Intramental madness and intermental madness • A social cognitive understanding of minds and madness

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The American writer Ken Kesey’s2 classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Cuckoo’s Nest for short) is chosen as the primary sample text to address this goal. Published by the Viking Press in 1962, this debut novel by Kesey enjoys a reputation unmatched by any of his other works. It is considered a canonical work of mental illness3 (Ohmann, 1983) and one of the best social and political fictional narratives of the 1960s (Lhamon, 1975). During the past sixty years, the novel is frequently used, in addition to literature, as a text in disciplines as different as psychology, sociology, medicine and others, initiating a body of research; many studies are controversial in nature. For example, it triggered serious discussions on the legitimacy of using electric shock therapy in the treatment of mental disorders. With both his anatomical accuracy in the description of the brain and artistic experience of the ineffability of the minds, Kesey echoes the Woolfian pursuit of consciousness with his masterly psychological realism in representing the mad minds. Therefore, I refer to Cuckoo’s Nest as my primary text for exploring the narrative representation of the fictional mad minds, and will make references to other texts whenever necessary. 2 Kesey (1935–2001), a “West Coast hippy-goy-guru-tribal-leader and sometime-writer” (Widmer, 1975: 121), belongs to the cult writers of madness narratives of the turbulent 1960s in the West. As a writer from an age of social, political and cultural upheavals, Kesey possesses the distinctive traits of his contemporaries writing about madness. Indeed, given the individual differences in terms of the form of the fiction, the language, “the sense of personal psychology projected by fiction” and “the notion of what constitutes coherence in life and art” (Lhamon, 1975: 296), many American fictional narratives of the 1960s are strikingly accordant in thematizing social contradictions as individual mental disorders. “Through the story of mental disorientation or derangement, then, these novels transform deep social contradictions into a dynamic of personal crisis, a sense of there being no comfortable place in the world for the private self” (Ohmann, 1983: 218). In various mad stories, we may frequently find the “obscene presence of American institutions” (Lhamon, 1975: 296), the heroes breaking away from the institutions and a new emphasis on self-consciousness. 3 On his list of canonical “illness story” from 1960 to 1975, Ohmann (1983) includes the following works: Catch-22 (Heller, 1961), Franny and Zooey (Salinger, 1961), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey, 1962), Ship of Fools (Porter, 1962), The Group (McCarthy, 1963), The Bell Jar (Plath, 1963), Herzog (Bellow, 1964), The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon, 1965), Portnoy’s Complaint (Roth, 1969), Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut, 1973), Something Happened (Heller, 1974), Ragtime (Doctorow, 1975) and the Rabbit series by John Updike. To add to Ohmann’s list, we may also include V. (Pynchon, 1963), Trout Fishing in America (Brautigan, 1967) and Norman Mailer’s three narratives: An American Dream (1965), Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967) and The Armies of the Night (1968). This is by no means an exhaustive list.

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The inquiry into the intangible literary madness will start with the tangible textual property, i.e., the narrative structures. By exploring the tense patterns, modes of focalization and the representation of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, I propose a multi-faceted and multi-layered approach to focalization and mental representation , which serves as a practical framework for understanding the interrelations of narrative structures and fictional mad minds. Under this framework, I explore further from both an intramental and an intermental dimension the fictional mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest, including the diagnoses, the nature and the cognitive and social bases of madness. The investigations in the above two areas will naturally pave way for a cognitive and social understanding of madness, which fundamentally underpins the present research. Meanwhile, the study will be a bidirectional borrowing between literary madness and real minds: the investigations of the fictional mad minds will not only be facilitated by findings from but also shed light on cognitive studies of real minds. The present research, conducted under the general framework of cognitive narratology, is a new exploration of focalization and mental representation, the central issues of narratology initiated by classical narratologists such as Gérard Genette and Dorrit Cohn. As a brain child of the cognitive era endowed with heritage from classical narratology, this book offers a viable framework to study mental representation via focalization. Acknowledging the inherent nexus of focalization and mental representation, the current study sees focalization as cognitive per se, enriches focalization terminology from a cognitive dimension and argues that focalization channels mental representation. This book also enriches the scholarship on madness studies with its featured approaches to fictional mad minds. Seeing fictional minds and real minds can be both studied by drawing on the tools and methods of cognitive science, the investigations of literary madness in the present study embark on a bidirectional route, making the study of the two minds mutually beneficial. Besides, the marriage of madness studies to a poetics gives birth to a practical model—the triangulate relationships of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds, yielding fresh interpretations of madness in particular and a new way to understand language, narratives and the human mind in general. In addition, this book also enriches the scholarship on madness studies by offering a social cognitive approach to and an understanding of madness. With the advent of modern psychology, the psychological approach has long

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become the main criticism method for literary madness. This book, with due respect to this tradition, widens the scope of the traditional psychological approach which adopts predominantly Freudian terminology of psychoanalysis, encompassing findings from cognitive neuropsychology and other cutting-edge cognitive science studies in order to explore the cognitive aspect of madness. Departing from a Foucauldian position, this research also gives equal weight to the social dimension of madness visà-vis the cognitive dimension, and employs humanistic psychology to examine the mad minds from the perspective of a social being. This book may achieve two broad ends. An immediate end is that it offers new interpretations of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the modern classic of madness narratives. Thanks to the development of cognitive science, sixty years after its publication, Kesey’s chef d’oeuvre is re-examined for its unexplored value, so that we can rediscover the literary and cognitive value of the Keseyian madness. A second end, and a more important one, is that it furnishes a new way to understand the intricate relationships between madness narratives and the human mind by exploring the fictional representation of minds and madness. It will be only a partial understanding to treat this book as a mere criticism of Cuckoo’s Nest under a cognitive approach—the scope of the present work is much wider than that. Through meticulous explorations of the mad minds in the story world, it demonstrates that madness narratives represent a unique opportunity to rethink how our mind functions in the normal situation, and that the study of fictional representation of madness can be a valid means or resource of studying the human mind. As an interdisciplinary study, this book may unavoidably employ terms from several disciplines, including narratology, linguistics and psychology, etc., possibly causing a jargon vertigo. Therefore, a brief explication of my choice of the terms is necessary at this beginning stage. Unless specified, the terms employed in the present research, as technical jargons, are restrained to narratology, such as focalization and mental representation, etc. However, the following six terms deserve some extra explanations: Cognitive science. Unless specified, this term is used as an umbrella term to cover all the scientific studies of the human mind and brain, including studies of cognition and emotion, neurology, psychology, psychiatry, philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, etc. The same type of broad range usage is also applied to “cognitive studies”.

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Cognitive literary studies . Again, unless specified, I am using it as an umbrella term that encompasses various disciplines, such as cognitive poetics, cognitive stylistics, cognitive narratology and cognitive approaches to literature, among others. Recognizing the differences among these disciplines, I consider they share a large common ground in that they all turn to cognitive science for tools and methods in studying literary texts and bring new insight into cognitive studies. Accordingly, even though conducted within the general framework of cognitive narratology, the present research does not treat these disciplines as clearly separate, and places them under the general term of cognitive literary studies. Cognition. This term is used in accordance with its sense in cognitive poetics. It includes the sense of “embodied experience” as defined in cognitive linguistics, but can be broader than that. It can refer to the various human mental activities, including cognition (in its narrow sense), emotion and psychological states. Mind. Cognitive science is not a homogeneous discipline, and the term “mind” may be used with different shades of meaning in different subdisciplines. Therefore, I use this term in line with cognitive poetics and in relation to human cognitive activities in general. There can be, however, some nuances. When referring to the fictional characters, it is used in relation to the individual cognitive activities. When referring to the reader, it is used in relation to the ideal reader’s cognitive activities in reader-response. Consciousness. This term is used in its common sense, or as a technical jargon, at best it is used as a term of narratology (e.g., representation of consciousness) or that of psychology in general. It needs to be distinguished from Freud’s specific use of “the conscious”, “subconscious” and “unconscious”. The reader. Following the tradition of classical narratology and a large section of cognitive poetics in general and cognitive narratology in particular, I treat the reader, instead of being the real human agent, as “textual constructions, referred to in scholarship as implied, inscribed, model, hypothetical, or virtual readers” (Nikolajeva, 2014: 8) by Iser (1973), Culler (1975) and Eco (1979), among others.

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1.4

Synopses of All Chapters

Synopses of all chapters are provided at the end of the introduction to assist readers who wish to read the rest of the book and who decide to read some individual chapters. The chapters follow a linear progression from the narrative structures and the representation of madness to the nature of madness and finally, the role madness literature plays in understanding the human mind. However, each chapter, with an individual focus of its own, can also be read independently from the rest. Chapter 2 explores the triangulate relationships of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds. It starts with an investigation of the intersections between focalization and mental representation. Inasmuch as focalization and mental representation are both considered as construal processes and have cognition and emotion within their capacity of investigation, I argue that they are, to a large extent, two routes to the same destination, the structural property of focalization being the textual manifestation of mental representation and providing an access to the fictional minds. Thus, I propose an integrated framework to study mental representation in narrative fiction via focalization. Then, I make an inquiry into the structural property of Cuckoo’s Nest from the perspective of focalization. My investigations depart from the commonly acknowledged position that Cuckoo’s Nest, following the major pattern of internal focalization (Genette, 1980), is focalized through the schizophrenic narrator Chief Bromden. This vantage point offers the reader a direct access to the story world through the schizophrenic narrator’s eyes, lending credence to the bizarre accounts by Bromden. However, the investigations of the present chapter also reveal that vis-à-vis the internal focalization Kesey makes use of various modes of focalization, which are subsumed under the general pattern of internal focalization. The different modes function together to form a complex focalization pattern that contributes to a multi-dimensional view of the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest. In addition, to seek explanations for Kesey’s idiosyncratic use of the tenses in Cuckoo’s Nest, I postulate a hypothesis of focalization windowing, mapping the linguistic patterns onto three cognitive facets of focalization, and I name them the interactional, concurrent and evidentiary facet respectively. The analysis of the intrinsic relationships of tense, focalization and mind shows that the narrator’s different mental states are

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represented through different facets of focalization, linguistically rendered in the present and the past tense. Based on the above findings, I tentatively argue in Chapter 2 that Kesey employs a complex focalization pattern in Cuckoo’s Nes t for a multi-dimensional view of the mad minds in the story world, and a multifaceted and multi-layered approach as employed in the present chapter is conducive to understanding not only the focalization strategies in Cuckoo’s Nest but also fictional narratives in general. Chapter 3 addresses the interrelations between fiction and cognition from an intramental dimension. To fulfill this task, I did a case study on the schizophrenic narrator Chief Bromden, the exemplary madman whose madness is most completely represented in Cuckoo’s Nest. The synchronic investigation indicates that Bromden exhibits typical signs and symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic, which reflect defects of a general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation. Likewise, by drawing on Talmy’s (2000) theory of force dynamics, the diachronic investigation of the progression of Bromden’s consciousness reveals that his mental states are an outcome of intrapsychologial and interpsychological force interactions. Based on the above findings, I argue that a madman’s process of recovery is a progression toward consciousness and the Keseyian madness is not static but dynamic. Finally, this chapter examines the narrative strategies, particularly focalization strategies, for representing intramental madness. From a synchronic perspective, two focalization strategies, i.e., psychological focalization in the disguise of perceptual focalization and embedded focalization for a disguised focalizer, are identified to be indispensable to the narrative representation of intramental madness. From a diachronic perspective, Kesey represents Bromden’s two mental states, i.e., a conscious mind and a disordered mind, either in concatenation or in concurrence. Investigations of Bromden’s madness in Chapter 3 help reveal how the study of fictional minds of individuals benefits from the toolkits of cognitive science, what individual madness in fictional narratives contributes to understanding real minds, and the narrative techniques for representing individual madness. Chapter 4 seeks to further understand the interrelations between fiction and cognition from an intermental dimension. I chose the “Combine mind”, a prototypical group mind in Cuckoo’s Nest, to conduct a second case study for the present task.

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The term “Combine mind” is coined after Bromden’s delusional concept “Combine” in Cuckoo’s Nest. It is used in the current study to refer to the social mind of madness. The synchronic investigations indicate that Kesey’s representation of intermental madness is built upon solid social bases. In representing madness as a social construction, Kesey challenges the highly subjective nature of the diagnosis process of mental illness. Meanwhile, he also sees madness as an ontological insecurity. The patients’ madness, from an existential perspective, can be understood as their efforts to preserve their identity in facing anxiety and danger. By building his understanding of madness on these two social bases, Kesey launches his critiques of the Kraepelin-type positivist psychiatry. In tackling the social bases of madness, Kesey further enriches the existential literature. From a diachronic perspective, the social mind of madness is found to be echoing the individual madness in terms of its relationship with consciousness and its inherent nature of dynamicity. Three focalization strategies for representing intermental madness are identified. First, from a vertical view, Kesey embeds intermental focalizations within intramental focalizations to represent intermental minds with different degrees of explicitness. Second, from a horizontal view, Kesey employs intermental focalizations in juxtaposition with intramental focalizations by means of focalization slipping. The focalization slipping makes a natural transition between intermental consciousness and intramental consciousness and connects group action with thought in a thoughtaction continuum. Third, pseudo-intermental focalizations, in which an intramental focalization appears in the disguise of an intermental focalization, are employed to represent a personal desire as a group thought, testifying the prevalence of intermental madness. Thanks to these focalization strategies, the covert, gappy yet continuous intermental consciousness of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest becomes both robust and physical, engaging in a dialogic relationship with intramental consciousness. Chapter 5 discusses the central issues of minds and madness by addressing the nature and the value of literary madness and what relevance it has to understanding real minds. The discussions are centered on the following four aspects. First, Kesey holds a social and cognitive position in representing literary madness. He treats madness as a polysemous concept as well as a scalar phenomenon, widens the scope of its connotation and blurs the boundary of its extension. The Keseyian madness innovates the concept of literary madness.

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Second, the authorly construction and the readerly construal of the mad minds in the story world are like cognitive experimentation. Kesey experiments with both the fictional characters’ impaired cognitive mechanisms in his portrayal of the mad minds and the reader’s sound cognitive mechanisms to make sense of the madness in the story world. In addition, the reader’s cognitive engagement with the mad world may also foster his/her metarepresentational ability and raise his/her self-awareness, a positive byproduct of the reading experience. In this sense, Cuckoo’s Nest can be regarded as a testing ground for the cognitive theory of consciousness. Third, underlying Kesey’s masterly design of madness is his profound thought of the human mind, an understanding that is in many ways comparable to theories of psychology. Kesey’s treatment of madness as a cognitive impairment of a general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation—is in line with a groundbreaking cognitive theory of schizophrenia that the cognitive neuropsychologist Frith (1992) formulated thirty years later. In addition, his position of humanistic psychology can also be constantly identified throughout the entire work of Cuckoo’s Nest. Thus, Kesey’s understanding of madness is both cognitively and socially grounded, and in this sense, he can be regarded as a de facto psychologist. Finally, Cuckoo’s Nest can also be said to be a source book of psychology. Due to its exceptionally wide coverage and accurate representation of psychological matters, Cuckoo’s Nest is akin to an “encyclopedia” of psychology. Besides, thanks to the carnivalistic laughter in Cuckoo’s Nest, a magical antidote to madness in the fictional world, the reading experience itself may bring about a catharsis of the worldly pressures, thus an ancillary therapeutic effect. As a work of art, Cuckoo’s Nest contains exceptionally rich data or source of psychology, making the art and the science one and the same. Chapter 6 brings this book to an end by exploring the unique value of cognitive studies of madness narratives. Over the past three decades, cognitive literary studies has grown into an influential research field. Literary works have been valued as useful data and/or a valid means for cognitive studies. This book concludes that in the present day, literature still has much to contribute to cognitive science—the study of literary (fictional) representation of the abnormal mind (or madness) offers a unique opportunity to understand the human mind or cognition. Madness narratives can be an object of reflection and a valid approach to a comprehensive theory of the human mind, and cognitive literary studies

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of madness narratives can be an important field of cognitive literary science.

References American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing. Bellow, S. (1964). Herzog. Viking Press. Brautigan, R. (2010 [1967]). Trout fishing in America. Mariner Books. Chatman, S. B. (1990). Coming to terms: The rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film. Cornell University Press. Culler, J. (1975). Structuralist poetics. Structuralism, linguistics and the study of literature. Routledge. Doctorow, E. L. (1975). Ragtime. Random House. Eco, U. (1979). The role of the reader: Explorations in the semiotics of texts. Indiana University Press. Eghigian, G. (2017). Introduction to the history of madness and mental health. In G. Eghigian (Ed.), The Routledge history of madness and mental health (pp. 1–15). Routledge. Emmott, C. (2003). Constructing social space: Sociocognitive factors in the interpretation of character relations. In D. Herman (Ed.), Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences (pp. 295–321). CSLI Publications. Feder, L. (1980). Madness in literature. Princeton University Press. Frith, C. D. (1992). The cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Flaubert, G. (2011). Madame Bovary (A. Thorpe, Trans.). Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason (R. Howard, Trans.). Vintage Books. Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse: An essay in method (J. E. Lewin, Trans.). Cornell University Press. Heller, J. (1961). Catch-22. Simon & Schuster. Heller, J. (1974). Something happened. Knopf. Herman, D. (2002). Story logic: Problems and possibilities of narrative. University of Nebraska Press. Herman, D. (2003). Introduction. In D. Herman (Ed.), Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences (pp. 1–30). CSLI Publications. Herman, D. (2009). Cognitive narratology. In P. Hühn, J. Pier, W. Schmid, & J. Schölten (Eds.), Handbook of narratology (pp. 30–43). Walter de Gruyter. Iser, W. (1973). The implied reader: Patterns of communication in prose fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Jakobson, R. (1956). Two aspects of language and two types of aphasic disturbances. In R. Jakobson & M. Halle (Eds.), Fundamentals of language (pp. 53–82). Mouton & Co. Kesey, K. (1962). One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Signet. Lehrer, J. (2007). Proust was a neuroscientist. Houghton Mifflin Company. Lhamon, J. W. T. (1975). Break and enter to breakaway: Scotching modernism in the social novel of the American sixties. Boundary 2, 3(2), 288–306. Mailer, N. (1965). An American dream. The Dial Press. Mailer, N. (1967). Why are we in Vietnam?. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Mailer, N. (1968). The armies of the night. New American Library. Margolin, U. (2003). Cognitive science, the thinking mind, and the literary narrative. In D. Herman (Ed.), Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences (pp. 271–294). CSLI Publications. McCarthy, M. (1963). The group. New American Library. McEwan, I. (2003). Enduring love. RosettaBooks. McEwan, I. (2005). Saturday. Jonathan Cape. Nikolajeva, M. (2014). Reading for learning: Cognitive approaches to children’s literature. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Ohmann, R. (1983). The shaping of a canon: U.S. fiction, 1960–1975. Critical Inquiry, 10(1), 199–223. Palmer, A. (2002). The construction of fictional minds. Narrative, 10(1), 28–46. Palmer, A. (2003). The mind beyond the skin. In D. Herman (Ed.), Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences (pp. 322–348). CSLI Publications. Palmer, A. (2004). Fictional minds. University of Nebraska Press. Palmer, A. (2010). Social minds in the novel. The Ohio State University Press. Palmer, A. (2011). Social minds in fiction and criticism. Style, 45(2), 196–240. Plath, S. (1966 [1963]). The bell jar. Faber & Faber. Porter, K. A. (1962). Ship of fools. Little, Brown. Powers, R. (2006). The echo maker. Farrar. Prince, G. (1982). Narratology: The form and functioning of narrative. Mouton. Pynchon, T. (1963). V . J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pynchon, T. (1965). The crying of lot 49. J. B. Lippincott & Co. Rimmon-Kenan, S. (2002). Narrative fiction: Contemporary poetics (2nd ed.). Routledge. Roth, P. (1969). Portnoy’s complaint. Random House. Salinger, J. D. (1961). Franny and Zooey. Little, Brown. Sass, L. A. (1992). Madness and modernism: Insanity in the light of modern art, literature, and thought. HarperCollins. Shakespeare, W. (2007). King Lear (B. Raffel, Ed.). Yale University Press. Shklovsky, V. (1965 [1917]). Art as technique. In L. T. Lemon & M. J. Reis (Eds.), Russian formalist criticism (pp. 2–24). University of Nebraska Press.

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Sperber, D. (2001). In defense of massive modularity. In E. Dupoux (Ed.), Language, brain, and cognitive development: Essays in honor of Jacques Mehler (pp. 47–58). The MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Concept structuring systems (Vol. 1). MIT Press Turner, M. (1996). The literary mind. Oxford University Press. Updike, J. (1960). Rabbit, run. Knopf. Updike, J. (1971). Rabbit Redux. Knopf. Vonnegut, K. (1973). Breakfast of champions. Delacorte Press. Widmer, K. (1975). The post-modernist art of protest: Kesey and Mailer as American expressions of rebellion. The Centennial Review, 19(3), 121–135. Woolf, V. (1992). The waves. In S. McNichol (Ed.), Collected novels of Virginia Woolf (pp. 335–508). The Macmillan Press Ltd.

CHAPTER 2

Narrative Structures and Fictional Mad Minds

This chapter focuses on the interrelations between narrative structures and fictional mad minds. It proposes to study mental representation via focalization based on the common properties shared by the two issues, and accordingly investigates the modes of focalization and the representation of the fictional mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest under such a framework. In the end, it arrives at a multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation. This model is proved to be valuable in exploring the narrative structures and fictional mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest in the present study, and it can also be viably applied to fictional narratives in general.

2.1 The Nexus of Focalization and Mental Representation Classical narratologists make major strides in the development of focalization theory, furnishing basic terminology without which focalization studies in the present day can hardly be possible. While still preserving the important insights from the classical tradition, cognitive narratologists seek breakthroughs in focalization studies by defining it as a mental activity, and consequently the research focus shifts from the structural property in the text to the interface between the text and the mind. Likewise, theories of mental representation, generally speaking, can be identified in two major strands of studies: the speech category approach © Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 X. YANG, A Poetics of Minds and Madness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6_2

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of classical narratology and the more holistic cognitive approach. Inasmuch as focalization and mental representation are both considered as construal processes and have cognition and emotion within their capacity of investigation, they are, to a large extent, two routes to the same destination. The structural property of focalization is the textual manifestation of mental representation, providing an access to fictional minds. Focalization The term focalization can be traced back to Gérard Genette’s seminal oeuvre Discours du Récit, first published in French in 1972 and translated into English in 1980 under the title Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. This concept has been variously named “perspective”, “prism”, “angle of vision”, “point of view” and so forth. Focalization is a category “whose precise definition has … never been agreed upon and is still open to remapping” (Fludernik, 1996: 344). In what follows, I examine systematically the important focalization theories in the Genettian tradition, the post-Genettian tradition and cognitive narratology. Focalization in the Genettian Tradition Genette (1972) chooses “la focalisation” (focalization in English) to replace the terms with more visual connotations such as “point of view” or “perspective” in designating modes of selection and restriction in narrative. In nowhere in his Narrative Discourse has Genette explicitly defined focalization, but he gives a lucid explanation to narrative perspective: “a mode of regulating information, arising from the choice (or not) of a restrictive ‘point of view’” (Genette, 1980: 185–186). To christen this concept properly, Genette decides on a new term—focalization—to “avoid the too specifically visual connotations of the terms vision, field, and point of view” (Genette, 1980: 189, emphasis in original). Genette systematically distinguishes “Who sees?” from “Who speaks?”, the former identifying a subject of focalization whereas the latter a subject of narration, i.e., the narrator. This distinction is groundbreaking and the influence is profound, for it avoids the category error of confusing focal characters with narrators. In his Narrative Discourse Revisited, Genette (1988) considers that “Who sees?” may still have the visual connotations and changes it to “Who perceives?”. Given the possible factitious symmetry between “Who perceives?” and “Who speaks?”, Genette suggests replacing “Who perceives?” with “Where is the focus

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of perception?”, explaining that “this focus may or may not be embodied in a character” (Genette, 1988: 64). Mainly drawing on Pouillon’s (1946) vision and Todorov’s (1966) knowledge categories, Genette (1980) devises a tripartite typology of focalization: zero focalization (or nonfocalized narrative), internal focalization and external focalization. Zero focalization corresponds to narrative with an omniscient narrator, “where the narrator knows more than the character, or more exactly says more than any of the characters knows” (Genette, 1980: 189). In internal focalization, “the narrator says only what a given character knows”, and in external focalization, “the narrator says less than the character knows” (Genette, 1980: 189). Internal focalization consists of three subtypes: fixed, variable and multiple— the narrative focalized through a fixed focal character, different parts of the narrative focalized through different focal characters, and the same narrative focalized through different focal characters respectively. Genette’s typology of focalization synthesizes two models: one based on the traditional metaphor of vision and point of view, and the other based on the amount of narrative information, a quasi-mathematical model derived from the formulas by Todorov (1966). As these two models are not equivalent, Genette’s combination of two into one gives rise to critiques from post-Genettian scholars. In general, Genette seems to be prone to the Todorovian model, seeing focalization in terms of knowledge and information. It is mainly the information-based model inherent in Genette’s focalization theory that upgrades it beyond, in Genette’s modest words, a mere “reformulation” (Genette, 1988: 65) of the traditional “point of view”. Genette’s typology of focalization, among all the different aspects of his focalization theory, has probably remained most controversial. Apart from the category of internal focalization, his typology has not met with general approval. A main problem for Genette’s typology, as Jahn (1999: 80) has observed, is that it “mixes too many heterogeneous ingredients”, which affects the internal coherence and relevance of the categories. Jahn (1996) also believes that Genette’s typology suffers from incompleteness in that it lacks an account for collective focalization. Focalization in the Post-Genettian Tradition Post-Genettian focalization theory is largely influenced by Bal’s critiques of Genette’s focalization model and her introduction of various new terms and definitions. Bal (1997: 142) defines focalization as “the relation

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between the vision and that which is ‘seen’, perceived” and sees focalization in terms of point of view, a restoration of the visual connotations that Genette initially tries to avoid. Bal mainly reformulates Genette’s focalization theory from the following three aspects: First, Bal revises Genette’s tripartite typology into a strict binary opposition between internal and external focalization. Critiquing Genette’s typology for its inconsistency in principle of classification, Bal removes Genette’s zero focalization and reformulates internal focalization and external focalization as follows: When focalization lies with one character that participates in the fabula as an actor, we can refer to internal focalization. We can then indicate by means of the term external focalization that an anonymous agent, situated outside the fabula, is functioning as focalizer. (Bal, 2017: 136, emphasis in original)

Second, Bal introduces a number of new terms. She distinguishes “focalizer” from “focalized”. A focalizer, be it a character or a narrator, is the subject of focalization, the “seeing” agent (Bal, 1997: 146). The internal focalizer is a “character-bound” focalizer (CF) that “brings about bias and limitation” (Bal, 2017: 135); the external focalizer (EF) is a “non-character-bound” focalizer (Bal, 2017: 136). Focalizeds are what is “seen”, the objects of seeing, be it the characters, the things, places or events. Bal (1983) further distinguishes focalizeds into the “perceptible” and the “imperceptible”. The perceptible is about “the presentation of an external focalized”; the imperceptible is about “a focalized that is solely internal, like psychological material” (Bal, 1983: 250). The distinction between the perceptible and imperceptible, irrespective of the focalizer, “characterizes only the nature of what is focalized” (Bal, 1983: 250). However, because focalizeds are focalized either by an EF or a CF, “we are presented with a certain, far from innocent, interpretation of the elements” (Bal, 1997: 150). Third, Bal probes into levels of narration and contends that “various focalization levels can be distinguished” (Bal, 1997: 157). “When EF seems to ‘yield’ focalization to a CF, what is really happening is that the vision of the CF is being given within the all-encompassing vision of the EF” (Bal, 1997: 158). The EF of the first-level focalization (F1) delegates focalization to a CF on the second level (F2), leading to the possibility of

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mise en abymes of embedded focalizations, and in principle, more levels are possible. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, another important post-Genettian narratologist, further clarifies types of focalization. Using “position relative to the story” as a criterion, Rimmon-Kenan (2002: 76) classifies focalization into two types: external focalization and internal focalization. Her external focalization corresponds to Genette’s zero focalization, her internal focalization is analogous to Genette’s internal focalization, and she leaves out Genette’s external focalization. Rimmon-Kenan (2002) also distinguishes two types of focalizers and focalizeds. The external focalizer, i.e., the narrator-focalizer, is external to the represented event; the internal focalizer, i.e., the character-focalizer, is internal to the represented event. A focalized, on the other hand, “can be seen either from without or from within” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 78). When a focalized is seen from without, it concerns “the outward manifestations”, whereas when a focalized is seen from within, it is about “feelings and thoughts” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 78). Rimmon-Kenan’s two types of focalizers essentially correspond to Bal’s EF and CF, and her two types of focalizeds correspond to Bal’s perceptible and imperceptible. Drawing on Uspensky’s (1973) studies on point of view, RimmonKenan (2002) expands focalization into three facets: the perceptual, the psychological and the ideological. Each facet can be combined with either internal or external focalization. The perceptual facet “has to do with the focalizer’s sensory range” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 81), i.e., his perception that includes sight, hearing, smell and so forth. It is determined by two coordinators: space and time. In terms of space, the external focalizer takes a bird’s-eye view, either a panoramic view or a simultaneous focalization of things happening in different places, while the internal focalizer takes the position of a limited observer. As for time, the external focalizer and internal focalizer have access to different temporal dimensions: the former has “at his disposal all the temporal dimensions of the story”, including past, present and future; the latter is “limited to the ‘present’ of the characters” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 80). The psychological facet concerns the focalizer’s mind and emotion. It consists of “the cognitive and the emotive orientation of the focalizer towards the focalized” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 81). The cognitive components include knowledge, conjecture, belief and memory. In its

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cognitive transformation, the external/internal opposition of focalization becomes the unrestricted/restricted opposition of knowledge. As for the emotive components, the opposition becomes objective (neutral, uninvolved) vs. subjective (colored, involved) focalization. The emotive orientation concerns the focalizer only when the focalized is inanimate, and when the focalized is human, it concerns both the focalizer and the focalized. The ideological facet consists of “a general system of viewing the world conceptually”, and it is often referred to as “the norms of the text” (Uspensky, 1973: 8; cited in Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 83). In a simple situation, “the ideology of the narrator-focalizer is usually taken as authoritative, and all other ideologies in the text are evaluated from this ‘higher’ position”. In more complex situations, “the single authoritative external focalizer gives way to a plurality of ideological positions whose validity is doubtful in principle” (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002: 84). The ideologies can be both presented by the narrator-focalizer or the character-focalizer, either explicitly or implicitly. Two controversies remain unresolved in classical narratology even under the post-Genettian theorists’ efforts. One concerns the external vs. internal focalization typology. This distinction is valuable but may also be problematic as “the terms are polysemous” (Margolin, 2009: 53). Neither Bal (1997) nor Rimmon-Kenan (2002) has fundamentally resolved the typological dilemma by reformulating the typologies. The other controversy concerns the narrator-focalizer. Bal and Rimmon-Kenan argue strongly in favor of narrator-focalizer. A narrator can fit perfectly into Bal’s external focalizer. Rimmon-Kenan’s expansion of focalization poses a severe challenge to the distinction between speaking narrators and perceiving characters in Genette’s model. But the opposing voice is equally strong. For example, Chatman (1990) opposes Rimmon-Kenan’s expansion of focalization because of her treatment of the narrators and characters as focalizers. He even opposes the term “focalization” itself, contending that all conceptions of focalization fail to account for the “quite different mental process of characters and narrators” (Chatman, 1990: 145). Instead, Chatman (1990: 143) proposes to use the term “slant” for the narrator’s mindset and attitudes, and the term “filter” for the reflector character’s mental process. Chatman’s efforts “did not succeed in replacing focalization as a technical concept” (Jahn, 2005: 176), and Jahn (1996: 258) believes that “[p]ost-Genettian theory’s main innovation—the narrator-focalizer—is a step in the right direction in so

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far as it undermines, or at least softens, the strict compartmentalizations of the earlier account”. Cognitive Approach to Focalization The cognitive turn in narratology brings breakthroughs to the long unsettling disputes over focalization handed down from the classical tradition. Focalization is not simply a structural property; it is essentially cognitive. Manfred Jahn’s focalization theory is a drastic cognitive reconceptualization of the focalization concept. Focalization “denotes the perspectival restriction and orientation of narrative information relative to somebody’s (usually, a character’s) perception, imagination, knowledge, or point of view” (Jahn, 2005: 173). Jahn (1996) deconstructs the Genettian dichotomic opposition between “Who sees?” and “Who speaks?” and proposes the concept of “windows of focalization” (Jahn, 1996, 1999). Reconceptualizing focalization in terms of windows of focalization, Jahn (2005: 175) argues that focalization is “a means of opening an imaginary ‘window’ onto the narrative world, enabling readers to see events and existents through the perceptual screen provided by a focalizer functioning as a story-external or story-internal medium”. Jahn also broadens the ranges of focalization. Different from the Genettian tradition that confines focalization to perception, he provides a more comprehensive list of criterial aspects of focalization: Criterial aspects of focalization Whose... (A) affect (fear, pity, joy, revulsion, etc.) (B) perception, i.e., (i) ordinary/primary/literal perception (vision, audition, touch, smell, taste, bodily sensation) (ii) imaginary perception (recollection, imagination, dream, hallucination, etc.) (C) conceptualization (thought, voice, ideation, style, modality, deixis, etc.) ... orients the narrative text? (Jahn, 1999: 76) Jahn arranges categories A, B and C to represent a scalar progression toward increasing amount of conceptuality. He argues that although the list is not exhaustive, it is sufficient to “identify the types of subjectivity

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states, processes and data that can be assumed to vector from an origolike source”, and “it is the textual provision and maintenance of such origos that creates a Jamesian window on the story world” (Jahn, 1999: 76). Jahn’s focalization theory breaks the stalemate of focalization typologies by mainstream narratology. In lieu of revising or revitalizing the existent typologies, Jahn (1999) encompasses the formerly unsettled elements—the distance, restriction of knowledge and the subjects and objects—into a more integrated framework. David Herman (2009) reconceptualizes focalization via perspective construal within the framework of cognitive grammar and puts forward his heuristic framework to supplement “narratological accounts of focalization with cognitive-grammatical research on construal or conceptualization” (Herman, 2009: 119). The focus of this framework is to investigate “how narrative analysts can move from classical theories of narrative perspective toward a unified account of construal or conceptualization processes and their reflexes in narrative” (Herman, 2009: 128). Herman’s studies on narrative perspectives mark a shift from focalization to conceptualization. Two cognitive linguistic theories are incorporated into Herman’s heuristic framework. One is Langacker’s (1987) cognitive grammar of focal adjustment that “derives from the enabling and constraining condition of having an embodied, spatio-temporally situated perspective on events” (Herman, 2009: 129). Langacker (1987) decomposes focal adjustment and identifies a set of sub-parameters and sub-sub-parameters in relation to how perspective shapes the construal of events, including selection, perspective (figure-ground alignment; viewpoint; deixis; subjectivity/objectivity) and abstraction. The other is Talmy’s (2000) cognitive semantics in which perspective constitutes a schematic system. The central idea is that perspective is a conceptual structuring system that establishes a conceptual perspective point, and a referent entity can be cognitively regarded from such a point. Talmy (2000) also encompasses several categories or parameters in the perspective system, including the location of a perspective point within a referential scene, the distance of a perspective point from the regarded scene, perspective mode and direction of viewing. Following Talmy (2000), Herman (2009) argues that perspective belongs to construal operations, which are anchored in humans’ embodied existence and can be exploited by a narrative.

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Herman (2009: 129) argues for the feasibility of applying the cognitive linguistic framework to narratives: “Although cognitive grammarians tend to study such construal operations at the clause and sentence level, my claim is that the operations themselves are scalable and can be mapped onto discourse-level structures in narrative” (my emphasis). His focalization theory shifts from prioritizing the structural property of the classical tradition to “an account of the process and sub-process involved in conceptualization”, enabling the researchers to “explore how narratives may represent relatively statically (synoptically) or dynamically (sequentially) scanned scenes (or event-structures)” (Herman, 2009: 130). While still preserving important insights from the classical tradition, Herman (2009: 132) offers “a more unified, systematic treatment of perspectiverelated aspects of narrative structure that previous narratological research treats in a more piecemeal or atomistic way”. Like Herman, Uri Margolin also explores focalization under the framework of cognitive grammar. His definition of focalization directly involves mental activities: Focalization in narrative involves the textual representation of specific (pre)existing sensory elements of the text’s story world as perceived and registered (recorded, represented, encoded, modeled and stored) by some mind or recording device which is a member of this world. (Margolin, 2009: 42, my emphasis)

Margolin’s definition takes into consideration “the internal inscription of external data” (Margolin, 2009: 42). Five components are included: the story-world state or event focalized; the focalizing agent and its makeup; the perceiving and processing activity; the product of this activity, i.e., the resultant take or vision; the textual representation. Seeing that “[a]ll focalization is a mental activity” (Margolin, 2009: 48), Margolin offers a lucid explanation for the mental structuring of data by referring to Croft and Cruse’s (2004) study. The basic construal operations involved in focalization are: (1) attention, which encompasses selection, focus, scope and degree of detail and its summary or sequential scanning; (2) comparison, organizing the incoming data into fore- and background elements; (3) perspective or situatedness, defining the vantage point and orientation of the observation, as well as the location and path of attention; (4) the constitution from data of spatio-temporal objects and their interrelations, that is, providing

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a structure for the experience; and finally, (5) the conceptualization of processes and events as involving different kinds of forces acting in different ways upon the participants of the events. (Margolin, 2009: 46)

Besides, Margolin (2009) proposes to investigate focalization within a wider epistemic context. He argues that the basic frameworks in disciplines such as narratology, fictional world semantics, cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology, phenomenology, cognitive science and information science can serve as the basis for a reconceptualization of focalization theory. In particular, Margolin places focalization as belonging to a general theory of fictional minds, “the literary representation of mental activity in all its varieties” (Margolin, 2009: 45). With his second-order focalizations, i.e., embedded, transferred and joint focalizations, particularly joint focalization, Margolin makes a direct link between the type of focalization and social mind. By referring to the coordinated individual acts of focalization and joint consensual take in joint focalization, he argues that cases as such exemplify “the social mind in action” (Margolin, 2009: 55). A more systematic account for the relationship between focalization and social mind can be found in Alan Palmer’s (2010, 2011) studies on intermental focalization. Palmer considers that “the concept of focalization is crucially relevant to the study of fictional minds”, and it is “one tool among others for the examination of the presentation of fictional minds” (Palmer, 2004: 48). Palmer (2010, 2011) sets up three binary oppositions within focalization: intramental and intermental; single and multiple; and homogeneous and heterogeneous. It is worth quoting from Palmer in length to understand his original thoughts: The difference between intramental and intermental focalization refers to the distinction between mental activity by one (intramental) and by more than one (intermental) consciousness. Single focalization occurs when there is one focalizer. The term multiple focalization refers to the presence of two or more focalizers of the same object. These multiple focalizers may be intramental individuals, or intermental groups, or a combination of the two. However, a further distinction is required. In the case of homogeneous focalization, the two focalizers have the same perspective, views, beliefs, and so on relating to the object. By contrast, heterogeneous focalization reflects the fact that the focalizers’ views differ, and their perspectives conflict with one another. (Palmer, 2010: 84)

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The second term of each pair in the passage quoted above is more conducive to the representation of intermental thoughts, albeit it is incorrect to say that intermental thoughts are uniquely focalized through heterogeneous intermental focalization with multiple focalizers. By contrast, the various possible combinations of the six subcategories reflect the focalizers’ fine shades of vantage points from which the fictional worlds are perceived and conceived. In a position that is orthogonal to intramental focalization, intermental focalization balances the types of focalization that have long been tilted toward the intramental. Mental Representation Story worlds are populated with minds. Palmer (2004: 5) famously argues that “narrative fiction is, in essence, the presentation of fictional mental functioning”. Mental representation can also be found in alternative terms such as fictional minds, fictional mental functioning, thought and consciousness representation and so forth. Mental representation in classical narratology concerns the techniques employed in revealing the mental functioning of characters, while many postclassical and cognitive accounts also take into consideration the role of readers. There are, generally speaking, two major strands of studies in this range: the speech category approach of classical narratology and the more holistic cognitive approach. The Speech Category Approach The speech category approach is a term coined by Palmer (2002, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2011) to name the various classical narrative theories that map the linguistic structure of speech onto the representation of characters’ mental processes. “Characters’ thoughts are analysed by using the same categories that are used to analyse characters’ speech” (Palmer, 2005: 602). A wide range of models are available for the speech categories. Cohn’s (1978) three-mode model represents one of the most complete and influential speech category accounts of fictional consciousness. “Cohn’s (1978) Transparent Minds was until recently the only full-length study solely devoted to thought presentation”, contends Palmer (2005: 602). Based on the third-person narration, Cohn classifies the representation of fictional consciousness into three categories: psycho-narration, quoted

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monologue and narrated monologue. In a capsule formulation, Cohn defines the three types of mental representation techniques as follows: 1. psycho-narration: the narrator’s discourse about a character’s consciousness; 2. quoted monologue: a character’s mental discourse; 3. narrated monologue: a character’s mental discourse in the guise of the narrator’s discourse. (Cohn, 1978: 14)

Corresponding to the above three categories in third-person texts, Cohn (1978) also identifies three categories of consciousness representation in first-person texts, i.e., self-narration, self-quoted monologue and self-narrated monologue. After Cohn (1978), Palmer (2002, 2004, 2005) renames the three-mode model as one that consists of thought report, direct thought and free indirect thought respectively. In addition to Cohn’s (1978) model, there are also some other influential models, such as McHale’s (1978) seven-point scale, Leech and Short’s (2007)1 Lancaster model of speech and thought presentation and so forth. Palmer (2005) contends that given the number of different models and the variety of names for the elements included, the models are all, in essence, derived from the three-mode model that consists of thought report, direct thought and free indirect thought. Cohn (1978) holds that the ability to look into the minds of others is unique to the fictional story world. That is to say, narrative fiction is sui generis because it presents the characters’ thoughts directly to the reader. Cohn draws her idea of fictional transparency from Käte Hamburger (1973 [1957]), arguing that “narrative fiction is the only literary genre, as well as the only kind of narrative, in which the unspoken thoughts, feelings, perceptions of a person other than the speaker can be portrayed” (Cohn, 1978: 7). Herman (2011: 8) calls this view on fictional minds “Exceptionality Thesis”—“the purportedly unique capacity of fictional narratives to represent the ‘I-originarity’ of another as a subject, in Hamburger’s parlance”. Philosophically, the Exceptionality Thesis is rooted in Cartesian dualism, which contrasts the mind as “inside” and the world as “outside”:

1 The first edition was published in 1981.

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Dualism of the Cartesian kind informs two related assumptions underpinning the arguments at issue: first, that because the mind is “inside” and the world “outside”, in contexts of everyday interaction others’ minds remain sealed off from me in a separate, interior domain; and second, that this sealed-off-ness of actual minds means that it is only in fictional contexts that I can gain direct access to the subjectivity of another. (Herman, 2011: 8–9)

This explains the philosophical basis for Hamburger (1973 [1957]), Cohn (1978) and their followers to treat fictional minds as sui generis. The Cognitive Approach The cognitive approach to mental representation encompasses the various interdisciplinary studies on fictional minds in cognitive narratology, cognitive approaches to literature and cognitive poetics. The diverse cognitivist accounts, rejecting the Exceptionality Thesis by the speech category approach, converge on one common ground—“minds of all sorts can be more or less directly encountered or experienced—depending on the circumstances” (Herman, 2011: 9). The recent decades have witnessed a fast development in studies that “draw explicitly on ideas from psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and other fields clustered under the umbrella discipline of the cognitive sciences to explore aspects of fictional minds” (Herman, 2011: 3). Herman (2007) identifies four guiding principles “on which readers rely to assemble textual data into categories or kinds of information relevant to consciousness” (Herman, 2007: 256), i.e., perspective and the conceptualization of events, inferences about one’s own and other minds, emotions and qualia. I presently focus on the first two because they are especially pertinent to my present research. Mental representation as construal or conceptualization. Herman (2007) examines the representation of fictional consciousness by drawing on cognitive linguistic theories, including Langacker’s (1987) focal adjustment and Talmy’s (2000) conceptual structuring system. Viewing both focalization and consciousness representation essentially as construal or conceptualization, Herman (2007, 2009) applies the same cognitive linguistic framework to the study of both. Herman’s approach to mental representation may afford analysts chances to explore narrative scenes that are construed differently by

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the perceptual agents, such as scenes that are statically or dynamically scanned, scenes with different scopes, focal participants and backgrounded elements, scenes that are sighted from different temporal and spatial directions and distances, scenes of different degree of granularity and so forth. “Drawing on this framework, theorists can ask questions about narrative perspective that could not even be formulated within the classical models, while still preserving the (important) insights afforded by earlier theories” (Herman, 2007: 252). Taking a scene in which Gabriel is taking a moment by himself before dinner from “The Dead”, the last story in Joyce’s 1914 collection Dubliners, Herman (2007: 252) demonstrates that “[t]his approach affords a more unified, systematic treatment of the perspective-related markers of Gabriel’s mind”. Based on such an analysis, Herman (2007: 253) argues that the “perspectival constraints on people’s mental lives also shape how they use language—for example, how they produce and interpret narrative”. The construal analysis also reveals that the fictional discourse can “transport readers to another time and place” (Herman, 2007: 253). The attribution of mental states. Herman (2011) identifies two cognitive approaches to the attribution of mental states: studies based on Theory of Mind and studies based on the accessibility of everyday minds. The two approaches correspond respectively to Herman’s (2011) two anti-Exceptionality arguments: the Mediation argument and the Accessibility argument. The former proposes that “encounters with fictional minds are mediated by the same heuristics used to interpret everyday minds”; the latter holds that “everyday minds can be experienced in ways that the Cartesian premises of commentators like Hamburger and Cohn disallow” (Herman, 2011: 18). Since the 1960s, it has been widely recognized that it is within everyday human competence to attribute mental states, properties and dispositions both to oneself and to others. This competence is called Theory of Mind by psychologists and folk psychology by philosophers. There are two competing accounts of Theory of Mind, i.e., theory theory and simulation theory. Theory theory postulates that the source of everyday human competence in predicating and explaining human behavior is a body of implicit general knowledge or theory, which is akin to scientific theories but targeted specifically at propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires. Simulation theory postulates that “human beings are able to use the resources of their own minds to simulate

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the psychological etiology of the behavior of others, typically by making decision within a ‘pretend’ context” (Gordon, 1999: 765). Herman’s (2011) Mediation argument is a ToM-based argument. It is the basic argument that underpins various theory-based and simulationbased accounts of mind reading practices in fictional mind studies. Studies on inferences about mental states suggest that the reader uses everyday folk psychological competence to make assumptions and inferences about the characters in fictional worlds. A number of important studies on fictional minds (e.g., Herman, 2007, 2011; Hogan, 2014; Palmer, 2004; Zunshine, 2006) draw explicitly on Theory of Mind as their theoretical bases. Zunshine (2006) makes a systematic inquiry into how everyday human mind-reading ability—Theory of Mind—can “furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts” (Zunshine, 2006: 4). Drawing on the theory theory account, she advances and explores “a series of hypotheses about cognitive cravings that are satisfied—and created!—when we read fiction” (Zunshine, 2006: 4). Zunshine (2006) identifies three types of mind reading in narrative fictions. Attributing minds is to ascribe to a person a certain mental state based on his/her observable behavior. By focusing on this mindreading practice, Zunshine (2006: 4) explores how “fiction engages, teases, and pushes to its tentative limits our mind-reading capacity”. Tracking minds involves metarepresentation, namely, “our evolved cognitive ability to keep track of sources of our representations” (Zunshine, 2006: 4–5). Zunshine (2006: 5) argues that “the attribution of mental states to literary characters is crucially mediated by the workings of our metarepresentational ability”. Concealing mind further explores readers’ engagement with the source-monitoring capacity. Zunshine (2006: 5) holds that the traditionally held recurrent features of the detective genre are “grounded in its commitment to ‘working out’ in a particularly focused way our ToM and metarepresentational ability”. She also demonstrates how literature functions as experimentation with Theory of Mind and seeks “the possibilities of a more profitable dialogue between cognitive science and literary studies” (Zunshine, 2006: 4). More recently, studies on mind attribution based on Herman’s (2011) Accessibility argument become increasingly popular. The Accessibility argument is rooted in phenomenology, philosophy and social psychology that all reject the assumption that it is impossible for humans to access others’ minds directly. Herman (2011: 11) argues that “people do in

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fact experience others’ minds, encountering the I-originarity of others in everyday settings as well as fictional narratives”. Herman’s (2011) case study on Middlemarch in light of the Accessibility argument proves the feasibility and merits of such an approach to the investigation of fictional minds. With his due emphasis on “how minds are lodged in the structure of social interactions”, Herman (2011: 17) contends that “the I-originarity of others is accessible across various types of encounters and that such accessibility therefore cannot serve as a criterion for distinctively fictional minds”. The view that minds are directly accessible is also shared by other cognitive narratologists. For example, Palmer, in his response to Cohn’s (1978) “transparent minds”, argues that “not only can fictional minds be transparent to readers, there is a strong sense in which real minds can be transparent to other people” (Palmer, 2004: 132), and “minds can be perfectly visible to others” (Palmer, 2004: 133). Based on such a post-Cartesian view of mind, Palmer (2004) identifies the “social mind in action” as the object of study for postclassical and cognitivist approaches to mental representation. An Integrated Framework for Focalization and Mental Representation The above discussions indicate that focalization and mental representation are intrinsically related. In what follows, I synthesize various relevant theories, frameworks and approaches, sort out the systematic yet complex interrelationships between the two and integrate them into a general framework, which will serve as the guiding theoretical framework for my following analyses. Focalization: Structural and Mental The classical narratologists focus on intramental focalization, while some cognitivists extend the studies to intermental focalization. The two broad types of focalization together form a complete range of focalization. The structural property of each type can be described from four aspects, i.e., modes, facets, levels and agents and objects (see Fig. 2.1). Intramental focalization is focalized through a single consciousness, a character or a narrator. Genette’s (1980) tripartite typology, the most complete and influential account of focalization modes to this day, is included in the present framework, albeit it has been vehemently criticized for its inconsistency in classification criteria. Also included in the

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Zero Modes

Internal External Perceptual

Facets Intramental

Ideological Levels Agents & Objects

Focalization

Psychological

Mode

Single-level Multi-level Focalizer Focalized Internal

Perceptible Imperceptible

Perceptual Facets

Psychological Ideological

Intermental Levels Agents & Objects

Single-level Multi-level Focalizer Focalized

Perceptual Imperceptible

Fig. 2.1 The structural property of focalization (Source The author)

present framework are Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) three facets of focalization and Bal’s (1983, 1997) embedded focalization and her focalizer and focalized. Likewise, the structural property of intermental focalization can be equally investigated from the aforementioned four aspects. Palmer’s (2010, 2011) intermental focalization draws predominantly on the mode of internal focalization. This is the most likely mode because intermental focalization is focalized through a group consciousness—the characters in the story world. As for the other three aspects, intermental focalization shares the same structural property with intramental focalization, provided the focalizer is an intermental consciousness and the focalized is a joint consensual take. On the other hand, the cognitivists see focalization as a mental activity. Clustered around this view are a number of frameworks and approaches that range over the functions, aspects, elements and processes in relation to focalization (see Fig. 2.2).

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Functions

Windows of Focalization Affect

Aspects

Perception Conceptualization Focalizing Agent Focalized

Focalization

Elements

Perceiving & Processing Activity Take Textual Representation Attention Comparison

Processes

Perspective Constitution Force Dynamics

Fig. 2.2 Focalization as a mental activity (Source The author)

The function of focalization, as indicated by “windows of focalization” (Jahn 1996, 1999), is to open “an imaginary ‘window’ onto the narrative world” (Jahn, 2005: 175). As a mental activity, focalization encompasses three aspects: affect, perception and conceptualization (Jahn, 1999), and covers five elements: the focalizing agent, the focalized, the perceiving and processing activity, the product of this activity, i.e., the resultant take or vision, and the textual representation (Margolin, 2009). The basic construal operations for the mental structuring of data may include attention, comparison (figure-ground operation), perspective, constitution (structuring the experience) and force dynamics (Margolin, 2009). While the classical narratologists are preoccupied with the structures of the textual representation of focalization, the cognitivists are also concerned with the mind that makes focalization possible. In this view, the structural property of focalization constitutes a necessary component of the cognitive frameworks for focalization.

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Mental Representation: Structural and Cognitive In general, both the speech category approach and the cognitive approach to mental representation can be examined from three aspects: the relationship between fictional minds and real minds, the relationship between speech and thought and the models or frameworks encompassed. The speech category approach theorists hold a divided view toward fictional minds and real minds, and investigate silent thought by mapping it onto the linguistic structure of speech. Cohn’s (1978) three-mode model is the most influential one; many other models are fundamentally based on these three modes, which are now commonly known as direct thought, free indirect thought and thought report. By contrast, the cognitivists almost hold an entirely opposite position in these three aspects. Holding an undivided view, the cognitivists argue that fictional and real minds may employ the same set of cognitive devices in mental representation. Without denying the merits of the structural property of thought by the speech category approach, the cognitivists, however, argue that the investigations of minds by mapping thought onto the textual structures of speech may lose sight of many unique aspects of mental activities. The cognitive approach to consciousness draws on various studies in cognitive science, inquiring into four issues: consciousness as construal, attribution of mental states, emotion and qualia. See Fig. 2.3 for the interrelations and differences between the speech category approach and the cognitive approach. Mental Representation via Focalization Focalization and mental representation, allowing for their ontological differences, are intrinsically related to each other, like the two sides of the same coin. The classical investigative frameworks for both focalization and mental representation are concerned with the structural property. For example, Bal’s (1983, 1997) imperceptible focalized is a category that focuses particularly on thought and consciousness, while the speech category approach, by mapping the linguistic structure of speech onto thought, gives structural property to fictional minds. Both focalization and mental representation are multi-leveled. To attribute mental states to oneself and to others involves levels of mind reading, and this multi-leveled feature of mental representation finds a counterpart in the structures of focalization: the embedded focalization. Thus, the structural property of thought and

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Speech Category Approach

Fictional & Real Minds

Divided

Speech & Thought

Mapping Three Modes

Models Others Fictional & Real Minds Cognitive Approach

Speech & Thought Frameworks

Non-divided Mapping

Consciousness Representation as Construal Attribution of Mental States

Others Cognitive Science

Emotion

Qualia

Fig. 2.3 Speech category approach and cognitive approach: interrelations and differences (Source The author)

consciousness constitutes an integral part of both focalization and mental representation studies. The cognitive approaches to focalization and mental representation have large overlapping areas. For example, conceptualization and affect/ emotion are central areas of investigation in both focalization and mental representation. The mental process involved in both focalization and mental representation is one and the same process—the construal or conceptualization process. Therefore, focalization and mental representation are, to a large extent, two routes to the same destination. Both focalization and mental representation are considered as construal processes and are connected with cognition and emotion. When representing the fictional minds, the structural property of focalization, including both intramental and intermental focalization, is the textual manifestation of mental representation, providing an access to the fictional minds (see Table 2.1). On the productive end of narratives, focalization involves the authorly gamut that leads the reader into the mental worlds of the fictional characters: what minds the reader will encounter and how the reader will encounter it. However, focalization does not function with the authorly craftsmanship alone; the readerly cognitive activities of focalization on the

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Table 2.1 Mental representation via focalization

Structures Processes Aspects

Focalization

Mental representation

Imperceptible Embedded Construal Conceptualization Affect …

Speech category approach Multi-leveled Construal Conceptualization Emotion …

receiving end jointly realize the goal. On the other hand, mental representation is directly concerned with what the minds are and in what ways the minds function. Like focalization, mental representation involves both the authorly gamut and the readerly cognitive activities, and very often the same set of gadgets. To draw an analogy from the fable of the blind and the elephant, what we as readers know about the elephant depends on how we access it. Or to put it more explicitly, we may say that focalization is the window (which is differently structured) through which the reader gains access to and is engaged with the minds in the story world. Through the tangible property of focalization, the intangible minds in the story world and the minds engaged in the story world become accessible. Focalization channels mental representation.

2.2

Modes of Focalization

Seeing focalization as a viable way to access the fictional minds, I take Kesey’s focalization strategies in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as my point of departure for exploring the nexus of narrative structures and the representation of madness in fictional narratives. By inventing the schizophrenic narrator and character Chief Bromden, Kesey experiments with the narrative techniques of focalization and mental representation. His treatment of various modes and facets of focalization is inherently compatible with the representation of mad minds, whereas his ingenious design of the mad minds also brings new understanding to focalization.

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Modes of Focalization from a Classical Dimension Kesey’s decision on relinquishing his initially planned third-person for a first-person, diarist point of view is a critical move in shaping Cuckoo’s Nest into a masterpiece. From different perspectives, researchers (e.g., Baurecht, 2007 [1982]; Madden, 1986; Stanzel, 1978; Woolf, 1976) have studied a prominent structural feature in Cuckoo’s Nest —first-person narration. These first-person inquiries are, to a large extent, precursory narrative investigations of the issue of focalization. Drawing predominantly on Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) post-Genettian model of focalization, I next explore the modes of focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest from three facets: perceptual, psychological and ideological. The Perceptual Facet Rimmon-Kenan (2002: 79) argues that the purely visual sense of “focalization” is too narrow. Therefore, she uses the word “perception” to encompass various sensory phenomena, including sight, hearing, smell and so forth, which are determined by two main coordinates: space and time. The focalizer’s sensory range furnishes a good point to embark on focalization study in Cuckoo’s Nest. The spatial focalization. Cuckoo’s Nest is a story told by the schizophrenic native American Chief Bromden about his ward experience. As he is both the narrator and a character of the story, a large portion of focalization is attached to the character Bromden who participates or observes throughout the whole story. Thus, in cases as such, the character-bound focalizer (Bal, 1997) (CF hereafter), i.e., the experiencing focalizer, takes the view of a limited observer, and the spatial position of the focalizer is internal to the story. This is a case of Genette’s (1980) internal focalization in his tripartite typology of focalization. Instead of taking a panoramic view that observes the scene at a point far above, or a simultaneous focalization on things happening in different places at the same time, Bromden tells what he perceives on the spot, in or outside of the hospital one at a time. For a start, Cuckoo’s Nest is unfolded through Bromden’s limited observation, i.e., what he sees the black boys doing on the ward:

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[2.1] They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them. (Kesey, 1962: 3) This hard-to-believe scene as well as other bizarre ones that follow are soon dismissed by the reader as nothing but Bromden’s psychotic perceptions, after the latter subsequently reveals his identity as a chronic psychopath as exemplified in [2.2]. [2.2] Chronics are divided into Walkers like me, can still get around if you keep them fed, … (Kesey, 1962: 16) Thus, spatially, the novel is focalized through the CF Bromden: what he experiences inside the mental institution. It is through this internal view of limited observation of a psychopath locked within that the mental institution is presented to the reader. Through the internal spatial focalization, the reader can have a direct view of the madmen’s confinement by a psychiatric ward in its truest sense: a life that is extremely constrained and estranged. The outside can only be brought to the reader by three means: the focalizer looking out of the window, going out or recalling the outside in his memory. [2.3] I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pastureland; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon. (Kesey, 1962: 163–164) Excerpt [2.3] shows that as Bromden gradually regains his consciousness, he looks out of the window for the first time. Following his eyes, the reader gets a chance to see what it is like outside of the hospital. The natural view outside forms a sharp contrast with that inside. This further proves the spatial constraint of internal focalization.

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For another case in which the reader can have an outside view of the hospital is when the CF Bromden goes out of the hospital. [2.4] The doctor arrived and we loaded up and headed off, me and George and Harding and Billy Bibbit in the car with McMurphy and the girl, Candy; and Fredrickson and Sefelt and Scanlon and Martini and Tadem and Gregory following in the doctor’s car. Everyone was awfully quiet. We pulled into a gas station about a mile from the hospital; the doctor followed. He got out first, and the service-station man came bouncing out, grinning and wiping his hands on a rag. Then he stopped grinning and went past the doctor to see just what was in these cars. He backed off, wiping his hands on the oil rag, frowning. The doctor caught the man’s sleeve nervously and took out a ten-dollar bill and tucked it down in the man’s hands like setting out a tomato plant. (Kesey, 1962: 235)

[2.5] The whole back of the boat and most of the people in it were dappled with red and silver. Some of us took our shirts off and dipped them over the side and tried to clean them. We fiddled around this way, fishing a little, drinking the other case of beer, and feeding the birds till afternoon, while the boat rolled lazily around the swells and the doctor worked with his monster from the deep. A wind came up and broke the sea into green and silver chunks, like a field of glass and chrome, and the boat began to rock and pitch about more. George told the doctor he’d have to land his fish or cut it loose because there was a bad sky coming down on us. The doctor didn’t answer. He just heaved harder on the pole, bent forward and reeled the slack, and heaved again. (Kesey, 1962: 251) Both [2.4] and [2.5] present the outside scenes during the CF Bromden’s fishing expedition. In [2.4], the reader can see both the inmates’ and even the doctor’s uneasiness once they are out, and the outsiders’ hostility toward them, for example, as shown in the service-station man’s attitude. In [2.5], however, the reader sees a completely different picture: the men enjoy themselves to their fullest in the nature. This fun-seeking

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scene contrasts not only with the terrifying and monotonous life on the ward, but also the uneasiness of the men when they first land outside. Finally, as shown in [2.6], the CF Bromden breaks out of the hospital window and runs away after he has mercifully killed the post-operative McMurphy. The reader follows him once again to have an outside view of the hospital to see him run for a new life. [2.6] I ran across the grounds in the direction I remembered seeing the dog go, toward the highway. I remember I was taking huge strides as I ran, seeming to step and float a long ways before my next foot struck the earth. I felt like I was flying. Free. Nobody bothers coming after an AWOL, I knew, and Scanlon could handle any questions about the dead man—no need to be running like this. But I didn’t stop. I ran for miles before I stopped and walked up the embankment onto the highway. (Kesey, 1962: 324) In addition to the changes in physical positions, memories can also offer the reader a chance to view the world outside. As a matter of fact, it is through Bromden’s scattered memories that the reader can piece together his earlier life in the Indian tribe and the army. For example, the young Indian Chief’s hunting world is presented to the reader through his memory in excerpt [2.7]. [2.7] Papa tells me to keep still, tells me that the dog senses a bird somewheres right close. We borrowed a pointer dog from a man in The Dalles. All the village dogs are no-’count mongrels, Papa says, fish-gut eaters and no class a-tall; this here dog, he got insteek! I don’t say anything, but I already see the bird up in a scrub cedar, hunched in a gray knot of feathers. Dog running in circles underneath, too much smell around for him to point for sure. The bird safe as long as he keeps still. He’s holding out pretty good, but the dog keeps sniffing and circling, louder and closer. Then the bird breaks, feathers springing, jumps out of the cedar into the birdshot from Papa’s gun. (Kesey, 1962: 7) Thus, it can be presently observed that spatially Cuckoo’s Nest is focalized through the limited observer—the CF Bromden. The internal

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focalization restricts the reader’s view of the story to the focalizer’s physical position: inside the hospital when the focalizer is locked within, and outside when the internal focalizer looks out, goes out or recalls the past. The temporal focalization. Compared with the spatial focalization, the temporal focalization appears to be more complicated. The narrator and the focalizer in Cuckoo’s Nes t are one and the same “person”: Chief Bromden. However, the temporal position of the two vis-à-vis the narrated events shows that they are separate agents. The narrator, who knows the end when he starts the narration, is temporally external to the story, as exemplified in [2.8]. [2.8] It’s gonna burn me just that way, finally telling about all this, about the hospital, and her, and the guys—and about McMurphy. I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen. (Kesey, 1962: 8) In [2.8], the external focalizer (EF) (Bal, 1997) and narrator Bromden, who tells his decision on “telling about all this”, knows everything about “the hospital, and her, and the guys—and about McMurphy”, and says that everything will “roar out” of him like “floodwater”. That is to say, he knows the end when he starts telling the story, and hence he is temporally external to the story. However, during the course of telling the story, he chooses not to divulge his retrospective understanding in most of the cases, limiting his perceptions to those of a character-focalizer, patient Bromden experiencing the events at the time when they occur. For example: [2.9] The ward door opened, and the black boys wheeled in this Gurney with a chart at the bottom that said in heavy black letters, MCMURPHY, RANDLE P. POST-OPERATIVE. And below this was written in ink, LOBOTOMY. They pushed it into the day room and left it standing against the wall, along next to the Vegetables. We stood at the foot of the Gurney, reading the chart, then looked up to the other end at

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the head dented into the pillow, a swirl of red hair over a face milk-white except for the heavy purple bruises around the eyes. After a minute of silence Scanlon turned and spat on the floor. “Aaah, what’s the old bitch tryin’ to put over on us anyhow, for crap sakes. That ain’t him.” “Nothing like him,” Martini said. “How stupid she think we are?” “Oh, they done a pretty fair job, though,” Martini said, moving up alongside the head and pointing as he talked. “See. They got the broken nose and that crazy scar—even the sideburns.” “Sure,” Scanlon growled, “but hell!” I pushed past the other patients to stand beside Martini. “Sure, they can do things like scars and broken noses,” I said. “But they can’t do that look. There’s nothin’ in the face. Just like one of those store dummies, ain’t that right, Scanlon?” (Kesey, 1962: 321) Excerpt [2.9] presents the scene when the post-operative McMurphy is first brought back to the ward. Lobotomy renders the once unbeatable hero into a “vegetable”. Bromden, together with the other inmates, in their disbelief in and above all reluctance to accepting the fact, tries to prove that the brain-chopped human figure is not McMurphy. This shows that the CF, acting as a limited observer, separates from the external narrator-focalizer as shown in [2.8]. He chooses to limit himself to the “present” of the events, thus, a temporal focalization internal to the story. This type of internal temporal focalization predominates in most parts of Cuckoo’s Nest, lending plausibility to the deformed view of reality and the withholding of information that leads to the shocking effect of McMurphy’s fate to the reader. Therefore, it can be argued that the temporal focalization of Cuckoo’s Nest is fulfilled by two focalizers that happen to be the same “person”— Chief Bromden. From a retrospective perspective, the narrator-focalizer, who knows everything, takes a temporal position external to the story; from an experiencing perspective, the CF, who is limited to the “present” of the events, takes a temporal position internal to the story. Discussions on the spatial and temporal components help clarify issues concerning the “where” and “when” of focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest, to a large extent also help make sense of “what” the various worlds are like in Bromden’s eyes, but may not adequately explain “why”. This may

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point at an inherent inadequacy in the Genettian model of focalization, even when an extended sensory range besides vision is included. Thus, to better comprehend “why”, it is necessary to turn to the psychological and ideological facets. The Psychological Facet The psychological facet concerns the focalizer’s mind and emotions, with two determining components: the cognitive and the emotive orientation of the focalizer toward the focalized (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002). As a psychological novel, Cuckoo’s Nest makes a suitable example for a close scrutiny under the prism of focalization from the psychological facet. The cognitive component. Rimmon-Kenan (2002) treats the opposition between unrestricted and restricted knowledge as the instantiations of that between external and internal focalization in cognitive terms: the external focalizer (EF) knows everything about the represented world, while the internal focalizer (CF) cannot know everything about it. In Cuckoo’s Nest, through the eyes of Bromden who undergoes various mental states, the reader sees a mosaic of worlds with both factual and counterfactual images. These are filtered through the focalizer’s cognitive activities, including, for example, his knowledge and conjectures. Judging from the focalizer’s knowledge of the events, the same “person” Bromden again separates into two agents like that in the temporal focalization. The narrator-focalizer (EF) external to the story makes some marginal presence in the novel as exemplified in [2.10]. [2.10] I’ve given what happened next a good lot of thought, and I’ve come around to thinking that it was bound to be and would have happened in one way or another, at this time or that, even if Mr. Turkle had got McMurphy and the two girls up and off the ward like was planned. The Big Nurse would have found out some way what had gone on, maybe just by the look on Billy’s face, and she’d have done the same as she did whether McMurphy was still around or not. And Billy would have done what he did, and McMurphy would have heard about it and come back. Would have had to come back, because he could no more have sat around outside the hospital, playing poker in Carson City or Reno or someplace, and let the Big Nurse have the last move and get the last play, than he could have let her get by with it

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right under his nose. It was like he’d signed on for the whole game and there wasn’t any way of him breaking his contract. (Kesey, 1962: 310, emphasis in original) In [2.10] the narrator-focalizer sounds like he already knows what has come to Billy and McMurphy even before the events are unfolded to the reader. The focalized here is the imperceptible (Bal, 1997)—Bromden’s interior monologue—his judgment on what might have turned out, had McMurphy not failed in making his escape. This judgment is only possible under the external focalization (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002) of a focalizer with unrestricted knowledge. McMurphy’s escape is unambiguously represented as a counterfactual situation by the narrator-focalizer as he is fully aware of the end of the event. In contrast to the above mental activities represented by EF Bromden with unrestricted knowledge, the story is, however, mainly focalized through the restricted knowledge of CF Bromden. [2.11] “Here you go, Chief, chewin’-gum money.” I shook my head and started to walk out of the latrine. He caught me by the arm. “Chief, I just offered you a token of my appreciation. If you figure you got a bigger cut comin’ – ” “No! Keep your money, I won’t have it.” He stepped back and put his thumbs in his pockets and tipped his head up at me. He looked me over for a while. “Okay,” he said. “Now what’s the story? What’s everybody in this place giving me the cold nose about?” I didn’t answer him. “Didn’t I do what I said I would? Make you man-sized again? What’s wrong with me around here all of a sudden? You birds act like I’m a traitor to my country.” “You’re always …winning things!” “Winning things! You damned moose, what are you accusin’ me of? All I do is hold up my end of the deal. Now what’s so all-fired – ” “We thought it wasn’t to be winning things …” (Kesey, 1962: 269–270)

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Excerpt [2.11] shows how Bromden views McMurphy under the restricted knowledge of his motivation for helping others. Previously, the Big Nurse has talked about McMurphy’s monetary gains on the ward, toward which Bromden is dubious and wishes it were not true. However, after McMurphy talks him into lifting the control panel and wins his bets, it seems to Bromden that the Big Nurse’s claim is confirmed. Of course, Bromden later changes his mind on this, but at that moment, under the restricted knowledge of McMurphy’s motivation, he reacts to it accordingly: he refused McMurphy’s money and told McMurphy what people were holding grudges against him for—winning money. Thus, an internal focalization is initiated through the CF Bromden’s restricted knowledge. Sometimes, an asymmetry of knowledge can be found shared by different characters. This being so, the characters may react to the same situation in different manners. [2.12] “Bibbit. Where’s Billy Bibbit?” His eyes were big. He was thinking Billy’d slipped out right under his nose and would he ever catch it. “Who saw Billy Bibbit go, you damn goons?” This set people to remembering just where Billy was; there were whispers and laughing again. (Kesey, 1962: 312–313) The black boy, kept in the dark, is shocked by Billy’s absence and anxious to know his whereabouts, but the patients, the CF Bromden included, have full knowledge of this and find this scene entertaining. The cognitive components in focalization can not only regulate the degree of knowledge to be revealed to the reader, but also mobilize the frequent shifts between factual and counterfactual worlds. One effect is that the unknown is represented to the reader as known and the counterfactual represented as factual. [2.13] 1 She’s swelling up, swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times. 2 She looks around her with a swivel of her huge head. 3 Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the half-breed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and can’t talk to call for help. 4 So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open

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snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load. (Kesey, 1962: 5) In [2.13], the CF Bromden tells how the Big Nurse reacts toward the black boys’ “outrageous behaviors” (he believes that they were committing sex acts in the hall and then mopped it up). Sentences 1, 2 and 4 show that Bromden sees the Big Nurse as a gigantic monster and smells the machinery inside her. This imagery representation seems in the first place to be perceptual focalization that pertains to the visual and olfactory aspects of perception, and subsequently a quick judgment may be that this is a perceptual focalization internal to the story. This is not a wrong judgment, but simply not comprehensive enough. The focalizer’s distorted perception is induced by his psychotic mental state, featuring itself in a mind style that conceptualizes the world in predominantly two metaphors: the MACHINE metaphor and the BIG metaphor (Semino & Swindlehurst, 1996). Thus, the seemingly perceptual focalization is at a deeper level cognitively focalized, and it is this double-layered focalization that enables the counterfactual to be represented in a factual fashion. To be more specific, this internal cognitive focalization takes on the form of perceptual focalization, presenting the inside view of the focalized in the form of an outside view. Different from the counterfactual focalized in sentences 1, 2 and 4, the focalized in sentence 3 is an inside view of the Big Nurse’s thought produced in the form of free indirect thought. Examined from a formal perspective, sentence 3 incurs a slipping from, following Genette’s (1980) tripartite typology, internal focalization to a zero focalization where an omniscient narrator sees everything above, for it is impossible for an internal character-focalizer to see through the Big Nurse’s mind. This explanation can be plausible provided that it is the Big Nurse’s true thought. However, judging from its concern with the presence of the deaf and dumb Bromden, this is unlikely to be the Big Nurse’s thought but Bromden’s conjecture of her thought. Therefore, it can be argued that the inside view of the Big Nurse’s thought focalized through an embedded zero focalization in sentence 3 is indeed internally focalized on Bromden’s conjecture. Instead of rendering the perceptual focalization invalid, the inclusion of a cognitive layer here proves that the two are intrinsically related to each other rather than simply being two paralleled facets in focalization.

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The connection between the focalized and the focalizer’s mental states can be more clearly demonstrated when a perceptible focalized (Bal, 1997) is something that is non-existent, for example, Bromden’s hallucinations. [2.14] Right now, she’s got the fog machine switched on, and it’s rolling in so fast I can’t see a thing but her face, rolling in thicker and thicker, and I feel as hopeless and dead as I felt happy a minute ago, when she gave that little jerk—even more hopeless than ever before, on account of I know now there is no real help against her or her Combine. McMurphy can’t help anymore than I could. Nobody can help. And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in. (Kesey, 1962: 113) From a perceptual facet, the “fog” is what the CF Bromden sees from the outside, hence an outside view of the focalized. Through his eyes, the reader sees that the Big Nurse switches on the fog machine and the fog rolls in thicker and faster. However, neither the fog machine nor the fog is in existence; they dwell only in Bromden’s mind, i.e., the character’s inner life that by definition renders an inside view. This entails a psychological facet of focalization in which the cognitive components of the focalizer constrain the outcome of the focalized. Seen this way, the “fog” is again focalized through two layers: internal psychological focalization from an inside view at the deep level and internal perceptual focalization from an outside view at the surface level. Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) discussion on the cognitive components is mainly concerned with how the focalizer’s cognition constrains the focalized, as instantiated in [2.13] and [2.14]. What is not included in her discussion is the case in which the focalized is the focalizer’s cognition per se, that is to say, the imperceptible as per Bal’s (1997) definition. In Cuckoo’s Nest, however, there are some instances in which the focalizer’s cognitive activities are focalized on explicitly, for example: [2.15] 1 Then I discovered something: I don’t have to end up at that door if I stay still when the fog comes over me and just keep quiet. 2 The trouble was I’d been finding that door my own self because I got scared of being lost so long and went to hollering

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so they could track me. 3 In a way, I was hollering for them to track me; I had figured that anything was better’n being lost for good, even the Shock Shop. 4 Now, I don’t know. 5 Being lost isn’t so bad. (Kesey, 1962: 132) In [2.15], Bromden tells his understandings of and reactions to his psychotic outbreaks. In terms of the focalizer, in sentences 1–3 we see once again the same “person” Bromden is separated into two agents: a retrospective narrator Bromden that narrates at present and an experiencing character through whom something that happened at an earlier time is focalized. This separation brings an embedded focalization (Bal, 1997) in which the narrator examines externally his own mind at an earlier stage. In contrast, sentences 4–5 are narrated and internally focalized through the same agent only, i.e., the narrator and character-focalizer. In terms of the focalized, both are concerned with Bromden’s mental activities, an inside view. Bromden’s previous cognitive states are reflected in discovering strategies to cope with his psychotic outbreaks: to keep quiet. However, sometimes a fear of being lost, stronger than that of the Shock Shop, keeps him captive and puts him to holler for attention. This shows his struggle to conquer his own psychosis. Now in a deeper state of psychosis, it seems that Bromden starts to re-evaluate his strategies and conjectures the possibility of relinquishing his struggle and staying lost for good. Different from [2.13] and [2.14] in which the focalizer’s cognitive states constrain what is focalized, [2.15] focuses on the character’s different cognitive states directly. Irrespective of the focalizer’s cognitive states, it is the inside view of the focalized that enables the focalization on cognition. Given Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) model is focalizer-oriented, cognition as the focalized exemplified in [2.15] is excluded in her taxonomy. However, this cognition-as-focalized is a no less common focalization strategy, if not more common, in representing the character’s cognitive states in Cuckoo’s Nest. In other words, a CF’s cognitive states can either be explicitly discussed when cognition is the focalized, or implicitly reflected in how he/she perceives or conceptualizes the world. Therefore, it is important to put both the focalizer and the focalized into perspective when considering the cognitive orientation in the psychological facet of focalization.

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The emotive component. Rimmon-Kenan (2002) also includes the emotive components in the psychological facet: objective and subjective focalization. An inclusion of the emotive dimension in the focalization analysis of Cuckoo’s Nest may help clarify why Bromden gives different or even contradictory explanations for or descriptions of the same subject or event. Semino and Swindlehurst’s (1996) study on the metaphor of “POWERFUL IS BIG” has touched upon the emotive component of focalization. This metaphor effectively captures Bromden’s way of conceptualizing the world, whereas a closer look at the instantiations of the metaphor may reveal that the world is conceptualized in a drastically different way even when the same metaphor is applied. Semino and Swindlehurst (1996) have noticed that when the “BIG” metaphor is applied to Bromden’s perception of Miss Ratched, it reflects his “fearful perception of her power rather than her act” (Semino & Swindlehurst, 1996: 157), while in the case of McMurphy, “size correlates from the start with positive human” (Semino & Swindlehurst, 1996: 158). Their finding is particularly revealing, as it points at the emotive components in Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) psychological facet of focalization, albeit they are not discussing this aspect in particular. Examined from the perspective of the emotive components, the world in Cuckoo’s Nest in relation to “bigness” can be seen subjectively focalized through the CF Bromden’s two kinds of emotions: a fearful one and an admiring one. Focalized through a fearful emotion, the metaphor “POWERFUL IS BIG” is represented in its most formidable images. The Big Nurse takes the lead in the team of formidable images with crushing force: she is “swelling up” so big that “her back’s splitting out the white uniform”, her arms “long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times” and her head “huge”; she “blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor”, and she even smells like “a motor pulling too big a load” (Kesey, 1962: 5). In the discussions above, I attribute the counterfactual perception to Bromden’s psychotic state, an instance of a double-layered focalization. Now, it seems possible to add one more layer—the emotive layer, forming a triple-layered focalization. Likewise, the same analysis can be applied to Bromden’s white mother. The mother’s dominance in the family dwarfs her giant Indian husband, the old Chief, and out of fear, her son sees her disproportionally huge in size.

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[2.16] “I’m from the Columbia Gorge,” I said, and he waited for me to go on. “My Papa was a full Chief and his name was Tee Ah Millatoona. That means The-Pine-That-Stands-Tallest-on-theMountain, and we didn’t live on a mountain. He was real big when I was a kid. My mother got twice his size.” “You must of had a real moose of an old lady. How big was she?” “Oh – big, big.” “I mean how many feet and inches?” “Feet and inches? A guy at the carnival looked her over and says five feet nine and weight a hundred and thirty pounds, but that was because he’d just saw her. She got bigger all the time.” “Yeah? How much bigger?” “Bigger than Papa and me together.” (Kesey, 1962: 219) Excerpt [2.16] demonstrates a site of multiple facets of focalization that work together simultaneously. Once again, the same “person” Bromden is separated into two agents: the retrospective narrator tells his past experiences. This introduces an embedded level of focalization: the retrospective self externally examines his mother’s bigness that is internally focalized through the experiencing self at an earlier stage. As for the level of internal focalization, it can be found focalized through three layers of focalization simultaneously. Perceptually, Bromden finds his mother beats his Papa and himself together in size and keeps getting bigger all the time. Cognitively, the counterfactual focalized is a consequence of his perplexed mind. Emotively, Bromden, out of fear, associates his mother who is of a small physical build as compared with the gigantic Indian father and son with abnormal bigness. Therefore, in retrospect, Bromden presents to the reader through an embedded multi-layered focalization a monstrous and formidable image of his white mother. Later in the hospital, the same emotive components shape once again Bromden’s conceptualization of the Big Nurse. The construction of matriarchy in Cuckoo’s Nest has been widely researched by scholars (e.g., Martin, 2007 [1973]; Sullivan, 2007 [1973]), and Bromden’s particular emotive focalization may contribute to this line of study with a new perspective. By contrast, the same metaphor—POWERFUL IS BIG—is associated with positiveness and elevated status when applied to characters such as McMurphy and Papa. This is realized through Bromden’s admiring emotive focalization. For example, Bromden establishes an immediate

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association between McMurphy and Papa in terms of their bigness even before he learns about McMurphy’s name: [2.17] He talks a little the way Papa used to, voice loud and full of hell, but he doesn’t look like Papa; Papa was a full-blood Columbia Indian—a chief—and hard and shiny as a gunstock. This guy is redheaded with long red sideburns and a tangle of curls out from under his cap, been needing cut a long time, and he’s broad as Papa was tall, broad across the jaw and shoulders and chest, a broad white devilish grin, and he’s hard in a different kind of way from Papa, kind of the way a baseball is hard under the scuffed leather. (Kesey, 1962: 11–12) Focalized through an admiring emotion, the CF Bromden compares McMurphy with Papa: both talk in “voice loud and full of hell”, and both are hard though in a different way, Papa like a gunstock and McMurphy like a baseball. The focalizer consistently focalizes on their bigness through a positive light, which forms a sharp contrast with the formidable bigness as associated with the Big Nurse and Bromden’s mother. For instance, when enraged, the Big Nurse is presented in a monstrous and mechanistic way—“big as a tractor” (Kesey, 1962: 5), while McMurphy is presented in a more admirable light—“big as a house” (Kesey, 1962: 201). This emotive focalization is consistent throughout until, however, when the two big men finally lose their primes: Papa is belittled both by his white wife and the white people and left in the woods to die; McMurphy is reduced to a “vegetable” by lobotomy. By then, the focalizer ceases associating bigness with the two figures and this admiring emotive focalization comes to a stop. In fact, the BIG metaphor is but among many of the instances in which an emotive focalization renders different tints to the same subject or phenomenon. One more example will suffice to illustrate the point. [2.18] Sweeping the dorm soon’s it’s empty, I’m after dust mice under his bed when I get a smell of something that makes me realize for the first time since I been in the hospital that this big dorm full of beds, sleeps forty grown men, has always been sticky with a thousand other smells—smells of germicide, zinc ointment, and foot powder, smell of piss and sour old-man manure, of

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Pablum and eyewash, of musty shorts and socks musty even when they’re fresh back from the laundry, the stiff odor of starch in the linen, the acid stench of morning mouths, the banana smell of machine oil, and sometimes the smell of singed hair—but never before now, before he came in, the man smell of dust and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and work. (Kesey, 1962: 101) As can be seen in [2.18], the same dorm room smells differently to Bromden prior and posterior to McMurphy’s arrival. Previously, due to his feeling of fear, disgust and great ennui, the room smells to Bromden anything but fresh and human; upon the arrival of McMurphy, Bromden begins to rejuvenate and the dorm smells lively. Later on, while Bromden has made much progress toward a well state under the influence of McMurphy, one night when he wakes up, he finds “the dorm was clean and silent”, and “the air in the dorm was clear and had a taste to it made me feel kind of giddy and drunk” (Kesey, 1962: 163). Under the focalizer’s subjective focalization, the same room smells differently corresponding to the changes in his moods. The Ideological Facet In Cuckoo’s Nest, the ideologies are mainly presented through Bromden’s dominant perspective, others either supplementing or instantiating such ideologies. In some places, the narrator and/or character Bromden explicitly talks about his ideological position on the “Combine”, “which is a huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside as well as she [the Big Nurse] has the Inside” (Kesey, 1962: 28), and “[t]he ward is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is” (Kesey, 1962: 40). In his psychotic state and out of extreme fear, Bromden sees in his mind’s eye that the world is under the control of the Combine, and the inmates in the mental institution are the mistakes made by the society and he expresses this explicitly. But in some other places, Bromden’s ideological position on the Combine is implicitly represented through his way of seeing the world. For example, in [2.19] Bromden tells how he sees shaving as a way for the Combine to install their special machines, which explains why he reacts hysterically toward it.

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[2.19] When you got something under your belt you’re stronger and more wide awake, and the bastards who work for the Combine aren’t so apt to slip one of their machines in on you in place of an electric shaver. (Kesey, 1962: 6) Both in the explicit discussions and in the implicit representations, this seemingly psychotic view functions as a guiding norm, through which Bromden conceptualizes the world. However, this ideological focalization may be found to undergo some changes as Bromden gradually recovers from his paranoid schizophrenia: “Maybe the Combine wasn’t all-powerful” (Kesey, 1962: 305). This indicates that the ideological positions represented through the ideological facet of focalization are dynamic, correlating to the focalizer’s psychological state. Likewise, another ideological position, i.e., “madness is socially constructed”, is also represented both explicitly and implicitly. Unlike the ideological position on the Combine, which is Bromden’s personal norm, the ideological position on the social nature of madness—“madness as social construction” is mainly focalized through the characters involved in the construction. Explicitly, this ideological position is formulated by the characters’ direct expressions of the social norms of madness. For example, Doctor Spivey, in his theory of the Therapeutic Community, articulates “how society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” (Kesey, 1962: 49), and as a result, the patients are required to toe the line of the society, or more precisely, to respect the authority of the Big Nurse in the hospital. Implicitly, this position is focalized through Bromden’s observation of other characters’ behaviors. Technically, one way to directly present the “construction site” of madness is through an embedded camera lens focalization, i.e., external focalization (Genette, 1980), within the general pattern of internal focalization, as demonstrated in [2.20]. [2.20] It’s the doctor who starts things off. “Now, people, if we can get things rolling?” He smiles around at the residents sipping coffee. He’s trying not to look at the Big Nurse. She’s sitting there so silent it makes him nervous and fidgety…. “After today,” the doctor goes on, “no one can say that this is an ordinary man we’re dealing with. No, certainly not. And he

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is a disturbing factor, that’s obvious. …to talk the situation out and unify the staff’s opinion of what should be done about Mr. McMurphy?” … The doctor turns to the line of residents across the room; all of them got the same leg crossed and coffee cup on the same knee…. The question pops their heads up. Cleverly, he’s put them on the carpet too…. They begin to fidget around like the doctor. “He’s quite a disturbing influence, all right.” The first boy plays it safe. They all sip their coffee and think about that. Then the next one says, “And he could constitute an actual danger.” “That’s true, that’s true,” the doctor says. The boy thinks he may have found the key and goes on. “Quite a danger, in fact,” he says and moves forward in his chair. “Keep in mind that this man performed violent acts for the sole purpose of getting away from the work farm and into the comparative luxury of this hospital.” “Planned violent acts,” the first boy says. And the third boy mutters, “Of course, the very nature of this plan could indicate that he is simply a shrewd con man, and not mentally ill at all.” The first resident turns on him after setting down his cup of coffee and reaching in his pocket for a pipe big as your fist. “Frankly, Alvin,” he says to the third boy, “I’m disappointed in you. …This man is not only very very sick, but I believe he is definitely a Potential Assaultive. I think that is what Miss Ratched was suspecting when she called this meeting. Don’t you recognize the arch type of psychopath? I’ve never heard of a clearer case. This man is a Napoleon, a Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun.” … He puts his size-ten pipe back in the corner of his mouth and spreads his hands on his knees and waits. Everybody’s thinking about McMurphy’s thick red arms and scarred hands and how his neck comes out of his T-shirt like a rusty wedge. The resident named Alvin has turned pale at the thought, like that

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yellow pipe smoke his buddy was blowing at him had stained his face. “So you believe it would be wise,” the doctor asks, “to send him up to Disturbed?” “I believe it would be at the very least safe,” the guy with the pipe answers, closing his eyes. “I’m afraid I’ll have to withdraw my suggestion and go along with Robert,” Alvin tells them all, “if only for my own protection.” … “Schizophrenic reaction?” Alvin asks. Pipe shakes his head. “Latent Homosexual with Reaction Formation?” the third one says. Pipe shakes his head again and shuts his eyes. “No,” he says and smiles round the room, “Negative Oedipal.” They all congratulate him. “Yes, I think there is a lot pointing to it,” he says. “But whatever the final diagnosis is, we must keep one thing in mind: we’re not dealing with an ordinary man.” … “You – are very, very wrong, Mr. Gideon.” It’s the Big Nurse. (Kesey, 1962: 152–156) In excerpt [2.20], the staff convene for a decision on McMurphy following his baseball game riot. This scene, claiming a territory of 6 pages, is among the most elaborated scenes depicting communal activities in Cuckoo’s Nest. For the sake of brevity, the present excerpt only selects the part where the doctors, out of their deep fear of the Big Nurse, try to match a type of psychosis onto McMurphy by resorting to their professionalism. In this section, except for a few occasional narrator presences, the narrator withdraws his internal perspective for an external vantage point of observation, while the whole scene seems to be unreeled through a camera lens. Thus, a second-level external focalization (Genette, 1980) is temporarily embedded into the first-level internal focalization. Thanks to this temporary shift to external focalization, the reader can thus witness a conspiracy to corner a non-conforming soul like McMurphy under the disguise of psychiatric expertise.

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Through a camera lens, the reader first sees a cohort of doctors headed by Doctor Spivey, under the Big Nurse’s silent pressure, fidgeting to find a breaking point for the pressing situation. It starts from the ineffectual Doctor Spivey’s chairing of the meeting at a point when the Big Nurse’s silence puts him nervous and fidgety, and he soon passes the fidgety ball to the residents who “got the same leg crossed and coffee cup on the same knee”, a caricature exaggerating the conformity of the residents. Doctor Spivey does successfully pass the ball to the residents: “[t]he question pops their heads up”, and subsequently, “[t]hey begin to fidget around like the doctor”. Then, the reader catches sight of the doctors’ actions under the pressure. It starts with the first resident’s safe play by mentioning McMurphy as a disturbing force, and this soon avalanches into a diagnosis frenzy with the residents attaching numerous psychotic or simply crazy labels to McMurphy: a danger, a Potential Assaultive, the archetype of psychopath, Napoleon, a Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, schizophrenic reaction, Latent Homosexual with Reaction Formation and Negative Oedipal. Of course, there is still a sober voice, “he is simply a shrewd con man, and not mentally ill at all”, but a voice as such is immediately dwindled in the appellation show. Under the camera lens external focalization, an absurd play in which the medical professionals abuse their professional expertise to please the authority for survival is displayed to its fullest. The medical professionals’ behavior exemplifies a concrete case of the ideological position—“madness is socially constructed”. The embedded camera lens focalization provides the reader with a direct access to the “construction site”, implicitly representing the narrator’s ideological position since the camera lens is only a second-level focalization that is under the supervision of the narrator at a macro-level. Thus, the ideological position implicitly expressed in [2.20] echoes with the norm that is explicitly expressed by Doctor Spivey: “how society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” (Kesey, 1962: 49). Concerning the modes and levels of focalization, the analyses conducted in the tradition of classical narratology are satisfactory so far. However, some problems may arise when one distinctive feature in Cuckoo’s Nest is taken into consideration: Kesey uses the present and past tense interchangeably, and he frequently and even abruptly shifts from one to the other. This feature involves the perspectives of observation, or more technically put, focalization, while the above analyses may hardly accommodate a satisfactory distinction or explanation for it. Therefore,

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it is necessary to further expand the classical models of focalization to accommodate textual properties as such, and the inclusion of a cognitive dimension into focalization, which I am turning to below, seems to be a plausible solution. Modes of Focalization from a Cognitive Dimension The tense feature in Cuckoo’s Nest is far beyond a matter of Kesey’s personal taste; it is stylistically significant. The novel is narrated in primarily two tenses: the present and the past. It opens in the present tense and ends in the past tense, with over thirty shifts in between, formulating a jigsaw pattern of tenses. Some tense shifts seem to be content-based, for example, from present to past for memory, thus an unmarked pattern. However, some seem to be less so and more unpredictable, creating a sudden tense shift even within the same event. Such tense shifts form a marked tense pattern as exemplified in [2.21] below: [2.21] I’m the last one. Still strapped in the chair in the corner. McMurphy stops when he gets to me and hooks his thumbs in his pockets again and leans back to laugh, like he sees something funnier about me than about anybody else. All of a sudden I was scared he was laughing because he knew the way I was sitting there with my knees pulled up and my arms wrapped around them, staring straight ahead as though I couldn’t hear a thing, was all an act. (Kesey, 1962: 23, my emphasis) It is exactly the unpredictable shifts between the present tense and the past tense that constitute a distinctive tense pattern of Cuckoo’s Nest. Therefore, it is necessary to examine this particular linguistic choice in a more consistent fashion so as to uncover its value. In fact, scholars have long noticed the changes in tense in Cuckoo’s Nest. In a recent study, Leise (2018) has acutely touched upon the relationship between the formal feature of tense and the psychological study of trauma. He finds Bromden’s shifting from past to present tense in narrating his childhood experiences evidences “the mid-century approaches to processing and treating traumatic loss” (Leise, 2018: 71). Leise’s (2018) observation on Kesey’s tense shift is particularly revealing, although his focus is on trauma in lieu of narrative structure. As a matter

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of fact, Kesey’s tense shifts are not just confined to Bromden’s narration of his childhood experiences. Rather, it is a pervasive feature throughout the whole novel. To seek a more comprehensive explanation for this particular tense feature, I depart from the relationship between the narrator and the focalizer following the tradition of classical narratology and further examine the relationship between the narrator and/or focalizer and the focalized from a cognitive dimension. A Hypothesis of Attention Windowing in Narrative Two positions of the narrator vis-à-vis the focalizer can be seen in Cuckoo’s Nest: that of the narrator conflating with the focalizer and that of the narrator separating from the focalizer. The former is found predominantly written in the present tense, and the latter in both. But, what are the intrinsic relationships between the two positions and the two tense patterns? To understand this point, we need to resort to Talmy’s (2000) theory of windowing of attention. In his cognitive semantic studies, Talmy (2000: 257) finds that “languages can place a portion of a coherent referent situation into the foreground of attention by the explicit mention of that portion, while placing the remainder of that situation into the background of attention by omitting mention of it”, and he defines the cognitive process at work for such linguistic phenomena as “windowing of attention”. By comparing Talmy’s (2000: 257) windowing of attention with Jahn’s (2005: 173) definition of focalization that stresses “the perspectival restriction and orientation of narrative information relative to somebody’s (usually, a character’s) perception, imagination, knowledge, or point of view”, it is not difficult to find that the two concepts are intrinsically related: in terms of perception, Jahn (2005) focuses on who perceives what in a narrative situation, while Talmy (2000) on how particular linguistic constituents reflect the focal perception. Therefore, the present research hypothesizes that Talmy’s (2000) theory of windowing of attention, initially devised for the study of linguistic structures, can be aptly applied to the study of narrative structures, with focalization in particular. In what follows, drawing on Cuckoo’s Nest, I test this hypothesis by analyzing attention windowing in the event frame of participant interaction. It is anticipated that this endeavor will yield further understanding of Cuckoo’s Nest as well as focalization from a cognitive perspective. In accordance with Talmy’s (2000: 282) theory of participantinteraction windowing, a participant-interaction event frame consists of

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a primary circumstance and some participant(s) interacting with that circumstance on (at least) two different occasions: a participant of the expressed referent event in an indirect interaction or of the current speech event in a direct interaction. In terms of the linguistic devices, the former is expressed in the past tense and the latter in the present tense, as shown in example [2.22]. [2.22] a. John met a woman at the party last week. Her name was Linda. b. John met a woman at the party last week. Her name is Linda. (Talmy, 2000: 283) Attention windowing occurs as a result of the choice of a particular tense: In particular, linguistic devices direct an addressee to adopt one of the two participant interaction times as the point at which to locate his temporal perspective point, and to place around the interaction there an attentional window that could include such elements of the interaction as the activity, the surrounding scene, or the cognitive content of the participant. (Talmy, 2000: 282–283)

A quick glimpse at the tense patterns in Cuckoo’s Nest reveals that Bromden’s narration of one story in two tenses seems to correspond to the above-mentioned interactions respectively: a character-participant of the referent event (the event occurring on the ward) and a narratorparticipant of the current speech event (narrating the ward experiences). In what follows, I scrutinize the tense features in Cuckoo’s Nest under Talmy’s (2000) theory of windowing of attention to testify or falsify the above intuitive observation in hopes of uncovering the corresponding narrative properties of the tense patterns. Following Barthes’ (1975: 241) proposition that “a narrative is a large sentence”, the quintessential narrative structure of Cuckoo’s Nest can be condensed into one sentence: Bromden tells what he encounters in a mental institution. This event, which occurs only once, is akin to Talmy’s (2000: 286) punctual event, albeit in a more complicated manner. We may compare Talmy’s (2000) punctual event with the events in Cuckoo’s Nest. In general, the quintessential structure of the events in Cuckoo’s Nest shares a similar pattern with the punctual event by

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Talmy (2000) in the basic structures of their primary circumstances: “Somebody does something at time X” vs. “Something happens at time X” (see Table 2.2). Therefore, “what Bromden encounters in a mental institution” can be regarded, from a cognitive perspective, the primary circumstance in a participant-interaction event frame, and accordingly, the tense pattern in Cuckoo’s Nest can be examined under Talmy’s (2000) theory of windowing of attention. Seeing Bromden’s narration of his ward experiences as a participantinteraction event frame, we can observe that the initial interaction, i.e., Bromden’s ward experiences, while taking place, would have been in the present tense, consisting of “what is happening on the ward”. However, Bromden’s subsequent narration of the initial interaction may take one of the three forms: (1) I am telling you what happened on the ward; (2) What happened on the ward; (3) What is happening on the ward. Each form activates a window of heightened attention over that interaction, a cognitive process realized linguistically in the form of tense. In all, I find in Cuckoo’s Nest three facets of focalization, which I propose to call the interactional, the evidentiary and the concurrent facet, corresponding to the three types of attention windowing. Table 2.2 A comparison between the punctual events Punctual events

Examples

Primary circumstance

Basic structure

Talmy (2000: 286)

a. When was her plane going to leave again tomorrow? b. When is her plane going to leave again tomorrow? a. Bromden told what he encountered in a mental institution b. Bromden tells what he encounters in a mental institution

Her plane leaves at time X

Something happens at time X

Cuckoo’s Nest

Bromden encounters Somebody does something in a mental something at time X institution at time X

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Three Cognitive Facets of Focalization The interactional facet. In the above discussions, we have noticed that in Cuckoo’s Nest the same “person” Bromden is sometimes separated into two agents: the narrator and the character, and correspondingly the text is focalized through the narrator-focalizer or the character-focalizer respectively. I presently focus on the former (the narrator conflating with the focalizer), and turn shortly to the latter (the narrator separating from the focalizer). One instance of focalization through a narrator-focalizer has been discussed in excerpt [2.8]. We now re-examine the excerpt in terms of interaction (reproduced as [2.23] below for the sake of convenience). [2.23] It’s gonna burn me just that way, finally telling about all this, about the hospital, and her, and the guys—and about McMurphy. I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen. (Kesey, 1962: 8, my emphasis) This excerpt instantiates a speech event in which the speaker, i.e., the narrator, interacts with the addressee, i.e., the reader “you” directly, explaining to his reader about the driving forces for him to tell the story. The whole instance is narrated in the present tense. Likewise, excerpt [2.24] below also exemplifies a direct narrator-reader interaction. The repeated use of the present tense verb “remember” indicates that the narrator is interacting with the reader at the moment about something that happened previously. Like [2.23], the narrator interacts with the reader in the present tense about his memory, but different from [2.23] the content of the memory narrated in the past tense. [2.24] I remember real clear the way that hand looked: there was carbon under the fingernails where he’d worked once in a garage; there was an anchor tattooed back from the knuckles; there was a dirty Band-Aid on the middle knuckle, peeling up at the edge. All the rest of the knuckles were covered with scars and cuts, old and new. I remember the palm was smooth and

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hard as bone from hefting the wooden handles of axes and hoes, not the hand you’d think could deal cards. The palm was callused, and the calluses were cracked, and dirt was worked in the cracks. A road map of his travels up and down the West. That palm made a scuffing sound against my hand. I remember the fingers were thick and strong closing over mine, and my hand commenced to feel peculiar and went to swelling up out there on my stick of an arm, like he was transmitting his own blood into it. It rang with blood and power. It blowed up near as big as his, I remember... (Kesey, 1962: 25, my emphasis) Nevertheless, the use of the present tense in both [2.23] and [2.24] enables an interactional facet of focalization: both are focalized through the narrator-focalizer on the narrator’s interaction with the reader at the present moment. This may prompt us to examine this type of focalization under Talmy’s (2000: 283) direct interaction in participant-interaction windowing. The switching to the present tense from the past tense in [2.24], at the narrative level, typically exemplifies the direct interaction as cited above in [2.22b], where the addressee may place an attentional window around the speaker’s consideration of the woman’s name (Linda) at the present moment of speaking. The present tense verb “remember” in [2.24] enables the reader to place a heightened attentional window around the speaker’s, i.e., narrator Bromden’s interaction with the reader at the present moment of speaking. In this direct interaction, the windowed subportion is the participant’s interaction with the current speech event, namely, narrator Bromden’s narration of the primary circumstance and his cognitive state—his memory—at the present moment of interaction with the reader, whereas the rest of the whole event frame remains gapped. [2.23] differs slightly from [2.24] in that it is the constant uses of the present tense rather than the switching from the past to the present that help place an attentional window around the narrator-reader interaction. The present tense in [2.23] windows Bromden’s direct interaction with the reader over the primary circumstance—his ward experiences. However, unlike [2.24] in which the switching between the past and present tense functions as the linguistic devices for attentional windows, in [2.23] only the present tense is available for windowing. The gapped subportions of the whole event frame remain to be activated by the reader in the narrator-reader interaction. Thus, it can be argued that in excerpt [2.23], just like in [2.24],

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Kesey establishes a selective window of attention around narrator-reader interaction through the use of the present tense. Therefore, irrespective of the presence of the primary circumstance or not, in both [2.23] and [2.24] the heightened windows of attention are placed on the narrator-reader interaction, linguistically realized by the use of present tense. Instances like the two examples discussed above instantiate at a narrative level Talmy’s (2000: 283) direct interaction that places an attentional window around the speaker’s interaction with the addressee while keeping the rest of the event frame gapped. For the narrator-focalizer’s interactional function, I dub this type of focalizer an interactional focalizer and the ensuing focalization the interactional facet of focalization. The evidentiary facet. Different from the interactional facet discussed above, in most parts of the novel, however, the events are focalized through the character Bromden while narrated by the narrator Bromden, an exemplar of Genette’s (1980) distinction between “who sees” and “who speaks”, whereas “who sees” may be extended to “who perceives” or even “who cognizes”. Cases as such belong to the category in which the narrator and focalizer are separated agents. The prototypical tense pattern corresponding to this category is the past tense. In excerpt [2.25] below, Bromden’s post-carnival ecstasy is represented to the reader through the character-focalizer Bromden. From an inside view, the focalized shows Bromden’s thoughts and emotions— his reassessment of the Combine and his feeling of drunkenness; from an outside view, the focalized is his actions—a supergiant carrying McMurphy and Sandy in his arms. [2.25] As I walked after them it came to me as a kind of sudden surprise that I was drunk, actually drunk, glowing and grinning and staggering drunk for the first time since the Army, drunk along with half a dozen other guys and a couple of girls—right on the Big Nurse’s ward! Drunk and running and laughing and carrying on with women square in the center of the Combine’s most powerful stronghold! I thought back on the night, on what we’d been doing, and it was near impossible to believe. I had to keep reminding myself that it had truly happened, that we had made it happen. We had just unlocked a window and let it in like you let in the fresh air. Maybe the Combine wasn’t allpowerful. What was to stop us from doing it again, now that we

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saw we could? Or keep us from doing other things we wanted? I felt so good thinking about this that I gave a yell and swooped down on McMurphy and the girl Sandy walking along in front of me, grabbed them both up, one in each arm, and ran all the way to the day room with them hollering and kicking like kids. I felt that good. (Kesey, 1962: 305) The past tense directs an attentional window around Bromden’s interaction with his own thoughts and the people in the event frame at a temporal point prior to the present moment. This instantiates at a narrative level Talmy’s (2000) indirect interaction. In Talmy’s (2000) indirect interaction, the addressee may place an attentional window around the participant’s interaction with a past referent event, as exemplified in [2.22a] above, in which an attentional window is placed around John’s interaction, i.e., his encounter with Linda in the past. In the current example, it is exactly the subportion of Bromden’s interaction with a past referent that is windowed while the rest gapped. This participant-interaction type may support an evidentiary reading. In this type of reading, narrator Bromden reports faithfully what the character Bromden experienced or witnessed, that is to say, the focalizer’s interaction with a past referent event, and nothing else. For this reason, I dub this type of focalizer an evidentiary focalizer and the focalization involved the evidentiary facet of focalization. The concurrent facet. In addition to the prototypical past tense used in the evidentiary facet of focalization, a non-prototypical tense pattern—the present tense—is also employed in the category with a separated narrator and focalizer. Two reasons contribute to the non-prototypicality of the use of the present tense in this situation. For one thing, the present tense is non-prototypically used for a narrative about a past experience, and for another, this pattern fits into neither of Talmy’s (2000) two tense patterns of a participant-interaction event frame as shown in [2.22] above. For these two reasons, the use of the present tense deserves special attention. Scholars have long noticed this special tense feature. For example, Huffman (1977) finds the therapeutic value in Bromden’s use of historical present tense, and Leise (2018) gives an interpretation to the shift from past to present tense in terms of trauma psychology. Inspired by these scholars’ insights, I seek further to understand the complicated relationships between this linguistic feature and the cognitive activities involved.

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The two excerpts below are two instances in which the characterfocalizer interacts with the event frame at the present moment: [2.26] I hide in the mop closet and listen, my heart beating in the dark, and I try to keep from getting scared, try to get my thoughts off someplace else… (Kesey, 1962: 6)

[2.27] The new man stands looking a minute, to get the setup of the day room… (Kesey, 1962: 15) Excerpt [2.26] is a case of Bromden’s activity in the event as it occurs, while in excerpt [2.27] Bromden interacts with the event by observing as a bystander. In both cases, the present tense directs the placement there a heightened attentional window that includes Bromden’s interaction with the referent at the present moment. This way of windowing of attention creates a simultaneous effect on the reader’s part when reading the text, and for this reason, I name it the concurrent facet of focalization and separates it out from the evidentiary facet, while both constitute together the indirect interaction by Talmy’s (2000) definition. In this type of focalization, the participant’s interaction with the referent event is focalized through the concurrent focalizer. Like the evidentiary focalizer, the concurrent focalizer enables the reader to place an attentional window around the character Bromden’s interaction with the referent event, whereas the difference lies in the time of interaction: the former in the past and the latter at the present moment. Likewise, like the interactional focalizer, the concurrent focalizer enables the reader to place an attentional window around the participant’s interaction at the present moment of speaking, while the difference lies in with whom/what to interact: the former being the reader and the latter being the referent event. In this type of interaction, the whole event frame is activated, the subportion of the character-participant’s interaction with the referent event at the present moment windowed and the narrator-participant interaction with the reader gapped. The evidentiary and concurrent facet of focalization, in a relationship of binary opposition, are the two perspectives to interact with the same event frame, placing a heightened attentional window around two temporal points: a past one and a present one. Kesey’s sudden shifts

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between the past and present tenses linguistically realize the transitions of attention windowing. The distinction between the evidentiary and concurrent facets of focalization is conducive to demystifying Kesey’s frequent and sometimes even baffling shifts between the two tenses within one event, as further exemplified in [2.28] below. [2.28] They’re out there. Black boys in white suits peeing under the door on me, come in later and accuse me of soaking all six these pillows I’m lying on! Number six. I thought the room was a dice. The number one, the snake eye up there, the circle, the white light in the ceiling … is what I’ve been seeing … in this little square room … means it’s after dark. How many hours have I been out? It’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No … never again … I stand, stood up slowly, feeling numb between the shoulders. The white pillows on the floor of the Seclusion Room were soaked from me peeing on them while I was out. I couldn’t remember all of it yet, but I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and tried to clear my head. I worked at it. I’d never worked at coming out of it before. (Kesey, 1962: 287–288) Excerpt [2.28] is about how Bromden struggles out of the Electric Shock Therapy (EST). The present tense and past tense direct the placement of attentional windows around two temporal points respectively. In the present tense, focalized through the concurrent focalizer, the reader gets a chance to see how Bromden struggles on the spot at the present moment. In his dizziness, Bromden sees the black boys urinating on him and relates the number of the pillows—six—to the numbers of the dice. Focalized through the concurrent focalizer Bromden, the use of present tense offers a most direct view of Bromden’s unconscious mind, i.e., the state of his struggling against the brain murdering EST. In contrast, in the sentence “I thought the room was a dice”, the tense suddenly diverts to past tense, and correspondingly the concurrent focalizer gives way to an evidentiary focalizer. The switching to past tense places a window of attention around that temporal point which includes all aspects of Bromden’s interaction with EST, namely a previous experience. In retrospect, the evidentiary focalizer Bromden tells his EST experience in a different mental state.

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This switching of attentional window realized by the switching between two tenses effectively demonstrates the focalizer’s two types of interactions with the primary circumstance: a “here and now” type and a “there and then” type. Many instances of tense shifts in Cuckoo’s Nest can be readily examined in this way, and the two temporal aspects of the verb “stand” in the sentence “I stand, stood up slowly, feeling numb between the shoulders” in this excerpt makes a handy example. Rather than being a confusing tense shift or a sign of Bromden’s poor grammar, the slipping of tense here enriches the worlds represented in the novel by windowing two interactions consecutively. The differences in attention windowing restrict the perspectives through which the primary circumstance or the events are perceived. The concurrent focalizer provides a view of the participant’s present interaction with the referent in the event frame, thus producing a simultaneous effect of “here and now”. As for the evidentiary focalizer, it is a view of the participant’s previous interaction with the referent in the event frame, all about “there and then”. The Interrelations of the Elements Examined under Talmy’s (2000) theory of participant-interaction windowing, Cuckoo’s Nest is seen to represent two types of interactions respectively: the direct and the indirect. A number of elements are involved in the two interactions and they are interrelated to each other in various ways. We begin with the direct interaction which features itself in the speaker’s interaction with the addressee at the present moment about the current speech event, and in the context of Cuckoo’s Nest, it is narrator Bromden’s interaction with the reader through narrating the story about his ward experiences. Linguistically, the direct interaction is encoded in the present tense, while structurally it instantiates an interactional facet of focalization. For this type of focalization, the focalizer is the interactional focalizer, while the focalized is the interactional activity. The present tense signals the adoption of the temporal perspective of narrator interaction in the current speech event, and directs the placement there an attentional window that includes something of the interactional context, such as narrator Bromden’s consideration of the event. The narrator’s mental state has a direct impact on the cognitive facet of focalization, and the reader may accordingly give his/her judgment on the reliability of his story.

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As for the indirect interaction, different from the speaker’s interaction in the current speech situation, it is with the referent in the event frame that the event participant interacts. In the present text, it is the character Bromden’s interaction with the ward experiences. Linguistically, the indirect interaction is rendered in either past tense or present tense, and structurally each tense pattern corresponds to the evidentiary and concurrent facet of focalization respectively. In the instances of past tense, the events are focalized through an evidentiary focalizer, and the focalized is the participant, i.e., the focalizer’s interaction with the referent in the event frame in the past. The past tense enables the addressee to place an attentional window around the temporal point in the past, and consequently, the focalized gives an evidentiary reading of “there and then”. On the other hand, in the instances of present tense, the events are focalized through a concurrent focalizer, and the focalized is the focalizer’s, i.e., the character Bromden’s interaction with the referent in the event frame at the present moment of narrating. The present tense directs the addressee to place an attentional window around the temporal point of the present moment, giving a concurrent reading of “here and now”. Like in direct interactions, where the interactional focalizer’s mental states are intrinsically related to the focalization strategy and the choice of tenses, the focalizer’s mental states in indirect interactions are also indispensable in this triangulate relationship of tense, focalization and mind. Considering the mental states in relation to the evidentiary and concurrent facets of focalization are more complicated, I examine these issues in detail in my discussions on intramental madness in the next chapter, but it is important to see at the present stage that linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds in Cuckoo’s Nest co-exist in a triangulate relationship. This relationship, to be elaborated also in the next chapter, is the fundamental understanding that underpins this book. The interactional, evidentiary and concurrent facets are three facets of focalization under the perspective restriction of attention windowing. One participant-interaction event frame in a narrative context can be focalized through either one, two or all of the facets, resulting in different windowed temporal points and types of interaction. The three facets of focalization instantiate at the narrative level Talmy’s (2000) theory of windowing of attention in a participant-interaction event frame. See Table 2.3 for the interrelations among the various elements of the three facets.

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Table 2.3 The interactional, evidentiary and concurrent facets of focalization Linguistic choice

Cognitive basis

Structural property Focalization

Focalizer

Focalized

Present tense Attentional window around a direct interaction at present Past tense Attentional window around an indirect interaction in the past

Interactional

Interactional (narrator)

Evidentiary

Evidentiary (character)

Present tense Attentional window around an indirect interaction at present

Concurrent

Concurrent (character)

Narrator’s interaction with the reader at present Character’s interaction with the referent in the event frame in the past Character’s interaction with the referent in the event frame at present

Based on the analyses above, the present research tentatively argues that the cognitive linguistic theory of attention can be viably applied to focalization studies in Cuckoo’s Nest. For one thing, this practice offers a technical and objective interpretation to Kesey’s jerky present-past tense skips—a matter of attentional windowing of the restricted perspectives of different focalizers. For another, the inclusion of a cognitive dimension in the present analyses helps enrich the traditional focalization typology by introducing the three facets of focalization: interactional, evidentiary and concurrent. Together, the three facets constitute the windowed focalization on a focalizer’s interaction with the same primary circumstance—the ward experiences in the present context. One distinction deserves some clarification: the distinction between Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) psychological facet of focalization that includes the cognitive components and the interactional, evidentiary and concurrent facets of focalization from a cognitive dimension. The new introduction differs from Rimmon-Kenan’s typology in that her concept is mainly concerned with how the focalizer’s cognitive state restricts what to be focalized, while the present study focuses on how the human cognitive experience of attention models the representation and interpretation of narratives. It explores the possibility of focalizing on the interactions with the same primary circumstance through different perspectives.

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In addition, the experimental investigation of attention windowing in a narrative context may also feed cognitive linguistics with new data. The concurrent facet of focalization activates the placement of an attentional window around the temporal point of the character-participant’s “here and now” interaction with the referent in the event frame. This fits into neither of the two types of Talmy’s (2000) attentional windowing in a participant-interaction frame, for it is logically paradoxical in a real-life situation: a same participant-interaction event frame cannot be windowed simultaneously over the participant’s interaction with the referent event in the past and at the present moment. However, in a fictional context and by technically switching between the evidentiary focalizer and the concurrent focalizer, it is possible to window a participant’s interaction with the referent in the event frame in the past and at present simultaneously. This helps to explain the abrupt changes, for example, in [2.28] above, in which the focalizer slips from a concurrent to an evidentiary one, then back to a concurrent, and then to an evidentiary one again, windowing the interactions with the referent in the same event frame from a past and a present temporal position respectively.

2.3

A Multi-faceted and Multi-layered Model

The above analyses of the modes of focalization reveal that under the general pattern of internal focalization, Kesey systematically interweaves different types and different facets of focalization into Cuckoo’s Nest. Does this flexibility of focalization indicate that there might be categorical overlapping between these terminologies? Or does it indicate that focalization may be potentially multi-faceted and multi-layered, and the same object can be simultaneously accessed from different vantage points? Based on findings from the foregoing analyses, I would like to argue that any focalization study on Cuckoo’s Nest confined to either a certain model or a certain dimension of focalization only is insufficient, and a multifaceted and multi-layered approach is necessary to gain a comprehensive understanding of Kesey’s focalization strategies in representing madness. Following classical narratology, we may find that Cuckoo’s Nest, from time to time, can be suitably analyzed by drawing on Genette’s (1980) tripartite typology or Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) trio-facets, and very often by combining the two into an integrated system. Zero focalization and external focalization are often found to be embedded into the general

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pattern of internal focalization, producing a layered pattern of focalization. The text may also be focalized through multi-facets when simultaneously focalized through the perceptual, psychological and ideological facets of focalization. Therefore, under the major pattern of internal focalization, various types and facets jointly constitute a complex focalization pattern in Cuckoo’s Nest. This categorical complexity lies in various vantage points from which a particular instance is focalized. Departing from the distance between the focalizer and the focalized, the Genettian tripartite typology is an excellent model, while Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) perceptual facet is an expansion in the sensory range and the spatial and temporal dimension. Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) psychological facet further expands the focalizer-focalized relationship into a new dimension by taking into consideration the focalizer’s mental states, whereas the ideological facet is concerned with what norms are represented and how. These different vantage points are, rather than overlapping, inherently complimentary, serving one and the same focalized in a multi-faceted and multi-layered approach to focalization. Excerpt [2.13] makes an excellent example for a multi-faceted and multi-layered focalization (reproduced below as [2.29] for the sake of convenience). [2.29] 1 She’s swelling up, swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times. 2 She looks around her with a swivel of her huge head. 3 Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the half-breed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and can’t talk to call for help. 4 So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load. (Kesey, 1962: 5) In terms of the distance between the focalizer and the focalized, the focalizer, i.e., the narrator-character, mainly employs the internal focalization for an outside view of the focalized, i.e., the Big Nurse’s reaction and action, while a slipping into zero focalization in sentence 3 provides an inside view of her thought. Both visual and olfactory perceptions are

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involved. However, the perceptual facet is only a surface-level focalization that reflects a psychological facet of focalization at a deeper level. Cognitively, the bizarre perception represents the focalizer’s deranged mental state; emotively, it reflects his mood of extreme fear. Thus, the psychological facet consists of a second layer through which the Big Nurse is focalized. In addition, the deranged perception of machinery conveys the focalizer’s ideological position: the Big Nurse as an accomplice of the Combine. In other words, it is under the guiding norm of the Combine that Bromden conceptualizes the Big Nurse as machinery. This ideological facet of focalization adds a third layer to the vantage point of focalization of the same instance. The observation that Kesey adopts a multi-faceted and multi-layered approach to focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest can be further supported by findings from a cognitive dimension. Corresponding to the tense pattern, Kesey employs three facets of focalization from a cognitive dimension, i.e., the interactional, the evidentiary and the concurrent, which not only foreground Bromden’s particular interactions with the event frame, but also enable the reader to place a heightened attentional window around those interactions. This focalization strategy not only gets the same event frame to be focalized multiply through different vantage points, thus providing a multi-dimensional view of the same incident, but also is compatible with Genette’s (1980) tripartite typology and Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) triofacets, further enriching the multi-facetedness and the multi-layeredness of focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest. A re-examination of example [2.21] (reproduced as [2.30] below for the sake of convenience) will suffice to put this point into perspective. [2.30] 1 I’m the last one. Still strapped in the chair in the corner. 2 McMurphy stops when he gets to me and hooks his thumbs in his pockets again and leans back to laugh, like he sees something funnier about me than about anybody else. 3 All of a sudden I was scared he was laughing because he knew the way I was sitting there with my knees pulled up and my arms wrapped around them, staring straight ahead as though I couldn’t hear a thing, was all an act. (Kesey, 1962: 23, my emphasis) Sentences 1 and 2 are focalized through the narrator’s internal focalization, an outside view from the perceptual facet. Meanwhile, the present

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tense indicates that this is also a concurrent facet, initiating an attentional window around Bromden’s “here and now” interaction with the event frame, i.e., his first encounter with McMurphy, and guiding the reader to place an attentional window around such an interaction accordingly. Sentence 3 begins with the narrator’s internal focalization but with an inside view on his internal thought, and by way of a direct thought, it is focalized through the psychological facet to show the focalizer’s cognition. Still in sentence 3, we may find that the shift to past tense initiates an evidentiary facet of focalization from a cognitive dimension, indicating the narrator’s “there and then” interaction with a past event and enabling the reader to place a heightened attentional window around Bromden’s interaction with his first encounter with McMurphy in the past. Through both the concurrent and the evidentiary facets of focalization, the reader gets a simultaneous view of both Bromden’s on spot interaction and his subsequent reflection on his interaction when he first met McMurphy. Based on the above findings, a multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation can be presently synthesized. Judging from the distance between the focalizer and the focalized, a fictional mind can be represented by way of different modes of focalization, i.e., zero, internal and external focalization. Meanwhile, the same mind can also be focalized through different facets of focalization, either through the perceptual, psychological or ideological facets concerning the sensory range, mental states or the norms of the text, or through the interactional, evidentiary or concurrent facets concerning the windowing of attention. More importantly, the various modes and facets can be layered up into a coherent whole—the same incident can be simultaneously focalized through different modes or facets, each yielding a different dimension of the incident. Given the complexity of human mental functioning, a multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization is conducive to a multi-dimensional representation of the fictional minds (see Fig. 2.4). The complexity of the fictional mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest gives rise to Kesey’s complex pattern of focalization, and vice versa. To address the nexus of focalization and mental representation in fictional narratives, the present multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation derived from the meticulous exploration of Kesey’s focalization strategies in Cuckoo’s Nest may serve as a viable framework.

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Classical Facets: Perceptual Psychological Ideational

Multidimensional Representation of Fictional Minds

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Cognitive Facets: Interactional Evidentiary Concurrent

Fig. 2.4 A multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation (Source The author)

2.4

Summary

This chapter makes an inquiry into the interrelations between narrative structures and the representation of fictional mad minds. It mainly focuses on three issues: the nexus between focalization and mental representation, the modes of focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest and a multi-faceted and multilayered model of focalization and mental representation. Based on the intersections between focalization and mental representation, I propose an integrated framework to study mental representation in narrative fiction via focalization. I consider both focalization and mental representation as construal processes, arguing that the structural property of focalization is the textual manifestation of mental representation.

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Accordingly, I propose that the representation of fictional minds can be viably accessed through the narrative structures of focalization. My investigations of the modes of focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest depart from the commonly acknowledged position that, focalized through the schizophrenic narrator Chief Bromden, this novel employs the major pattern of internal focalization (Genette, 1980). This vantage point offers the reader a direct access to the story world through the schizophrenic narrator’s eyes, lending credence to the bizarre accounts by Bromden. However, the investigations of the present chapter also reveal that visà-vis the internal focalization Kesey makes use of a variety of focalization strategies, which are subsumed under the general pattern of internal focalization. The different modes function together to form a complicated pattern of focalization that contributes to a multi-dimensional view of the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest. Examined from the dimension of classical narratology, we may find that, first, in tandem with internal focalization, zero and external focalization (Genette, 1980) also make their way into Cuckoo’s Nest by way of embedding and slipping. The newly introduced types of focalization break the limitation of internal focalization, allowing a wider scope to view the story world. Second, investigations following Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) three facets of focalization can reveal finer-grained minutiae in the text. The spatial and temporal restrictions from the perceptual facet offer limited or panoramic view of the story world; focalization through the psychological facet explains for Bromden’s cognitive and emotional states; focalization through the ideological facet conveys the narrator’s ideological positions. More importantly, the three facets are suitable for a layered pattern of simultaneous co-existence, lending the same incident to multiple focalizations for a multi-dimensional view. From a cognitive dimension, by applying Talmy’s (2000) cognitive semantic theory of windowing of attention at the narrative level, I propose that Kesey’s idiosyncratic tense pattern corresponds to three cognitive facets of focalization, i.e., interactional, evidentiary and concurrent. Each facet enables the reader to place a different attentional window around the narrator’s particular interaction with the event frame respectively. In addition, the three cognitive facets are completely compatible with both Genette’s tripartite typology and Rimmon-Kenan’s trio-facets in classical narratology, exhibiting a simultaneous co-existence. This finding widens the application scope of the theory of windowing of attention and enriches the typology of focalization from a cognitive dimension.

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Finally, a multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation is formulated based on the above findings. This model, synthesizing various elements of focalization and mental representation and derived from the focalization strategies in Cuckoo’s Nest, may offer a viable way to access minds in fictional narratives in general.

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perspective, and focalization: Modeling mediation in narrative (pp. 119–142). Walter de Gruyter. Herman, D. (2011). Introduction. In D. Herman (Ed.), The emergence of mind: Representations of consciousness in narrative discourse in English (pp. 1–42). University of Nebraska Press. Hogan, P. C. (2014). Ulysses and the poetics of cognition. Routledge. Huffman, J. R. (1977). The cuckoo clocks in Kesey’s nest. Modern Language Studies, 7 (1), 62–73. Jahn, M. (1996). Windows of focalization: Deconstructing and reconstructing a narratological concept. Style, 30(2), 241–267. Jahn, M. (1999). More aspects of focalisation: Refinements and applications. In J. Pier (Ed.), Recent trends in narratological research (pp. 73–94). Presses universitaires François-Rabelais. Jahn, M. (2005). Focalization. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 173–177). Routledge. Joyce, J. (2005 [1914]). Dubliners. ICON Group International. Kesey, K. (1962). One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Signet. Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar (Vol. 1). Stanford University Press. Leech, G., & Short, M. (2007). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose (2nd ed.). Pearson Education Ltd. Leise, C. (2018). Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nes t: Damming the Columbia River and traumatic loss. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 25(1), 62–79. Madden, F. (1986). Sanity and responsibility: Big chief as narrator and executioner. Modern Fiction Studies, 32(2), 203–217. Margolin, U. (2009). Focalization: Where do we go from here? In P. Hühn, W. Schmid, & J. Schönert (Eds.), Point of view, perspective, and focalization: Modeling mediation in narrative (pp. 41–58). Walter de Gruyter. Martin, T. (2007 [1973]). One flew over the cuckoo’s nest and the high cost of living. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (Bloom’s modern critical interpretation) (New ed., pp. 3–14). New York: Infobase Publishing. McHale, B. (1978). Free indirect discourse: A survey of recent accounts. Poetics and Theory of Literature, 3(2), 249–287. Palmer, A. (2002). The construction of fictional minds. Narrative, 10(1), 28–46. Palmer, A. (2004). Fictional minds. University of Nebraska Press. Palmer, A. (2005). Thought and consciousness representation (literature). In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 602–607). Routledge. Palmer, A. (2010). Social minds in the novel. The Ohio State University Press. Palmer, A. (2011). Social minds in fiction and criticism. Style, 45(2), 196–240.

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Pouillon, J. (1946). Temps et roman. Gallimard. Rimmon-Kenan, S. (2002). Narrative fiction: Contemporary poetics (2nd ed.). Routledge. Semino, E., & Swindlehurst, K. (1996). Metaphor and mind style in Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Style, 30(1), 143–166. Stanzel, F. K. (1978). Second thoughts on “Narrative situations in the novel”: Towards a “grammar of fiction”. Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 11(3), 247–264. Sullivan, R. (2007 [1973]). Big mama, big papa, and little sons in Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (Bloom’s modern critical interpretation) (New ed., pp. 15–28). Infobase Publishing. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Concept structuring systems (Vol. 1). MIT Press. Todorov, T. (1966). Les catégories du récit littéraire. Communications, 8, 125– 151. Uspensky, B. (1973). A poetics of composition: The structure of the artistic text and typology of a compositional form. University of California Press. Woolf, M. P. (1976). The madman as hero in contemporary American fiction. Journal of American Studies, 10(2), 257–269. Zunshine, L. (2006). Why we read fiction: Theory of mind and the novel. Ohio State University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Intramental Madness

This chapter investigates from an internal perspective the representation of intramental madness in fictional narratives. What is intramental madness? To answer this question, I first conduct a synchronic study on the signs and symptoms and the cognitive bases of the individual mad minds, and then a diachronic study on the progression of consciousness in Cuckoo’s Nest. How is intramental madness represented? To seek answers to this question, I focus on Kesey’s narrative techniques, particularly focalization strategies, for the representation of intramental madness. By exploring the individual madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, this chapter hopes to shed light on the fiction-cognition nexus from an intramental dimension.

3.1

Cognitive Neuropsychology in Literary Madness

Generally speaking, the study on intramental madness, following an internal perspective, is concerned with the private mad minds in the story world. In constructing the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey weaves his understanding of how the human mind functions into enticing tales. The madmen in the story world give a full display of various signs and symptoms that medical doctors find typical in their patients. In his inquiry into the very root of the signs and symptoms of individual madness, Kesey anticipates the discovery of a cognitive neuropsychological theory of schizophrenia—schizophrenia as a defect in metarepresentation, a © Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 X. YANG, A Poetics of Minds and Madness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6_3

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general cognitive mechanism that is fundamental to conscious experience. While scientists are engaged in empirical studies of the human brain as a biological organ, the novelist Kesey constructs in the fictional world his understanding of the human consciousness from inside. In this sense, in representing the intramental madness, Cuckoo’s Nest is a melange of theories of cognitive neuropsychology and literary madness. The narrator and character Chief Bromden, a chronic with the longest sojourn in the hospital, exhibits an example of mad mind par excellence. Therefore, I choose Bromden as a representative of the mad minds and conduct a case study on the intramental representation of mad minds, but I also refer to other individual minds when necessary. Signs and Symptoms of Madness Many a critic unanimously considers Chief Bromden as a paranoid schizophrenic (e.g., Kunz, 1975; Mills, 1972). However, in nowhere in the text has Kesey explicitly labeled Bromden as such. How does Bromden earn himself a name as a schizophrenic in the eyes of the critics? Or in other words, based on what signs and symptoms can the reader attribute a schizophrenic mental state to Bromden? Are the diagnoses of a fictional mind as a schizophrenic justified? To answer these questions, it is first of all necessary to examine Bromden’s accounts of his thoughts and behaviors for psychotic signs and symptoms. More often than not, narrator Bromden gives a vivid account of what is utterly impossible to a normal mind in a truthful manner, striking the reader with bizarre scenes and absurd manners. The bizarreness and absurdness of Bromden’s accounts consist of the primary signs and symptoms based on which his psychotic mental states are diagnosed. Among the various bizarre accounts, those of the fog make a distinctive category. The first time Bromden mentions the fog is when he is being shaved on a Monday morning, which is one of his most dreadful experiences in the hospital. [3.1] I’m not sure it’s one of those substitute machines and not a shaver till it gets to my temples; then I can’t hold back. It’s not a will-power thing anymore when they get to my temples. It’s a… button, pushed, says Air Raid Air Raid, turns me on so loud it’s like no sound, everybody yelling at me, hands over their ears from behind a glass wall, faces working around in talk circles but

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no sound from the mouths. My sound soaks up all other sound. They start the fog machine again and it’s snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk, so thick I might even be able to hide in it if they didn’t have a hold on me. (Kesey, 1962: 7) Bromden is so scared by shaving that he sees the fog “snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk”, losing himself in the thick fog. Ever since, the fog frequents to Bromden’s eyes whenever he is under an intense emotional or a psychological condition. Excerpt [3.2] adds one more example to this line. [3.2] Right now, she’s got the fog machine switched on, and it’s rolling in so fast I can’t see a thing but her face, rolling in thicker and thicker, and I feel as hopeless and dead as I felt happy a minute ago, when she gave that little jerk – even more hopeless than ever before, on account of I know now there is no real help against her or her Combine. McMurphy can’t help anymore than I could. Nobody can help. And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in. And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it and can let go, and be safe again. (Kesey, 1962: 113) According to The Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Disorder, hallucination is defined as follows: False sensory perceptions. A person experiencing a hallucination may “hear” sounds or “see” people or objects that are not really present. Hallucinations can also affect the senses of smell, touch, and taste. (Gulli et al., 2003: 91)

As shown in both [3.1] and [3.2], in his extreme fear, Bromden sees the fog rolling in. Seeing something non-existent is a typical symptom for a person experiencing psychotic disorder—visual hallucination. In [3.1], Bromden hears non-existent sounds: “Air Raid Air Raid”, which manifests the symptom of auditory hallucination. Besides, Bromden also has olfactory hallucination together with visual hallucination when he sees the Big Nurse “big as a tractor” and he can “smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load” (Kesey, 1962: 5). Hallucinations, particularly visual hallucinations, have become Bromden’s constant

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mental state, especially when he feels anxious or threatened. It seems that he has developed a coping strategy for the hostile environment by hiding himself in the fog of his hallucinations. Apart from hallucinations, Bromden also presents symptoms of delusion. A delusion is a “false belief that is resistant to reason or contrary to actual fact” (Gulli et al., 2003: 91). A patient experiencing delusion may be convinced, for example, that “someone is trying to poison him or her, or that he or she has a fatal illness despite evidence to the contrary” (Gulli et al., 2003: 91). “Combine” is the key concept around which Bromden’s delusions are developed. Bromden’s first delusional account of the Combine co-occurs with his hallucinations when he is shaved early on a Monday morning as shown in excerpt [3.3] below: [3.3] Shaving before you get breakfast is the worst time. When you got something under your belt you’re stronger and more wide awake, and the bastards who work for the Combine aren’t so apt to slip one of their machines in on you in place of an electric shaver. But when you shave before breakfast like she has me do some mornings – six-thirty in the morning in a room all white walls and white basins, and long-tube-lights in the ceiling making sure there aren’t any shadows, and faces all round you trapped screaming behind the mirrors – then what chance you got against one of their machines? (Kesey, 1962: 6) In excerpt [3.3], Bromden believes that those working for the Combine try to slip one of their machines in place of an electric shaver, and this explains for his extreme fear of being shaved at six-thirty in the morning before breakfast—with an empty stomach and a mind that is less awake, the chances for him to fight against the Combine are slim. He believes the Combine is the highest agency that tries to exert controls over and persecute the patients, himself included. Many other incidences can also prove his delusions of the Combine. Due to his fear of persecution from the Combine, in a delusional manner, Bromden finds that when things match up with the Big Nurse’s rhythm, “[t]he machinery in the walls whistles, sighs, drops into a lower gear” (Kesey, 1962: 78). To find out the Combine’s secret, he gets up “early in the mornings to watch what machinery they’re sneaking onto the ward or installing in the shaving room” (Kesey, 1962: 91). It is out of his suspicion of the

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Combine that when he hears the inmates say something against the Big Nurse, he has the feeling “like a spy; the mop handle in my hands is made of metal instead of wood (metal’s a better conductor) and it’s hollow; there’s plenty of room inside it to hide a miniature microphone” (Kesey, 1962: 121). These are but a few among the many delusional symptoms that Bromden exhibits. It is also worth pointing out that Bromden’s delusions seem to be free-ranging, not to be limited to issues concerning the Combine alone, albeit the Combine makes an extraordinary category. For example, corresponding to his sense of time, he believes that the Big Nurse “is able to set the wall clock at whatever speed she wants by just turning one of those dials in the steel door” (Kesey, 1962: 76), and to give an explanation of Pete’s problem, he says: [3.4] His head has two big dents, one on each side, where the doctor who was with his mother at borning time pinched his skull trying to pull him out. Pete had looked out first and seen all the delivery-room machinery waiting for him and somehow realized what he was being born into, and had grabbed on to everything handy in there to try to stave off being born. The doctor reached in and got him by the head with a set of dulled ice tongs and jerked him loose and figured everything was all right. But Pete’s head was still too new, and soft as clay, and when it set, those two dents left by the tongs stayed. (Kesey, 1962: 51–52) Excerpt [3.5] below shows a slightly different situation of delusion. Bromden raises his hand under McMurphy’s request to vote for watching the baseball game. To Bromden, however, this act does not seem to be initiated by himself; it seems rather like McMurphy has put “some kind of hex on it with his hand so it won’t act like I order it”. Unlike the delusions discussed in which Bromden attributes some bizarre beliefs to others, in the present situation he is unconscious of the motivations of his own action, experiencing delusions of alien control. [3.5] It’s too late to stop it now. McMurphy did something to it that first day, put some kind of hex on it with his hand so it won’t act like I order it. There’s no sense in it, any fool can see; I wouldn’t do it on my own. Just by the way the nurse is staring at me with her mouth empty of words I can see I’m in for trouble, but I

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can’t stop it. McMurphy’s got hidden wires hooked to it, lifting it slow just to get me out of the fog and into the open where I’m fair game. He’s doing it, wires…. (Kesey, 1962: 142) Also present in Bromden’s reaction to shaving in excerpt [3.1] is his behavioral abnormality: when the shaver gets to his temples, it is not a “will-power thing” any longer, and he hollers hysterically. This bizarre, non-goal directed hyperactivity and impulsiveness resemble the feature of marked agitation of catatonia defined by DSM -5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 119), or according to Frith (1992: 113), feature as a response to “irrelevant external stimuli”, which is a sign of positive behavioral disorder. Besides, Bromden also shows some signs of negative behavioral disorder. For a long time, Bromden pretends to be deaf and dumb, cutting himself from social interactions with others. People call him Chief Broom and a black boy insults him as a “big useless cow” (Kesey, 1962: 94). All treat him as thin air: “They [the black boys] don’t bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I’m nearby because they think I’m deaf and dumb” (Kesey, 1962: 3). Even the Big Nurse does the same, as Bromden has believed: “Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the half-breed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and can’t talk to call for help” (Kesey, 1962: 5). Bromden’s total withdrawal from social interactions seems to be an extreme case of poverty of action, a type of alogia (i.e., no words). People suffering from this behavioral disorder may show “a poverty of action in all spheres: movement, speech, and affect” (Frith, 1992: 113), and when Bromden says “the Big Nurse put a thousand pounds down me and I can’t budge out of the chair” (Kesey, 1962: 10), he seems to give a literary version of poverty of action in movement. Therefore, according to Bromden’s accounts, it is quite likely that he suffers from hallucinations in several modalities (visual, auditory and olfactory) and various kinds of delusions. In addition, the reader can also see that Bromden may show marked agitations and poverty of action. Based on Frith’s (1992) classification of the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia, the former group are the symptoms (experience) and the latter the signs (behavior) associated with schizophrenia in cognitive terms. Bromden’s psychotic signs and symptoms satisfy the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia by DSM -5. See below for a full list of the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia by DSM-5.

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290 (F20.9)

A. Two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period (or less if successfully treated). At least one of these must be (1), (2), or (3): 1. Delusions. 2. Hallucinations. 3. Disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence). 4. Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior. 5. Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition). B. For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, level of functioning in one or more major areas, such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care, is markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset (or when the onset is in childhood or adolescence, there is failure to achieve expected level of interpersonal, academic, or occupational functioning). C. Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least 6 months. This 6-month period must include at least 1 month of symptoms (or less if successfully treated) that meet Criterion A (i.e., activephase symptoms) and may include periods of prodromal or residual symptoms. During these prodromal or residual periods, the signs of the disturbance may be manifested by only negative symptoms or by two or more symptoms listed in Criterion A present in an attenuated form (e.g., odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences). D. Schizoaffective disorder and depressive or bipolar disorder with psychotic features have been ruled out because either (1) no major depressive or manic episodes have occurred concurrently with the active-phase symptoms, or (2) if mood episodes have occurred during active-phase symptoms, they have been present for a minority of the total duration of the active and residual periods of the illness. E. The disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition. F. If there is a history of autism spectrum disorder or a communication disorder of childhood onset, the additional diagnosis of

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schizophrenia is made only if prominent delusions or hallucinations, in addition to the other required symptoms of schizophrenia, are also present for at least 1 month (or less if successfully treated). (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 99) As a chronic psychopath, Bromden’s delusions, hallucinations, marked agitations and poverty of action (particularly speech) meet aforementioned Criterion A(1), A(2), A(4) and A(5) respectively. Bromden’s withdrawal from all social interactions meets Criterion B, and as a chronic whose stay in the hospital is the longest among the patients, Bromden meets Criterion C. All the disturbing factors that may confuse other mental disorders as schizophrenia as listed in D, E and F can be ruled out from Bromden. Therefore, it can be concluded that Kesey’s fictional character Chief Bromden, when judged by the Schizophrenia Diagnostic Criteria 295.90 (F20.9) by DSM-5, resembles a flesh-and-blood schizophrenic. In addition to the signs and symptoms, another factor, i.e., genetic factor, also adds to the plausibility of Bromden’s schizophrenia. Bromden’s father, the once unbeatable Indian Chief Tee Ah Millatoona—ThePine-That-Stands-Tallest-on-the-Mountain—gradually lost his power and even senses under the constant work of the “Combine”. Upon the failures of his initial struggles, the old Chief “came to realize that he couldn’t beat that group from town who wanted the government to put in the dam” (Kesey, 1962: 174), gradually indulging himself in a drunkard’s life by putting “the bottle to his mouth” (Kesey, 1962: 221). Finally, he lost his consciousness to that cactus liquor: [3.6] … he don’t suck out of it, it sucks out of him until he’s shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs don’t know him, and we had to cart him out of the cedars, in a pickup, to a place in Portland, to die. (Kesey, 1962: 221) Admittedly, the old Chief’s mental deterioration cannot be equated with schizophrenia. As a matter of fact, it does not even seem to meet the minimum degree of the Schizophrenia Diagnostic Criteria by DSM-5. As only insufficient accounts of the old Chief’s mental states are available, we will not bother giving a diagnosis to his mental disorder. However, the old Chief’s fragile mental state seems to indicate a genetic quality that can

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be possibly passed down to the next generation. According to the risk and prognostic factors for schizophrenia by DSM -5, genetic factors count as important factors in determining risk for schizophrenia: There is a strong contribution for genetic factors in determining risk for schizophrenia, although most individuals who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia have no family history of psychosis. Liability is conferred by a spectrum of risk alleles, common and rare, with each allele contributing only a small fraction to the total population variance. The risk alleles identified to date are also associated with other mental disorders, including bipolar disorder, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 103)

Besides, Kesey’s choice of an American Indian identity for Bromden can also find explanations in the environmental risk and prognostic factors by DSM -5. “The incidence of schizophrenia and related disorders is higher for children growing up in an urban environment and for some minority ethnic groups” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Interestingly, Bromden explicitly attributes his alogia to his Indian identity: “If my being half Indian ever helped me in any way in this dirty life, it helped me being cagey, helped me all these years” (Kesey, 1962: 3). It is not very likely to measure to what extent has Kesey’s medical knowledge contributed to his creation of the schizophrenic narrator and character Chief Bromden. The analyses above, however, at least can prove the medical plausibility of Kesey’s fictional madness, an indispensable factor for fictional truth.

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The Cognitive Bases of Madness Researchers have long attempted to identify the etiology of schizophrenia. For example, some researchers look into the relationship between the impairment of the brain and schizophrenia, as represented by the dopamine theory (e.g., Randrup & Munkvad, 1972) and studies on structural brain changes (e.g., Gattaz et al., 1991; Johnstone et al., 1976), whereas some researchers argue that it is extremely difficult to identify the etiology and are, therefore, engaged in the cognitive neuropsychological studies of schizophrenia (e.g., Frith, 1992). In the present study, I examine the cognitive bases of the Keseyian madness, particularly Bromden’s schizophrenia, based on the research findings from cognitive neuropsychological studies of schizophrenia. To understand the cognitive bases of schizophrenia, it is necessary first of all to have some general understanding of this type of psychosis. The term “schizophrenia” is first coined by Bleuler (1987 [1913]) to refer to the “splitting” apart of different mental faculties. Frith (1992: 7) defines schizophrenia as “one of the psychoses, those severe mental illnesses in which the sufferer is no longer fully in touch with reality”. With no characteristic neuropathology identified for dementia praecox, schizophrenia is labeled as a “functional” psychosis, differing from “organic” psychosis like Alzheimer’s disease. In what follows, I examine the cognitive bases of Bromden’s schizophrenia by analyzing the corresponding cognitive processes. Three Principal Abnormalities In his seminal book The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia, Frith (1992) proposes that schizophrenia is a disorder of self-awareness, and three principal abnormalities, i.e., disorders of willed action, disorders of self-monitoring and disorders of monitoring the intentions of others, account for all the major signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. Disorders of willed action. According to Frith (1992), impairment in willed action underlies all the signs of negative behavior disorder (poverty of action) and some positive behavior disorders that lead to incoherent speech and behavior (perseveration and inappropriate action). As discussed in section “Signs and Symptoms of Madness”, Bromden has both negative behavior disorders as shown in his poverty of speech (i.e., alogia) and movement and positive behavior disorders as shown in his

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agitated action. Bromden’s characteristic signs meet two of the aforementioned behavior disorders: poverty of action and inappropriate action. These apparently different kinds of behavior disorders are the result of one and the same deficit in the Supervisory Attentional System (SAS) (Frith, 1992; Shallice, 1988). The SAS is responsible for modulating “the performance of a lower level system that controls the production of routine actions” (Frith, 1992: 114), and in the absence of SAS, the patient’s inability to generate spontaneous (willed) acts may lead to poverty of action (negative behavior disorder), perseveration and inappropriate action (positive behavior disorder). Therefore, it can be observed that Bromden’s behavior patterns as exemplified by his feigned dumbness and deafness, and his feeling that “the Big Nurse put a thousand pounds down me and I can’t budge out of the chair” (Kesey, 1962: 10), together with his hysterical reaction to shaving, reflect a type of cognitive process disorder—the disorders of willed action. Disorders of self-monitoring. Frith (1992) proposes that a defect of self-monitoring underlies many first rank symptoms such as auditory hallucinations and delusions of alien control. The patients experience alien control when their actions and thoughts seem to be caused, “not by themselves, but by some alien force”, and auditory hallucinations occur when the patients “perceive their own thoughts, subvocal speech, or even vocal speech as emanating, not from their own intentions, but from some source that is not under their control” (Frith, 1992: 114–115). These can be attributed to the absence of an awareness of their intention. In light of the disorders of self-monitoring, Bromden’s characteristic hallucinations and delusions of alien control seem to reflect his inability to monitor willed intentions. As discussed in excerpt [3.5], Bromden experiences alien control when he attributes his raising his hand to McMurphy’s magical power. This indicates that he is not aware of the intention that accompanies his deliberate act of raising his hand—a deficit in selfmonitoring. In a similar vein, Bromden’s auditory hallucinations such as “Air Raid Air Raid” (Kesey, 1962: 7) indicate that he perceives the sound not to emanate from his own intentions but from some external source. Therefore, like with delusions of alien control, the source of Bromden’s auditory hallucinations also lies in his disorders of self-monitoring. Frith (1992) only includes auditory hallucinations in his discussion of disorders of self-monitoring. One possible explanation for the narrow range of hallucinations can be that in the 1990s when his research was conducted, auditory hallucinations were generally considered as the main

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symptom of schizophrenia, while other modalities of hallucination were still inadequately studied. In the present day, researchers have attended to other modalities of hallucination of schizophrenia. According to a study by McCarthy-Jones et al. (2017), for patients with schizophrenia, the lifetime prevalence in terms of sensory modality is estimated at 64–80% for auditory, 23–31% for visual, 9–19% for tactile and 6–10% for olfactory hallucinations. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Bromden’s prevalent modality of hallucination is visual hallucinations, which take the highest percentage of occurrence, whereas hallucinations in other modalities such as auditory and olfactory are also present. In a 2019 study, Mondino et al. find that reality-monitoring deficits underlie visual hallucinations in schizophrenia. Particularly, they find that “patients with V + AH [visual + auditory hallucinations] displayed a higher externalization bias than patients with AH” (Mondino et al., 2019: 10), a research finding that not only further confirms that patients with visual hallucinations “misattribute internal items to external sources” (Mondino et al., 2019: 10–11), but also proves that common hallucinatory mechanisms exist in addition to specific modalitydependent dysfunctions. In light of the research findings by Mondino et al. (2019), Bromden’s visual hallucinations, such as his account of the fog as a real existence, can be regarded as an evidence of his disorders of self-monitoring in Frith’s (1992) parlance. Disorders of monitoring the intentions of others. A third principal abnormality of schizophrenia proposed by Frith (1992) is the disorder of monitoring the intentions of others. “Paranoid delusions and delusions of reference both occur because the patient has made incorrect inferences about the intentions of other people”, and “[p]atients with paranoid delusions believe that other people are intending them harm” (Frith, 1992: 115). Consequently, it can be said that many of Bromden’s accounts of the Combine and its vile intentions and forces reveal his symptoms of paranoid delusions, for example, his extreme fear of shaving out of a paranoid delusion that the Combine will “slip one of their machines in on you in place of an electric shaver” (Kesey, 1962: 6). For cases as such, it is Bromden’s inability to monitor the beliefs and intentions of others that leads to his paranoid delusions. From the discussions above, it can be seen that disorders of three cognitive mechanisms, i.e., disorders of willed action, disorders of selfmonitoring and disorders of monitoring the intentions of others, underlie Bromden’s various schizophrenic signs and symptoms. Frith (1992: 115)

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believes that these three mechanisms are “all special cases of a more general mechanism”, arguing that “all the cognitive abnormalities underlying the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia are reflections of a defect in a mechanism that is fundamental to conscious experience” (Frith, 1992: 116). For such a general cognitive mechanism, Frith (1992) believes that it is metarepresentation. Metarepresentation Metarepresentation is the key cognitive mechanism in the cognitive neuropsychological framework that Frith (1992) endeavors to provide. Such a framework links signs and symptoms to abnormal brain functions in terms of a single cognitive process: metarepresentation. Metarepresentation is the ability “to reflect upon how we represent the world and our thoughts” (Frith, 1992: 116). According to The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Science, “metarepresentations are evoked in evolutionary approaches to intelligence, in philosophical and developmental approaches to common-sense psychology, in pragmatic approaches to communication, in theories of consciousness, and in the study of reasoning” (Sperber, 1999: 541). In cognitive studies of consciousness, metarepresentation is considered to be inseparable from one’s mental state: “The ability to metarepresent one’s own mental states plays an important role in consciousness, and may even be seen as defining it” (Sperber, 1999: 541). Frith (1992) proposes that metarepresentation is the crucial mechanism that underlies self-awareness, and people who have difficulty with metarepresentation must also have an abnormal state of self-awareness. For the schizophrenic patients, the defect in their cognitive mechanism of metarepresentation results in three types of cognitive impairment that correspond to the three key areas of metarepresentation, i.e., awareness of one’s own goals, awareness of one’s own intention and awareness of other people’s intentions: (1) without awareness of goals there is poverty of will. This leads to negative and positive behavioural abnormalities; (2) without awareness of intentions there is lack of high level self-monitoring. This leads to abnormalities in the experience of action; (3) with faulty awareness of the intentions of others there are delusions of persecution and delusions of reference. (Frith, 1992: 125)

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In Cuckoo’s Nest, a majority of Bromden’s schizophrenic signs and symptoms may find explanations in a single cognitive process—metarepresentation—when examined within the framework of cognitive neuropsychology. In a somewhat over-inclusive manner, we may say that it is Bromden’s defective cognitive mechanism of metarepresentation underlying his awareness abnormality that leads to his various signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. Free-floating notions. Metarepresentation “is concerned with knowledge about representations” (Frith, 1992: 125). The knowledge, according to Frith (1992), consists of two components: the form of the representation and its content. For example, in the representation “I know ‘X’”, the content “X” is represented in the form of “I know ‘X’”. For some schizophrenic patients, argues Frith (1992: 126), “metarepresentation fails in such a way that the patient remains aware only of the content of these propositions”. That is to say, only the content “X” survives in the schizophrenic patients’ representations. For this remaining “X”, Frith (1992) calls it the free-floating notion. Bromden’s hallucinations and delusions are the free-floating notions resulted from his defective cognitive mechanism of metarepresentation. As discussed above, one of Bromden’s prevalent hallucinations is concerned with the fog, sometimes the visual hallucinations alone and sometimes cooccurring with the auditory hallucinations. For example, he visualizes the fog “snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk” and hears “Air Raid Air Raid” (Kesey, 1962: 7) at the same time, and on another occasion, he sees the fog “rolling in thicker and thicker” (Kesey, 1962: 113). For cases as such, as his mechanism of metarepresentation fails, Bromden misattributes his internally generated events, such as mental images and sounds, to external perceptions. With an intact metarepresentation, Bromden would have metarepresented his experience as: “I imagine that the fog rolls in”, “I remember that it says Air Raid Air Raid” and so forth. However, with a defective metarepresentation mechanism, Bromden has lost the sources of his metarepresentation, whereas what remains is only the free-floating notions, i.e., the contents of his metarepresentation: “The fog rolls in”, “Air Raid Air Raid” and so forth. The free-floating notions result in the misattribution of internally generated mental images and sounds as being perceived from an external source. Likewise, many of Bromden’s delusions exhibit the same externalization bias, among which his various references to the Combine are par excellence the free-floating notions. One aforementioned example

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concerns Bromden’s fear of the Combine to “slip one of their machines in on you in place of an electric shaver” (Kesey, 1962: 6). This, like the hallucinations, shows experiences in the wrong domain: unaware of the sources of his metarepresentation, Bromden treats the content of his thought, i.e., the free-floating notion “Combine”, as something perceived externally. Most of Bromden’s hallucinations and delusions can be understood as free-floating notions, indicating his cognitive experiences in the wrong domain of metarepresentation. Frith (1992) relates symptoms such as certain auditory hallucinations to the disorders of self-monitoring; Mondino et al. (2019) attribute visual and auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia to reality-monitoring deficits. In both studies, metarepresentation provides a crucial link between the specific cognitive mechanisms and the schizophrenic symptoms. In a similar vein, it can be argued that it is Bromden’s impaired metarepresentation that leads to his monitoring deficits, and in the form of free-floating notions, his internally generated events such as mental images, sounds and thoughts are perceived as being from an external source. Mentalizing in a wrong way. Humans can naturally attribute to one another propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires. This ability is described by psychologists as Theory of Mind (Sperber, 1999: 542) or the ability to mentalize (Frith, 1992: 118). Unlike the autistics who never know that others have minds, argues Frith (1992), the schizophrenics know from their early experiences that others have minds, but have lost the ability to infer the contents of others’ minds, even those of their own minds. However, they will still try to use their lost mentalizing abilities: making inferences about the mental states of others, albeit often mentalizing in a wrong way. In his delusions, Bromden not only believes that the Combine exists, but also sees the Combine as the agency with supreme power that persecutes callously. It is under this delusional belief that Bromden talks about the tape recorder in the wall as if it really exists: “I don’t hear anything but a faint reeling rhythm, what I figure is a tape recorder somewhere getting all of this” (Kesey, 1962: 62). Also, out of his fear of the persecuting power of the Combine, he suspects the metal mop handle may “hide a miniature microphone” (Kesey, 1962: 121). Bromden’s suspicion of the Combine’s persecution does not stop at the four walls of the hospital; on his fishing trip, he sees “the signs of what the Combine had accomplished

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since I was last through this country” (Kesey, 1962: 240). Most noticeably, Bromden makes a direct connection between his father’s death and the Combine, accusing the Combine of destroying the Old Chief directly: [3.7] “They who, Chief?” he asked in a soft voice, suddenly serious. “The Combine. It worked on him for years. He was big enough to fight it for a while. It wanted us to live in inspected houses. It wanted to take the falls. It was even in the tribe, and they worked on him. In the town they beat him up in the alleys and cut his hair short once. Oh, the Combine’s big – big. He fought it a long time till my mother made him too little to fight anymore and he gave up.” … … But he was too little anymore. And he was too drunk, too. The Combine had whipped him. It beats everybody. It’ll beat you too. They can’t have somebody as big as Papa running around unless he’s one of them. You can see that.” (Kesey, 1962: 220–221) Bromden’s delusions of the Combine as a persecutory force result from his attempt to use his lost mentalizing abilities. Based on his early experiences of inferring the beliefs, wishes and intentions of other people to predict their behaviors, he still believes that there are minds behind the behaviors, and in an over-inclusive way, he attributes all the malicious intentions to his delusional agency—the Combine. In his discussion of schizophrenics with paranoid delusions, Frith (1992: 125) points out how the patients try to use their lost abilities as such: “They will deduce that there is a general conspiracy against them and that people’s intentions towards them are evil”, and he further attributes the mentalizing deficit to the impairment of the common cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation—that underlies the patients’ abnormal self-awareness: Schizophrenic patients know well from past experience that it is useful and easy to infer the mental states of others. They will go on doing this even when the mechanism no longer works properly. For the first 20 years or so of life the schizophrenic has handled “theory of mind” problems with ease. Inferring mental states has become routine in many situations and achieved

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the status of a direct perception. If such a system goes wrong, then the patient will continue to “feel” and “know” the truth of such experiences and will not easily accept correction. (Frith, 1992: 122)

The above discussions are based on Bromden’s most characteristic schizophrenic signs and symptoms. His other signs and symptoms, scrutinized under this cognitive neuropsychological framework, can often be readily explained by his defective metarepresentation mechanism as well. For the sake of brevity, I do not exhaust all the signs and symptoms in the present analysis. We may, however, tentatively conclude that Kesey’s fictional narrator and character Bromden, akin to a flesh-and-blood schizophrenic patient, has an impaired metarepresentation mechanism, a cognitive basis that leads to his mental dysfunction.

3.2

Dynamicity of Intramental Madness

To supplement the synchronic studies on intramental madness above, I examine the dynamicity of intramental madness from a diachronic perspective. I focus on three stages of Bromden’s mental states following the progression of his consciousness, i.e., a severe psychotic Stage I, a recuperating Stage II and an almost recovered Stage III. The three stages are divided in accordance with Bromden’s mental states, but it should be noted that instead of having a clear dividing line between the stages, the boundaries can be fuzzy as Bromden’s consciousness is very often under both progression and regression. Force dynamics is a cognitive semantic theory put forward by the cognitive linguist Leonard Talmy (2000). It generalizes the traditional linguistic notion of “cause” and structures the interaction of forces between the Agonist and the Antagonist. The Agonist, in the present context, is the force-exerting entity and the Antagonist is the force element that opposes the Agonist. “Included here is the exertion of force, resistance to such a force, the overcoming of such a resistance, blockage of the expression of force, removal of such blockage, and the like” (Talmy, 2000: 409). Talmy (2000: 416) sees force dynamics as “a fundamental notional system that structures conceptual material pertaining to force interaction in a common way across a linguistic range: the physical, psychological, social, inferential, discourse, and mental-model domains of reference and conception”. He lists four basic steady-state force dynamic patterns as follows:

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[3.8] a. The ball kept rolling because of the wind blowing on it. b. The shed kept standing despite the gale wind blowing against it. c. The ball kept rolling despite the stiff grass. d. The log kept lying on the incline because of the ridge there. (Talmy: 2000: 416) These are the basic patterns for various force interactions. For the sake of convenience, I presently refer to the force interaction pattern as initiated by [3.8a] as “causative-motion”, [3.8b] as “despite-rest”, [3.8c] as “despite-motion” and [3.8d] as “causative-rest”. Other more complex patterns are all based on the above four basic patterns. In her systematic investigations of the interrelations between mind style and cognitive grammar, Nuttall (2018: 168) considers “the mental act of self-restraint is represented as a basic force-dynamic interaction between an Agonist (‘myself’) and an Antagonist (‘I’)” (emphasis in original). Based on her analyses of Ballard’s 1962 novel The Drowned World, she argues: Through the invitations to map this landscape and its force-dynamic quality onto the mind of its focalizer, as part of a larger elaborated metaphor for the mind, or ‘inner space’ (Ballard, 1996), the novel can be seen to draw upon, and defamiliarize, a habitual way in which we think about consciousness in terms of opposing forces. (Nuttall, 2018: 169)

In a similar vein, I also find Talmy’s (2000) cognitive semantic theory of force dynamics offers us a theoretical grounding to make sense of the conflicting forces and the dynamics of the consciousness in the story world. However, different from Nuttall’s (2018) cognitive semantic study of the intrapsychological force interactions in metaphors, I look into both the intrapsychological and the interpsychological force interactions at the discourse level. In what follows, I conduct a case study on the progression of Bromden’s consciousness, further exploring the applicability of force dynamic theory in understanding the opposing forces of fictional minds.

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The Paranoid Schizophrenic Stage The trajectory of Bromden’s mental state can be described as a deepening process of losing his consciousness at Stage I. A good case in point for such an observation lies in the frequencies of the two characteristic words “fog” and “Combine”. The word “fog” is the subject matter of Bromden’s most characteristic hallucinations. In total, “fog” appears 74 times in the text. Apart from one occurrence in Part 3 where it is used figuratively to describe the fish— “a white form like fog under water” (Kesey, 1962: 251), the rest all refer to its literal sense. In Part 1 alone, the word “fog” appears 64 times, a frequency that is significantly higher than that of the total in the next three parts (10 times in total) (see Table 3.1). Likewise, Bromden’s delusional word “Combine”, which occurs 25 times in total, also has the highest frequency in Part 1 (13 times) as compared with the other parts (4, 5, 3 times respectively) (see Table 3.2). These two most characteristic words that represent Bromden’s hallucinations and delusions are but the miniatures that reflect his paranoid schizophrenic state. Their clustered occurrences in Part 1 indicate that Bromden, at Stage I, is under the full grip of paranoid schizophrenia. However, even at this stage, we may find Bromden’s mental state, instead of remaining static, is under constant changes. One way to observe the changes is to place them within the processes of interpsychological force interactions between Bromden and the institutional force as represented by the Big Nurse: Bromden struggles to gain control of Table 3.1 The Occurrences of “Fog” in Cuckoo’s Nest

Occurrences

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

64

6

1

3

Table 3.2 The Occurrences of “Combine” in Cuckoo’s Nest

Occurrences

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

13

4

5

3

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his consciousness; when faced with an overwhelming blocking force, he gradually withdraws. Therefore, even though Bromden’s psychosis is intramental madness per se, to understand its dynamicity, it is important not to separate it from its social reference, albeit intermental madness is the target proper of Chapter 4. Hallucinations, a key symptom for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, can be an important indicator of the patients’ state of consciousness, and Bromden’s hallucinations about the fog exemplify his struggles to gain consciousness and his subsequent relinquishing acts. Mentally disturbed, Bromden tries to take control of himself, but fails: “I can’t hold back. It’s not a will-power thing anymore when they get to my temples” (Kesey, 1962: 7), and it is under this circumstance that his visual hallucination starts: “They start the fog machine again and it’s snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk, so thick I might even be able to hide in it if they didn’t have a hold on me” (Kesey, 1962: 7). Bromden explains his efforts to hold onto himself and his subsequent withdrawal: “One of these days I’ll quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog the way some of the other Chronics have, …” (Kesey, 1962: 42). It is through immersing himself completely in the fog that Bromden can be temporarily relieved from the intense mental anguish but at the cost of his self-consciousness: “About the only time we get any letup from this time control is in the fog; then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s lost in the fog, like everything else” (Kesey, 1962: 78). According to the discussions in section “The Cognitive Bases of Madness”, the cognitive basis of hallucinations lies in the patient’s impaired metarepresentation mechanism, while a deficit in the ability to metarepresent one’s own mental state may to a large extent affect one’s state of consciousness. Therefore, it can be observed that the deeper Bromden is lost in his fog, the less self-conscious he becomes. Bromden’s struggles for consciousness and the deteriorating process of his mental state instantiate an instance of interpsychological force interactions between a moving force and an impinging one. Bromden’s mental state at Stage I can be represented as a process of consciousness struggle: Bromden’s struggles for consciousness are overwhelmed by a formidable blockage represented by the Big Nurse (I only refer to the Big Nurse to represent the impinging force hereafter for the sake of convenience), and thus he gives up his struggles and stays put in his paranoid schizophrenic state. In a most condensed fashion, the progression process of Bromden’s mental state at Stage I can be reduced into one sentence: Bromden’s struggles for consciousness are blocked by the Big Nurse. In this case, the struggles between Bromden and the Big Nurse can be represented by, according to Talmy’s (2000) schematic

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Fig. 3.1 The “causative-extended-rest” pattern at stage I1 (Source The author)

Fig. 3.2 The “causative-onset-motion” pattern at stage II2 (Source The author)

system of force dynamics, a causative type with the extended causation of rest (hereafter “causative-extended-rest”) of interpsychological force interactions (see Fig. 3.1).

1 Figure 3.1 is diagrammed based on Diagram 18 in Talmy (2000: 427) and Diagram 21 in Talmy (2000: 434) respectively. The circle in the middle represents the Agonist; the block on its right side represents the Antagonist. The “>” sign indicates the agent is moving, the “+” sign indicates the agent’s force is stronger and the “ ” sign indicates a rest state in force dynamics. The meaning of the signs remains constant in Figs. 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5, and therefore in Figs. 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5, I only explain the newly introduced signs. 2 Figure 3.2 is diagrammed based on Diagram 10 in Talmy (2000: 424) and

Diagram 21 in Talmy (2000: 434) respectively. The “ ” sign above indicates a causat force.

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Fig. 3.3 The “despite-motion” pattern with shift in balance of strength at stage II3 (Source The author)

Fig. 3.4 The “letting-onset-motion” pattern at stage III4 (Source The author)

The Agonist Bromden has a tendency toward motion, i.e., toward gaining his consciousness, but the Antagonist as represented by the Big Nurse is stronger in force and effectively blocks the Agonist from moving forward. As a result, Bromden is stopped in his consciousness struggles 3 Figure 3.2 is diagrammed based on Diagram 21 in Talmy (2000: 434) and

Diagram 22 in Talmy (2000: 436) respectively. The “ strength of the force.

” sign indicates a shift in

4 Figure 3.4 is diagrammed based on Diagram 14 in Talmy (2000: 426) and

Diagram 21 in (Talmy, 2000: 434) respectively. The “ ” sign indicates a letting force.

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and remains in a psychotic state. Besides, the force interactions in the present situation, as psychodynamics, differ from physical force dynamics. A comparison of the two force interactions as exemplified in [3.9] helps clarify the picture: [3.9a] is a physical force interaction, indicating that the Big Nurse uses physical force to stop Bromden from entering the room, whereas [3.9b] is a psychological force interaction between two sentient entities: Bromden’s mental tendency is stopped by the Big Nurse. [3.9] a. Bromden’s entrance into the room is blocked by the Big Nurse. b. Bromden’s struggles for consciousness are blocked by the Big Nurse. To show the distinction between the exertion of psychological force and the physical force, I added “exertion” to the Agonist and Antagonist in Fig. 3.1 to indicate the interaction of psychological force in this situation. The same practice is applied to Figs. 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5. Admittedly, it is true that in Cuckoo’s Nest certain physical measures are at the Big Nurse’s disposal to restrain the patients’ actions, such as drugs, the seclusion room, Electric Shock Therapy and even lobotomy. However, these are but the tools that reinforce the Antagonist’s power and weaken the Agonist’s power; they do not turn the force interactions between the two sentient entities into a physical one. On Bromden’s part, various factors including the aforesaid tools exert a force on the Agonist’s mind to withdraw his resistance to the crushing force from the Antagonist, whereas on the Big Nurse’s part, an exertion of power renders the Antagonist unbeatable. Thus, the Antagonist blocks the Agonist’s moving tendency, i.e., Bromden’s struggles for consciousness, resulting in a static motion—Bromden’s chronic paranoid schizophrenia as a consequence of his gradual withdrawal of his consciousness. The Recuperating Stage The trajectory of the initial paranoid schizophrenic stage would have monopolized the whole process, had McMurphy not arrived at the mental institution. Upon McMurphy’s arrival and under his impacts, Bromden

5 Figure 3.5 is diagrammed based on Figs. 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4.

Fig. 3.5 The progression of consciousness5 (Source The author)

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gradually regains his consciousness with, however, relapses from time to time. This is the recuperating stage. Soon after McMurphy’s arrival, Bromden notices that the fog gets less thick than before: “Before noontime they’re at the fog machine again but they haven’t got it turned up full; it’s not so thick but what I can see if I strain real hard” (Kesey, 1962: 42). This is one of the first signs that indicate Bromden starts to regain his consciousness. Meanwhile, the decreasing frequencies of the words “fog” and “Combine” as the novel progresses can quantitatively prove that as Bromden’s hallucination and delusion symptoms decrease, his consciousness improves. Among Bromden’s various signs of rehabilitation, his restoration to speech and laughter ranks as the most significant. [3.10] “Chief?” McMurphy whispered. “I want you to tell me something.” And he started to sing a little song, a hillbilly song, popular a long time ago: “‘Oh, does the Spearmint lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?’” At first I started getting real mad. I thought he was making fun of me like other people had. “‘When you chew it in the morning,’” he sang in a whisper, “‘will it be too hard to bite?’” But the more I thought about it the funnier it seemed to me. I tried to stop it but I could feel I was about to laugh – not at McMurphy’s singing, but at my own self. “‘This question’s got me goin’, won’t somebody set me right; does the Spearmint lose its flavor on the bedpost over niiiite?’” He held out that last note and twiddled it down me like a feather. I couldn’t help but start to chuckle, and this made me scared I’d get to laughing and not be able to stop. But just then McMurphy jumped off his bed and went to rustling through his nightstand, and I hushed. I clenched my teeth, wondering what to do now. It’d been a long time since I’d let anyone hear me do anymore than grunt or bellow. I heard him shut the bedstand, and it echoed like a boiler door. I heard him say, “Here,” and something lit on my bed. Little. Just the size of a lizard or a snake … “Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in bed.

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And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you. (Kesey, 1962: 217) Bromden’s laughter and his utterance of “Thank you” are landmarks of his consciousness restoration. Both his feigned dumbness and his restrained expression of emotion except for his grunting or bellowing are characteristics of his negative signs of schizophrenia, namely, alogia and athymia. Schizophrenics, according to Frith (1992: 113), “show a poverty of action in all spheres: movement, speech, and affect”, and cognitively these result from the disorders of willed actions that are rooted in the impaired metarepresentation mechanism. Bromden’s laughter and first words, a long absence since his confinement in the mental institution, put an end to both his alogia and athymia, marking an important stage in his mental recuperation. However, it should be noted that Bromden’s recovery does not follow an ideal linear progression trajectory; relapses occur frequently. Hallucinations and delusions reattack Bromden the moment he is under intense emotional or psychological grips. For example, during a sleepless night, Bromden looks out of the window for the first time in years, and the sight and smell of fall evoke his memory of joyous days. [3.11] It’s fall coming, I kept thinking, fall coming; just like that was the strangest thing ever happened. Fall. Right outside here it was spring a while back, then it was summer, and now it’s fall – that’s sure a curious idea. … It called to mind how I noticed the exact same thing when I was off on a hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven, lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. (Kesey, 1962: 163–164, my emphasis) In [3.11], “I kept thinking” and “[i]t called to mind” are fine examples of metarepresentation: Bromden keeps clear track of the sources of his thought. In contrast to the free-floating notions that occur in Bromden’s hallucinations and delusions, his restored metarepresentational ability indicates that he has greatly regained his consciousness.

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However, this newly regained metarepresentational ability is not strong enough yet, and once Bromden is recaptured by new psychological crises, he quickly slips back to his former state. [3.12] The dog was almost to the rail fence at the edge of the grounds when I felt somebody slip up behind me. Two people. I didn’t turn, but I knew it was the black boy named Geever and the nurse with the birthmark and the crucifix. I heard a whir of fear start up in my head. The black boy took my arm and pulled me around. “I’ll get ’im,” he says. … And I move and she draws back a step and says, “Yes, please do,” to the black boy. She’s fiddling with the chain runs down her neck. At home she locks herself in the bathroom out of sight, strips down, and rubs that crucifix all over that stain running from the corner of her mouth in a thin line down across her shoulders and breasts. She rubs and rubs and hails Mary to beat thunder, but the stain stays. She looks in the mirror, sees it’s darker’n ever. Finally takes a wire brush used to take paint off boats and scrubs the stain away, puts a nightgown on over the raw, oozing hide, and crawls in bed. But she’s too full of the stuff. While she’s asleep it rises in her throat and into her mouth, drains out of that corner of her mouth like purple spit and down her throat, over her body. In the morning she sees how she’s stained again and somehow she figures it’s not really from inside her – how could it be? a good Catholic girl like her? – and she figures it’s on account of working evenings among a whole wardful of people like me. It’s all our fault, and she’s going to get us for it if it’s the last thing she does. …. (Kesey, 1962: 165–166) Extremely frightened, Bromden begins to have delusions, and his newly regained metarepresentational ability suffers a setback. His delusions of the nurse’s birthmark, a case of free-floating notions, demonstrate that his metarepresentation mechanism is not fully recovered yet. Throughout the recuperating stage, relapses as exemplified in [3.12] are not infrequent, but on the whole, Bromden is progressing toward a more conscious state.

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Bromden’s mental state at the recuperating stage, like that at Stage I, can be generalized as follows: (1) McMurphy helps Bromden regain his consciousness; (2) The Big Nurse hinders Bromden from regaining his consciousness. According to the framework of force dynamics by Talmy (2000), the progression of Bromden’s consciousness at this stage can be represented in two patterns: a “causative” type with onset causation of motion (hereafter “causative-onset-motion”) and a “despite” type that results in motion (hereafter “despite-motion”), in which the Antagonist exerts a helping force or an impinging force respectively. The “causative-onset-motion” pattern. The Agonist Bromden, in his paranoid schizophrenic state, has a natural tendency toward rest, whereas the Antagonist McMurphy pushes him to move. As the Antagonist is stronger, the Agonist is pushed forward. Thus, the force interactions between the two sentient entities exhibit a pattern of onset causation of motion (Talmy, 2000: 418). This force interaction is vividly depicted by Bromden as McMurphy “keeps trying to drag us out of the fog” (Kesey, 1962: 128). Again, like at Stage I, the force is not physical but psychological. Therefore, it can be argued that the Agonist’s mental state changes as a result of the interpsychological force interactions (see Fig. 3.2). This is the major force that propels Bromden toward rehabilitation at this stage. The “despite-motion” pattern. That Bromden occasionally relapses into his former psychotic state indicates that he is simultaneously under the force interactions of a second pattern at his recuperating stage: the “despite-motion” pattern. Like before, the force interactions between Bromden and the Big Nurse still exist, but now under McMurphy’s impact, Bromden’s rest tendency changes into motion tendency and with a shift in force, he turns the Big Nurse’s blockage into hindrance, a fundamental change in force interaction pattern (see Fig. 3.3). Because of the Big Nurse’s hindrance, Bromden from time to time has some setbacks on his journey toward recuperation, but under his motion tendency, he keeps on moving forward. This explains why Bromden has not fallen back into his previous psychotic state, albeit he undergoes a number of relapses. As can be observed in Fig. 3.3, the arrow from the Antagonist to the Agonist indicates a shift of force: the Agonist becomes stronger. Thus, under the newly gained tendency of motion, the Agonist breaks away from the former state of rest and keeps on moving despite the hindrance from the Antagonist. The force interactions between the two sentient entities are once again not physical force; psychologically the Agonist is empowered to withstand and even to break the hindrance from the

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Antagonist. The interpsychological force interactions between the Agonist and Antagonist shed light on the changes that occur to the Agonist’s intramental state. Based on the above discussions, it can be concluded that at the recuperating stage, the progression of Bromden’s mental state can be comprehended in two simultaneous patterns of force interactions: a “causative-onset-motion” pattern in which the Antagonist McMurphy pushes the Agonist Bromden to regain his consciousness and a “despitemotion” pattern in which the empowered Agonist Bromden, though with some setbacks, keeps on moving forward in regaining his consciousness despite the hindrance from the Antagonist—the Big Nurse. Toward a Well State Toward the end, revitalized by McMurphy, Bromden successfully overcomes the impinging forces and progresses toward a well state, as Harding (the best educated patient in Cuckoo’s Nest ) puts it: “they are sick men now. No more rabbits” (Kesey, 1962: 307). Physically, he is no longer that Chief Broom who is “[b]ig enough to eat apples off my head an’ he mine me like a baby” (Kesey, 1962: 3) as claimed by one of the black boys. Looking into the mirror, he says “my arms were big again, big as they were back in high school, back at the village, and my chest and shoulders were broad and hard” (Kesey, 1962: 269). Mentally, Bromden battles directly against the mind murdering acts to safeguard his consciousness as most typically depicted in the scene of his last EST treatment, a punishment he has received for helping McMurphy fight against the black boys. Throughout the EST, Bromden is torn between consciousness and unconsciousness. In the end, he successfully gains control of his own mind and announces “I worked at it. I’d never worked at coming out of it before. …and knew this time I had them beat” (Kesey, 1962: 288). Hereafter, he stops his feigned acts of dumbness and deafness and starts speaking, and finally his merciful killing of the post-operative McMurphy and his escape from the hospital are all acts from a conscious mind. Bromden has so much surpassed the Big Nurse in power that the Big Nurse can no longer impinge him on his route to recovery, and as a result, the impinging force yields to pressure and lets the progressing force through. The force interactions at Stage III between Bromden and the Big Nurse can be represented as: Bromden overcomes the Big Nurse’s impingements. The interpsychological force interactions between

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Bromden and the Big Nurse now turn into a “letting” type with onset letting of motion (hereafter “letting-onset-motion”) (see Fig. 3.4). In Fig. 3.4, unlike the prototypical letting type with onset motion in Talmy’s (2000: 418) force dynamic theory, in which the Antagonist is stronger in force, in the present situation the Agonist is a stronger force. The Antagonist, formerly in a position of impingement, is weaker in force compared with the Agonist. The unbalanced forces put an end to the Antagonist’s force and let the Agonist go at his own pace. The force interactions are again interpsychological, albeit the Agonist Bromden grows conspicuously both in his physical strength and mental power. The physical empowerment adds to the mental growth. The wax and wane of the interpsychological force interactions at Stage III contribute further to the dynamic view of Bromden’s mental state. Based on the above analyses, it can be concluded that from a diachronic point of view, Bromden’s various psychotic signs and symptoms, rather than being chaotic or random, follow a clear pattern of conscious progression. Examined under the cognitive semantic framework of force dynamics (Talmy, 2000), Bromden’s intramental madness is understood as an outcome of the interpsychological force interactions. Finally, a general script is drawn to provide an overview of Bromden’s consciousness progression as a force dynamic concatenation within the framework of Talmy’s (2000) force dynamics (see Fig. 3.5).

3.3

The Narrative Representation of Intramental Madness

Among Kesey’s various narrative toolkits serving for the representation of intramental madness, his focalization strategies make an outstanding one. Studies in Chapter 2 reveal that Cuckoo’s Nest can be suitably examined under a multi-faceted and multi-layered approach for a comprehensive understanding of the various facets and the different levels of embeddedness of focalization. Based on the studies in Chapter 2 and the analyses of intramental madness in the present chapter, here I endeavor to uncover the intricate relationship between intramental madness in Cuckoo’s Nest and the focalization strategies that Kesey employs to represent it.

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A Synchronic View of Madness The paranoid schizophrenic patient Bromden’s most typical symptoms are hallucinations and delusions in the form of free-floating notions, which are rooted in a defective metarepresentation mechanism. By employing a multi-faceted and multi-layered pattern of focalization, Kesey deals with the very root of schizophrenia by presenting the free-floating notions directly to the reader. Psychological focalization in the disguise of perceptual focalization. The following excerpt has been studied extensively in Chapter 2 to exemplify Kesey’s focalization pattern under a multi-faceted and multi-layered approach. It is presently brought up under scrutiny again to examine Kesey’s narrative representation of free-floating notions in relation to his focalization strategies. The excerpt is reproduced below as [3.13] for the sake of convenience. [3.13] 1 She’s swelling up, swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times. 2 She looks around her with a swivel of her huge head.3 Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the half-breed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and can’t talk to call for help.4 So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load. (Kesey, 1962: 5) As discussed in Chapter 2, the Big Nurse’s formal transformation, i.e., her formidable image, is represented through the vantage point of perceptual focalization, which is only a surface-level focalization that reflects a different facet—psychological focalization that reflects Bromden’s thought and emotion at a deeper level. Also layered into this is the ideological facet of focalization—Bromden’s mechanistic conceptualization of the world. Kesey’s choice of such a multi-faceted focalization enables Bromden’s thought under a particular emotional condition and ideology to be represented as perception, which is exactly the case with schizophrenic patients who suffer from reality-monitoring deficit as in hallucinations and delusions. In [3.13], it is under the disguise of perceptual focalization that Bromden’s thought of the Big Nurse’s turning into

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a gigantic mechanistic monster is represented as reality. Kesey’s treatment of the multi-faceted focalization enables the disappearance of the source of the thought, leaving the content of the thought unattached, thus a direct view of the free-floating notions. Therefore, in excerpt [3.13], both Bromden’s visual hallucination (the Big Nurse’s image) and olfactory hallucination (the machinery smell) are narratively realized through the psychological and ideological facets of focalization under the disguise of perceptual focalization, an instance of multi-faceted focalization. We will examine one more example below for Kesey’s focalization strategies in the representation of free-floating notions. In excerpt [3.14] below, Bromden’s visual hallucination of the pills containing a miniature electronic element is represented through a perceptual focalization at the surface level, as if it is something real. However, when examined through psychological focalization at a deeper level, it is not difficult to see that the focalized is in fact Bromden’s thought represented in the manner of perception. Thus, the free-floating notion, i.e., Bromden’s unattached thought, is represented under the disguise of Bromden’s perception by taking on a definite subject “I” and a sensory perception verb “saw”: [3.14] I got away once holding one of those same red capsules under my tongue, played like I’d swallowed it, and crushed it open later in the broom closet. For a tick of time, before it all turned into white dust, I saw it was a miniature electronic element like the ones I helped the Radar Corps work with in the Army, microscopic wires and grids and transistors, this one designed to dissolve on contact with air… (Kesey, 1962: 35, my emphasis) As a matter of fact, Kesey frequently employs this type of disguised focalization through a multi-faceted approach in his representation of the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest. From the aforementioned Bromden’s delusional description of the birthmarked nurse’s birthmark “running from the corner of her mouth in a thin line down across her shoulders and breasts” (Kesey, 1962: 165–166) to his description of the alien control of his hand: “McMurphy’s got hidden wires hooked to it, lifting it slow just to get me out of the fog” (Kesey, 1962: 142), and still on many other occasions, Kesey adroitly takes control of the different facets of focalization, presenting the untruth in a truthful manner, and in the form of free-floating notions, revealing various symptoms from the mad minds.

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Based on the foregoing analyses, it can be argued that a distinctive narrative strategy that Kesey adopts in representing madness is the representation of free-floating notions through different facets of focalization. However, it is important to note that although such a narrative feature can be regarded as distinctive for Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey’s use of different facets of focalization for mental representation is not unique. It is also widely used by other writers in various kinds of mental representations, such as Chen Shicheng’s schizophrenic mind in “The White Light” by Lu Xun, Benjy’s intellectually disabled mind in The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner (1995 [1929]) and Christopher’s autistic mind in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Haddon (2003) and others. For example, in various instances, Lu Xun’s narrative representation of the protagonist Chen Shicheng’s hallucinations in “The White Light” is almost identical with that of Kesey. With an impaired metarepresentation mechanism, Chen is unaware of the source of his own thought, treating his own thought as if it is from an outside source. Lu Xun presents the content of Chen’s thought from the vantage point of perceptual focalization, rendering it into a free-floating notion: [3.15] ‘Failed again!’ Who said that? He jumped to his feet, the words ringing in his ears, and looked around him: no one in sight. (Lu, 2009b: 134) These authors are dealing with different minds, but what they have in common is that they represent in a truthful manner what the world appears to be to their protagonists. They invariably tackle with focalization techniques to reach such a goal. Kesey is no exception. He acutely notices the cognitive basis of madness, and skillfully handles the multifacets of focalization to construct the free-floating notions, an exemplary showing of the mad minds. Embedded focalization for a disguised focalizer. Besides the multifaceted focalizations under the disguise of which the free-floating notions are constructed, embedded focalizations offer another possibility for the narrative construction of mad minds. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey frequently uses the technique of embedded focalization, through which the source of a certain mental activity can be mistakenly attributed to a different one, showcasing another instance of metarepresentation mechanism impairment.

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In excerpt [3.13], an instance of embedded focalization occurs in sentence 3: “Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the halfbreed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and can’t talk to call for help”. Here, the focalization slips from internal focalization to zero, and presents the Big Nurse’s thought about Bromden from the vantage point of an omniscient focalizer. However, this observation is but a surfacelevel analysis, as the “Big Nurse’s thought” is nothing but Bromden’s delusion of what the Big Nurse is thinking about him. In other words, Bromden mistakenly attributes his own thought to the Big Nurse. This shows his effort in using his Theory of Mind, a cognitive mechanism that he formerly possessed, but his impaired metarepresentation attributes the source of his own thought to a wrong one. Technically, Kesey realizes this misattribution of the source of thought through embedded focalization, in which the real focalizer is under the disguise of the new focalizer in a second-level focalization. A similar example can be found in [3.16] where the embedded zero focalization within internal focalization enables the Big Nurse’s mind to be revealed directly to the reader: “know every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants”. Again, instead of being the Big Nurse’s real mental activity, this is nothing but Bromden’s delusion. The embedded focalization technically makes it possible to attribute Bromden’s thought to the Big Nurse. [3.16] I see her sit in the center of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants. I was an electrician’s assistant in training camp before the Army shipped me to Germany and I had some electronics in my year in college is how I learned about the way these things can be rigged. (Kesey, 1962: 29) As discussed in section “The Cognitive Bases of Madness”, schizophrenic patients continue to make use of their Theory of Mind they have gained since young, whereas they often mentalize in a wrong way. Kesey’s representation of Bromden’s misattribution of the source of thought typically exemplifies this cognitive deficit. Like with the employment of the multi-faceted focalization in mental representation, the use of misattribution for the construction of the mad minds is not uniquely

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Keseyian; neither is the use of embedded focalization a Keseyian invention. For example, Lu Xun makes use of misattribution in his “Diary of a Madman” when he makes the madman write in his diary: “Why did the Zhao’s dog look twice at me?” (Lu, 2009a: 22). It is true that there is an important difference between Lu Xun and Kesey: from the vantage point of internal focalization, Lu Xun makes his madman misattribute a non-existent intention to a definite source, whereas Kesey, by resorting to embedded focalization, makes Bromden misattribute his thought to a wrong source. However, it is not difficult to observe both Lu Xun and Kesey see madness as a metarepresentation deficit, and adroitly adjust the vantage points for a direct view of the schizophrenic minds. A Diachronic View of Madness From a diachronic view, it can be observed that Kesey represents Bromden’s two mental states alternatively: an unconscious mind and a conscious mind. Technically, based on the research findings in Chapter 2, Kesey realizes the very often subtle alternations between the two minds by his characteristic shifts in tenses: present tense for a disordered mind and past tense for a conscious mind. I use the phrase “disordered mind” here mainly to refer to Bromden’s psychotic state, but may also include the situations in which he is under intense psychological or emotional grips. Such linguistic choices, from a narrative perspective, entail two cognitive facets of focalization by directing the placement of attentional windows: the concurrent facet and the evidentiary facet. By focalizing through one facet or another, Kesey not only gives the reader a chance to see the changes of Bromden’s mental states at different stages, and more importantly, he offers the reader a simultaneous view of Bromden’s different mental states even within one event. Concurrent focalization for a disordered mind. When Bromden is at a severe psychotic stage, that is, when he is a full-fledged paranoid schizophrenic, we may find that the concurrent facet of focalization, linguistically realized by the present tense, is prevalent in the text. Bromden’s characteristic word “fog” lends itself readily for such an observation. Of the 74 occurrences of “fog” in total, 59 of them refer to Bromden’s hallucinations. Out of the 59 occurrences, 51 appear in Part 1 where Bromden’s schizophrenic state is predominant, with only 5 (3 of which refer to “no fog”) in Part 2 and 3 in Part 4. Among the 59 occurrences of

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“fog” that refer to Bromden’s hallucinations, 48 are in the present tense while 11 are in the past tense. Therefore, it can be observed that Kesey tends to combine the linguistic patterns with the narrative structures to represent Bromden’s psychotic minds. As the choice of the present tense enables the reader to place an attentional window around Bromden’s interactions with the event at the present moment, the ensuing concurrent facet of focalization offers a direct “here and now” view of the content of Bromden’s hallucinations—the free-floating notions, a basic form of impaired metarepresentation mechanism. The concurrent focalization, in this sense, is indeed a handy tool that Kesey devises for a vivid representation of the disordered minds in Cuckoo’s Nest. Evidentiary focalization for a conscious mind. Of the 11 aforementioned occurrences of the word “fog” in the past tense, 6 appear in Part 1, 2 in Part 2 and 2 in Part 4. All are written from a retrospective perspective, revealing the fog experiences as part of Bromden’s memory. The past tense helps the reader place an attentional window around Bromden’s interaction with the event frame in the past, thus entailing an evidentiary facet of focalization: Bromden relates what he witnesses as a participant in a past event. The evidentiary facet of focalization may provide the vantage point from which the psychotic experiences are represented from a mind distanced from that experience. Excerpt [3.17] appears in Part 1. In the second half of the first sentence “one they bought from Army Surplus and hid in the vents in the new place before we moved in”, the focalized shifts from an outside view to an inside view, focalizing on Bromden’s thought: his delusional conjectures on the origin of the fog machine. This indicates that Bromden is probably still not well when he is relating his experience. However, when he says “[w]hen they first used that fog machine on the ward”, and especially when he says “I kept looking at anything that appeared out of the fog as long and hard as I could”, he gives an evidentiary account of his interactions with the past events, namely, his delusion of the fog machine and his struggles for consciousness as his past experiences. [3.17] When they first used that fog machine on the ward, one they bought from Army Surplus and hid in the vents in the new place before we moved in, I kept looking at anything that appeared out of the fog as long and hard as I could, to keep track of it,

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just like I used to do when they fogged the airfields in Europe. (Kesey, 1962: 131) Different from the concurrent facet of focalization that provides a concurrent reading of Bromden’s interactions with the event at present, the evidentiary facet of focalization places an attentional window around his interactions with the event in the past. This facet of focalization entails Bromden’s telling his experience in a different mental state: he may not be fully conscious yet, but at least he is out of that intense moment as described. Excerpt [3.18] is taken from Part 4 of Cuckoo’s Nest when Bromden has made great progress in his recovery, and therefore Stage III in my analysis. In a conscious state, he recalls his struggle against the devastating EST and gives an evidentiary account of his struggle for consciousness and the subsequent changes that happen to him. The use of the past tense entails an evidentiary facet of focalization. [3.18] And when the fog was finally swept from my head it seemed like I’d just come up after a long, deep dive, breaking the surface after being under water a hundred years. (Kesey, 1962: 289) Therefore, by examining the use of the past tense and the ensuing evidentiary facet of focalization in relation to the word “fog”, it can be found that Kesey uses such a narrative technique to represent Bromden’s conscious mind, or at least that part of the mind when he is not having a psychotic episode. Simultaneous representation of two minds. In addition to the representation of madness in the linear progression of Bromden’s consciousness, the concurrent and evidentiary facets of focalization are also employed in achieving a simultaneous representation of psychosis and consciousness. The tense patterns are previously discussed in Chapter 2 concerning the triangulate relationship of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds. In this chapter, I pursue this issue further by incorporating detailed discussions on the mental states involved. The shifts between the past tense and the present tense are very often indicators of Bromden’s shifts between two mental states: a disordered mind and a conscious mind. We have touched upon such changes of mental states in excerpt [3.12], and now we may examine the relationship between the

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change of mental states and that of tenses. In a conscious state, Bromden watched the dog run to the rail fence while he felt somebody slipping up behind him. The corresponding past tense entails an evidentiary focalization. However, realizing that people are coming to get him and medicate him, Bromden is immediately captured by an intense psychological state and starts to have delusions. Correspondingly, he starts to narrate in the present tense: “And I move and she draws back a step says, ‘Yes, please do,’ to the black boy” (Kesey, 1962: 165). Then, the free-floating notions of his delusion are directly presented to the reader in the present tense, the delusions about the nurse’s birthmark: how she rubs it and how it regrows. Interacting to the same event frame—a sleepless night, Bromden undergoes two different mental states successively: a conscious mind in a relaxed mood and a psychotic mind under an intense psychological and emotional state. Kesey’s most classic representation of the simultaneity of the two mental states can be found in Bromden’s struggle for consciousness in his last EST treatment. This part covers a very lengthy section, and for the sake of brevity, I only select the part toward the end when Bromden struggles out of the EST (previously appeared in [1.28]; reproduced as [3.19] below for convenience). [3.19] They’re out there. Black boys in white suits peeing under the door on me, come in later and accuse me of soaking all six these pillows I’m lying on! Number six. I thought the room was a dice. The number one, the snake eye up there, the circle, the white light in the ceiling … is what I’ve been seeing … in this little square room … means it’s after dark. How many hours have I been out? It’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No … never again … I stand, stood up slowly, feeling numb between the shoulders. The white pillows on the floor of the Seclusion Room were soaked from me peeing on them while I was out. (Kesey, 1962: 287) In his dizzy state under EST and in his delusion, Bromden mistakes his own action—urinating on the pillows—for that of the black boys, a typical case of metarepresentation impairment in which the source of the thought is misattributed. This unconscious state is narrated in the

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present tense and through a concurrent facet of focalization. However, next, it immediately shifts to the past tense and an evidentiary facet of focalization: “I thought the room was a dice”, a conscious thought representation. Thus, through the shifts between a concurrent facet and an evidentiary facet of focalization, Kesey simultaneously represents Bromden’s two mental states as he is struggling against the cruel “treatment”. Through the concurrent facet, the reader gets a chance to see his unconsciousness caused by the EST on the spot; through the evidentiary facet, his recollection of the moment when he gained his consciousness. These two states alternate as a result of the devastating impacts of the EST and his repeated efforts to gain control of his consciousness. When he says “I stand, stood up slowly”, the change in tense with its ensuing change of focalization enables first a concurrent reading—Bromden’s struggle for consciousness at present and an evidentiary reading—his success in regaining his consciousness in the past. Based on the above analyses, we can presently carry further our discussions on the triangulate relationship of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds. Both the concurrent and the evidentiary facets of focalization trigger the cognitive processes through which the reader can place an attentional window around the part of the interaction with the event frame that is activated. The corresponding linguistic devices are the present tense and the past tense respectively. Kesey represents Bromden’s two mental states, i.e., an unconscious mind and a conscious mind, either in concatenation or in concurrence. Correspondingly, Kesey makes arrangement with the cognitive facets of focalization: the concurrent for an unconscious mind and the evidentiary for a conscious mind. When Bromden is in a severe state of psychosis, the concurrent facet of focalization, linguistically realized in the present tense, is prevalent. The present tense enables the reader to place an attentional window around Bromden’s “here and now” interaction with the event frame, thus the most direct view of Bromden’s disturbed mind. When Bromden’s mental state ameliorates, the text is predominantly narrated in the past tense. The past tense initiates an evidentiary facet of focalization that helps the reader place an attentional window around Bromden’s “there and then” interaction with the event frame in the past. This enables the psychotic experiences to be represented from a mind distanced from that experience. The concatenation of the two tenses and the ensuing concurrent and evidentiary facets of focalization are conducive to the representation of one person in two mental states, offering a contrasting view of

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Tense

Focalization

Mind

Fig. 3.6 The tense-focalization-mind triangle in Cuckoo’s Nest (Source The author)

unconsciousness and consciousness, whereas the concurrence of the two tenses and the two facets of focalization in one event provides a parallel view of unconsciousness and consciousness. Thus, we may detect a tensefocalization-mind triangle in Cuckoo’s Nest that reflects the triangulate relationship of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds in fictional narratives in general (see Fig. 3.6). It is important to note that both the concurrent facet and the evidentiary facet of focalization reflect the reader’s cognitive processes in reading. They may take on various forms in the traditional narrative theory of focalization, be it the tripartite category of Genette’s (1980) model of focalization, Rimmon-Kenan’s (2002) trio-facets of focalization or others. It is through the multi-faceted focalization that the concurrent facet and the evidentiary facet of focalization play their roles in the representation of the two contrasting mental states. This triangulate relationship of tense, focalization and mind is a unique contribution by Kesey in Cuckoo’s Nest. Admittedly, the shifts in tense is not a new invention by Kesey, as can often be found in analepsis and prolepsis or the use of historical present tense; neither are the shifts in focalization. For example, Louis Simpson’s (1997) short story “Soldier’s Heart” is quite close to Cuckoo’s Nest in having a jigsaw pattern of the present and the past tense in representing Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, Simpson mainly uses the historical present tense to represent his traumatic experiences in the battlefield. For another example, in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a 1961 anti-war and madness novel that is often compared with Cuckoo’s Nest in numerous ways, one event is often repeatedly and differently focalized. The shifts in focalization may be a common feature shared by Kesey and Heller, but they work in different ways: with Heller’s shifts of focalization, the reader learns more about each event from each iteration; with Kesey’s, the reader gets to see the different states of mind. Besides, Heller uses the past tense

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consistently, though his story line is not linear, jumping forward and backward for the reader to piece it up, whereas Kesey realizes his focalization shifts through the switching between the present tense and the past tense. Kesey’s exploration of tense, focalization and mind in Cuckoo’s Nest makes an ideal site to investigate the intrinsic relationships of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and the representation of fictional minds in narrative fiction.

3.4

Summary

This chapter focuses on the individual mad minds in fictional narratives from an internal perspective. What is intramental madness? How is it represented in narratives? The present chapter answers these two basic questions by conducting two case studies on Bromden, the exemplary madman whose madness is most completely represented in Cuckoo’s Nest. I start with a synchronic study on the psychotic signs and symptoms as well as the cognitive bases of Bromden’s madness. The findings reveal that Bromden, with his hallucination, delusion, marked agitation, poverty of speech, social withdrawal and so forth, exhibits typical signs and symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic. Based on Frith’s (1992) theory of cognitive neuropsychology, I conclude that Bromden’s signs and symptoms reflect the cognitive defects of a general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation. Due to such a defective cognitive mechanism, Bromden suffers from disordered awareness, including awareness of his own goals, awareness of his own intention and awareness of other people’s intentions. Due to his defective metarepresentational ability, Bromden often fails in tracking the source of his thought, and the remaining content of his thought may take on the form of free-floating notions, constituting his hallucinations and delusions. Also, he may still try to make use of his defective Theory of Mind that he gained early in his life, but mentalizing in a wrong way. This explains for his belief in the existence of the Combine that persecutes callously. Drawing on the research findings from a synchronic perspective, I argue that consciousness is the key to understanding the Keseyian madness: one is mad when one is unconscious and fails to metarepresent; one is sane when one is conscious and is able to metarepresent. Then, I investigate further the central place of consciousness in the Keseyian madness by examining Bromden’s mind from a diachronic perspective. Based on Talmy’s (2000) cognitive semantic theory of force

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dynamics, Bromden’s consciousness progression, an issue of intramental madness, is found to be under the impact of interpsychological force interactions between the Agonist and the Antagonists. According to the severity of his mental illness (the frequencies of “fog” and “Combine” are important barometers), Bromden’s consciousness progression follows three stages: a severe psychotic Stage I, a recuperating Stage II and an almost well Stage III. Each stage is characterized by a particular pattern of interpsychological force interactions: the “causativeextended-rest” pattern between Bromden and the Big Nurse at Stage I, the “causative-onset-motion” pattern between Bromden and McMurphy and the “despite-motion” pattern with shift in the balance of strength between Bromden and the Big Nurse at Stage II, and the “letting-onsetmotion” pattern between Bromden and the Big Nurse at Stage III. Two important observations are made based on the diachronic study. First, a madman’s process of recovery is a progression toward consciousness. Second, the Keseyian madness is not static but dynamic. Finally, I examine in the present chapter Kesey’s narrative strategies, particularly his focalization strategies, in representing intramental madness. From a synchronic view, two focalization strategies are identified vis-à-vis the narrative representation of intramental madness. The first is psychological focalization in the disguise of perceptual focalization. When representing the free-floating notions of various psychotic symptoms, Kesey employs psychological focalization in the disguise of perceptual focalization. This enables the disappearance of the source of the thought, leaving the content of the thought unattached. The second is embedded focalization for a disguised focalizer. Through embedded focalization, particularly by embedding zero focalization into internal focalization, Kesey represents a Theory of Mind defect that leads to Bromden’s misattributing his own thought to a wrong source. Both focalization strategies can be explained by the multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation discussed in Chapter 2, and both are targeted at the very root of intramental madness—defects in the metarepresentation mechanism and the ensuing lost consciousness. From a diachronic view, Kesey represents Bromden’s two mental states, i.e., a conscious mind and a disordered mind, either in concatenation or in concurrence. Correspondingly, Kesey makes use of the cognitive facets of focalization: the concurrent for a disordered mind and the evidentiary for a conscious mind. When Bromden is in a severe state of psychosis, the concurrent facet of focalization, linguistically realized in the present

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tense, is prevalent. The present tense enables the reader to place an attentional window around Bromden’s “here and now” interaction with the event frame, thus a direct view of Bromden’s disordered mind. When Bromden’s mental state ameliorates, the text is predominantly narrated in the past tense. The past tense initiates an evidentiary facet of focalization that helps the reader place an attentional window around Bromden’s “there and then” interaction with the event frame in the past. This enables the psychotic experiences to be represented from a mind distanced from that experience. The concatenation of the two tenses and the ensuing concurrent and evidentiary facets of focalization are conducive to the representation of one person in two mental states, offering a contrasting view of madness and consciousness, whereas the concurrence of the two tenses and the two facets of focalization in one event provides a parallel view of madness and consciousness. Kesey creatively integrates tense, focalization and mind into a coherent system, and this triangulate relationship of linguistic patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds is a unique contribution by Kesey in Cuckoo’s Nest.

References American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing. Ballard, J. G. (1962). The drowned world. HarperCollins. Ballard, J. G. (1996). A user’s guide to the millennium: Essays and reviews. HarperCollins. Bleuler, E. (1987 [1913]). Dementia praecox or the group of schizophrenias. In J. Cutting & M. Shepherd (Eds.), The clinical roots of the schizophrenia concept: Translations of seminal European contributions on schizophrenia (pp. 59–74). Cambridge University Press. Faulkner, W. (1995). The sound and the fury. Vintage Books. Frith, C. D. (1992). The cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gattaz, W. F., Kohlmeyer, K., & Gasser, T. (1991). Computer tomographic studies in schizophrenia. In H. Häfner & W. F. Gattaz (Eds.), Search for the causes of schizophrenia (Vol. II, pp. 242–256). Springer. Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse: An essay in method (J. E. Lewin, Trans.). Cornell University Press. Gulli, L. F., Nasser, B., & Ramirez, R. (2003). Assessment and diagnosis. In E. Thackey & M. Harris (Eds.), The Gale encyclopedia of mental disorder (Vol. 1, pp. 90–93). The Gale Group.

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Haddon, M. (2003). The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Doubleday. Heller, J. (1961). Catch-22. Simon & Schuster. Johnstone, E. C., Crow, T. J., Frith, C. D., Husband, J., & Kreel, L. (1976). Cerebral ventricular size and cognitive impairment in chronic schizophrenia. The Lancet, 308(7992), 924–926. Kesey, K. (1962). One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Signet. Kunz, D. R. (1975). Mechanistic and totemistic symbolization in Kesey’s one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Studies in American Fiction, 3(1), 65–82. Lu, X. (2009a). Diary of a madman (J. Lovell, Trans.). In The real story of Ah-Q and other tales of China (pp. 21–31). Penguin Books. Lu, X. (2009b). The white light (J. Lovell, Trans.). In The real story of Ah-Q and other tales of China (pp. 133–138). Penguin Books. McCarthy-Jones, S., Smailes, D., Corvin, A., Gill, M., Morris, D. W., Dinan, T. D., Murphy, K. C., O’Neill, F. A., Waddington, J. L., Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank, Donohoe, G., & Dudley, R. (2017). Occurrence and co-occurrence of hallucinations by modality in schizophreniaspectrum disorders. Psychiatry Research, 252, 154–160. Mills, N. (1972). Ken Kesey and the politics of laughter. The Centennial Review, 16(1), 82–90. Mondino, M., Dondé, C., Lavallé, L., Haesebaert, F., & Brunelin, B. (2019). Reality-monitoring deficits and visual hallucinations in schizophrenia. European Psychiatry, 62, 10–14. Nuttall, L. (2018). Mind style and cognitive grammar: Language and worldview in speculative fiction. Bloomsbury Academic. Randrup, A., & Munkvad, I. (1972). Evidence indicating an association between schizophrenia and dopaminergic hyperactivity in the brain. Othomolecular Psychiatry, 1, 2–7. Rimmon-Kenan, S. (2002). Narrative fiction: Contemporary poetics (2nd ed.). Routledge. Shallice, T. (1988). From neuropsychology to mental structure. Cambridge University Press. Simpson, L. (1997). Soldier’s heart. The Hudson Review, 49(4), 541–552. Sperber, D. (1999). Metarepresentation. In R. A. Wilson & F. C. Keil (Eds.), The MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences (pp. 541–542). The MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Concept structuring systems (Vol. 1). MIT Press.

CHAPTER 4

Intermental Madness

Following Damasio’s (2000: 82) suggestion that “the study of human consciousness requires both internal and external views”, this chapter investigates from an external perspective the representation of intermental madness in fictional narratives. What is intermental madness? To answer this question, I first conduct a case study, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, on a prototypical social mind of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest —the Combine mind, a term that I coined after Bromden’s idiosyncratic use of the word “Combine”. I also examine the social bases of madness. How is intermental madness represented? To answer this question, I study Kesey’s narrative techniques, particularly focalization strategies, for the representation of intermental madness. The investigations of social minds of madness, I hope, can deepen the understanding of the fiction-cognition nexus from an intermental dimension.

4.1

Humanistic Psychology in Literary Madness

Intermental madness is about the social minds or group minds of madness. The term “social mind” is used in line with Palmer (2010: 4) that describes “the intermental functioning” of social groups (intermental units). In the present study, intermental madness concerns people’s thought of madness and how such a thought functions in society. Unlike intramental madness which is identified with an individual being, intermental madness can be more elusive and difficult to pin down. It is not a © Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 X. YANG, A Poetics of Minds and Madness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6_4

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specific type of mental disorder of an individual, but it is prevalent in the society and has everything to do with individual madness. By representing how intermental madness functions in Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey creates in the story world a version of madness that is perfectly compatible with humanistic psychology. In a farce-like manner, he depicts madness as a social construction and an expression of the madmen’s desperate fight for ontological security. In a fictional world of madness, Kesey is dialoguing with his contemporary humanistic psychologists, striving for understanding the social nature of madness. In what follows, I investigate from a synchronic perspective the prevalence and function of intermental madness as well as the social bases of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. The Combine Mind The term “Combine mind” is used specifically in the present study to refer to the most authoritative social or group mind of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. The Combine does not really exist; it exists only as a specific persecutor in Bromden’s paranoid delusions. However, this delusional entity functions at an intermental level, and even has a direct correlation with the mental well-being of the subjects concerned. The Combine has a mind, not in a metaphorical sense but in a physical sense, a mind that is capable of intermental thought, which is to have due impacts on intramental madness. Withal, like a physical mind, the Combine mind may be fortified or undermined, and therefore, the Combine mind constitutes an indispensable part of intermental madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. The Intermental Units How can a delusional concept “Combine” by a psychotic mind achieve a status comparable to real existence? The answer lies in who actually make up the Combine. In Bromden’s various accounts of the Combine, it is quite clear to see that this delusional concept consists of real entities, in particular, to borrow Palmer’s (2010, 2011) parlance, of intermental units of various sizes. According to Palmer (2010, 2011), who proposes to study the social minds in narrative fiction from an external perspective, group thought may occur at the following levels: intermental encounters, small intermental units, medium-sized intermental units, large intermental units and intermental minds. As far as I see, Palmer’s (2010, 2011) typology is built on two criteria: the size of the intermental units and the quality of the intermental thought. Small intermental units, medium-sized

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intermental units and large intermental units are based on the former; intermental encounters and intermental minds the latter. Given its potential categorical inconsistency, Palmer’s (2010, 2011) typology offers a plausible approach to hack a piece off the uncharted territory of intermental minds in Cuckoo’s Nest, and accordingly, is applied in the present study to classify the various intermental units. Bromden offers a clear definition for his delusional Combine as follows: [4.1] Working alongside others like her [the Big Nurse] who I call the “Combine,” which is a huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside as well as she has the Inside, has made her a real veteran at adjusting things. (Kesey, 1962: 28, my emphasis) In Bromden’s definition, the Combine is an organization that aims to adjust both the Outside (the world outside of the ward) and the Inside (the ward). Besides, Bromden also clarifies the relationship between the ward and the Combine: the ward is a subset of the superset—the Combine (ward ⊆ Combine): [4.2] The ward is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. (Kesey, 1962: 40) More importantly, Bromden’s observation on the structure of the Combine does not cease at this subset-superset relationship. He also finds out the hierarchical organization of the Combine and the utmost source of power that backs up the Big Nurse. For Bromden, it is the nationwide Combine that endows the Big Nurse with absolute power in the hospital: [4.3] McMurphy doesn’t know it, but he’s onto what I realized a long time back, that it’s not just the Big Nurse by herself, but it’s the whole Combine, the nationwide Combine that’s the really big force, and the nurse is just a high-ranking official for them. (Kesey, 1962: 192) From the above enumeration of Bromden’s Combine, at least part of the delusional concept becomes tangible. The Combine is an organization, and an organization is to be run by people. Therefore, it is the

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people both inside and outside responsible for the adjustment that constitute the Combine. The people inhabiting the Combine, rather than being granular individuals, form various social groups, among which the intermental units (Palmer, 2010, 2011) more often than not function as group minds at different levels. The ward, as a factory of the Combine, initially forms a medium-sized intermental unit, which I dub the ward unit hereafter. Populated by the ward staff, this ward unit is part of a large intermental unit—the Combine. Centered around the Big Nurse, there are the ineffectual Doctor Spivey of her choice, her cohort of the black boys and the young nurses, the technicians, the resident doctors and others. Varied as this assortment of characters are, they all aspire toward the same goal: “fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches” (Kesey, 1962: 40). This common goal, featuring the staff as “people thinking the same way” (Palmer, 2011: 219), defines them into a medium-sized intermental unit—the ward unit. As a subgroup of the Combine, the ward unit functions effectively, and the brass tablet the ward won as a prize for cooperation, for example, is a proof of its sound intermental cooperation: “CONGRATULATIONS FOR GETTING ALONG WITH THE SMALLEST NUMBER OF PERSONNEL OF ANY WARD IN THE HOSPITAL” (Kesey, 1962: 18). The ward unit further consists of subgroups at a smaller scale. These are the small intermental units. The ward staff that “get to know quite well what the others are thinking” (Palmer, 2011: 218) constitute such small intermental units. For example, the black boys, after years of taming, form a small intermental unit with the Big Nurse: “Years of training, and all three black boys tune in closer and closer with the Big Nurse’s frequency. One by one they are able to disconnect the direct wires and operate on beams” (Kesey, 1962: 31). Of all the small intermental units of the ward unit, the Big Nurse-Doctor Spivey unit is perhaps the core unit that determines the stability of the whole ward unit. The stability of the unbalanced power relationship between the Big Nurse and Doctor Spivey is preconditioned by their understanding of each other’s mind— both understand the other party’s mind and profit from such a mutual understanding: [4.4] “Doctor Spivey … is exactly like the rest of us, McMurphy, completely conscious of his inadequacy. He’s a frightened, desperate, ineffectual little rabbit, totally incapable of running

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this ward without our Miss Ratched’s help, and he knows it. And, worse, she knows he knows it and reminds him every chance she gets. Every time she finds he’s made a little slip in the book-work or in, say, the charting you can just imagine her in there grinding his nose in it.” (Kesey, 1962: 62–63) Outside of the ward, the Combine is found to be often related to governmental officials, or at least the agencies with certain power at hand. Bromden clearly associates the downfall of his father—the old Chief— with the conspiracy and dirty work of the Combine. To show this point, a section of [3.7] is reproduced below as [4.5] for the sake of convenience. [4.5] “The Combine. It worked on him for years. He was big enough to fight it for a while. It wanted us to live in inspected houses. It wanted to take the falls. It was even in the tribe, and they worked on him. In the town they beat him up in the alleys and cut his hair short once. Oh, the Combine’s big—big. He fought it a long time till my mother made him too little to fight anymore and he gave up.” (Kesey, 1962: 220) In various places, Bromden gives clear accounts of how the white people in the government grab the Indian’s land from the old Chief’s hand. Based on these accounts, we can conclude that the Combine in [4.5] refers to the white people in the government. For another example, on his fishing trip, Bromden refers to “the signs of what the Combine had accomplished since I was last through this country” (Kesey, 1962: 240), including trains, houses, schools and so forth. These examples show that, for the outside world, inhabiting in Bromden’s delusional Combine are the real people from the governing body of the society. For their common goal of adjusting the society, they can be considered as a medium-sized intermental unit, which I dub the government unit hereafter. Like the ward unit, the government unit consists of various small intermental units as its subgroups, among which an extremely illuminating example can be found in the white woman’s decision on plotting against the old Chief through his white wife—a typical example of how one small intermental unit (the white wife and the white government officials) works on another one (the old Chief and his white wife).

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The above discussions on the intermental units that make up the Combine are not exhaustive. However, based on the limited examples we can still discern that although the Combine is but Bromden’s delusional concept, it is populated with real fictional people that form various intermental units at different ranks. At the highest rank of the hierarchy is the delusional Combine that can be regarded as a large intermental unit. Different as these intermental units are, a common and pervasive goal— to adjust—unites them all under the Combine, and this adjusting mission becomes an essential and persistent quality for these units, and together they form a distinctive Combine mind. It is important to note that among the various constituents of the Combine mind, the members rank hierarchically. There are this “powerful, norm-establishing core group” (Palmer, 2011: 228), such as the Big Nurse inside and the government unit outside, and norm reinforcing groups, such as Doctor Spivey, the black boys, the young nurses and the government officials, among others. The Combine mind and its constituent intermental units, representing the adjusting force, exist vis-à-vis the adjusted force, exemplified by the ward inmates inside, the Indian tribes outside and others. These adjusted forces are the “normdisrupting” (Palmer, 2011: 228) groups that threaten the well-established social norms by the Combine mind. It is within this binary opposition that intermental madness becomes observable. I will turn back to this point in section “Normalization” below. The Linguistic Devices Studies in this section aim to investigate the linguistic devices through which the Combine mind is represented. This is essentially a discourselevel study of the question of “how”. However, as can be seen in the following discussions, it is nearly impossible to stay confined within the discourse level of “how” without trespassing into the story level of “what”. Therefore, it is rather arbitrary to separate the discussions on “how” in this section and those on “what” in section “Normalization” below. Nevertheless, fully aware of the danger of arbitrariness and overlapping, I give priority to the discussions on the linguistic devices employed in conveying the views of the Combine mind in the present section, and leave more detailed discussions on “what” to the next section. Palmer (2010, 2011), in his discussion on the presence of intermental thought, refers to four types of means to express the views of a group mind. Listed in the order of directness, they are explicit reference,

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reference to a hypothetical group, passive voice and presupposition. In Cuckoo’s Nest, these four linguistic devices, though not evenly distributed, are all found to be present in conveying the views of the Combine mind. In addition, metonymy, which is not included in Palmer’s typology, is also found to be an important means to convey the views of the Combine mind. Thus, following the order of directness, the linguistic devices that Kesey employs in presenting the Combine mind are: explicit reference, reference to a hypothetical group, metonymy, passive voice and presupposition. Explicit reference. As the most direct way to refer to the delusional group, the word “Combine” occurs 25 times in total in Cuckoo’s Nest. Through the repeated explicit reference, the delusional concept “Combine” takes on the form of a physical group mind that explicitly manifests itself to the reader. Of the 25 explicit references to “Combine”, the group mind is referred to in three aspects: (1) the Combine’s controlling and adjusting function; (2) the Combine’s force; (3) the Combine’s products. It is important to note that these three categories are to a large extent fuzzy and soft around the edges, and it is possible that more than one aspect is associated with the Combine mind at one time. The Combine’s controlling and adjusting function is presented in two ways. One way is by direct definition, a means of telling. For example, the Combine is “a huge organization that aims to adjust” (Kesey, 1962: 28); “[t]he ward is a factory for the Combine” (Kesey, 1962: 40). The other way is by showing what the Combine aims to do or fails to do. This is where the explicit references are most often employed. For example, as shown in excerpt [4.5], Bromden learns from his early experiences that the Combine can successfully adjust whatever they aim at, including his father, the once super strong Chief of the Indian tribe. Thus, when Bromden finds that a free soul like McMurphy still exists, he marvels at the fact and wonders why the Combine has not yet got hold of him. Bromden’s speculations on the failure of the Combine, however, reflect that it is commonplace for the Combine to control and adjust: [4.6] How’d he manage to slip the collar? Maybe, like old Pete, the Combine missed getting to him soon enough with controls. Maybe he growed up so wild all over the country, batting around from one place to another, never around one town longer’n a few months when he was a kid so a school never got much a hold on

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him, logging, gambling, running carnival wheels, traveling lightfooted and fast, keeping on the move so much that the Combine never had a chance to get anything installed. Maybe that’s it, he never gave the Combine a chance, just like he never gave the black boy a chance to get to him with the thermometer yesterday morning, because a moving target is hard to hit. (Kesey, 1962: 92) There are also explicit references to the Combine’s force. In Bromden’s eyes, the Combine is the overarching force that empowers the tyrannical Big Nurse: “She’ll go on winning, just like the Combine, because she has all the power of the Combine behind her” (Kesey, 1962: 113). Based on this understanding, Bromden worries for McMurphy’s fate, since “it’s not just the Big Nurse by herself, but it’s the whole Combine, the nationwide Combine that’s the really big force” (Kesey, 1962: 192). Bromden learns through his father’s experiences how the Combine can crush “Tee Ah Millatoona”—“The-Pine-ThatStands-Tallest-on-the-Mountain”: “The Combine had whipped him. It beats everybody. It’ll beat you too” (Kesey, 1962: 221). However, as the Combine mind goes into disintegration (see section “Normalization”), Bromden changes his view on the force of the Combine and observes that “[m]aybe the Combine wasn’t all-powerful” (Kesey, 1962: 305). In addition to the Combine’s force, there are also explicit references to the Combine’s products. Of the different products, there are two types: the failures and the successes. The Chronics belong to the failures. “Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine’s product, the Chronics” (Kesey, 1962: 15). As for the successes, those are the cases when a madman is turned into an obedient soul, another robot from the Combine in Bromden’s eyes: [4.7] Sometimes a guy goes over for an installation, leaves the ward mean and mad and snapping at the whole world and comes back a few weeks later with black-and-blue eyes like he’d been in a fistfight, and he’s the sweetest, nicest, best-behaved thing you ever saw. … A success, they say, but I say he’s just another robot for the Combine ... (Kesey, 1962: 17)

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The above analyses indicate that by means of explicit reference, a powerful Combine mind that possesses a clear goal and is capable of functioning, with both its successful and failed products, takes on the form of physical existence. This is the most direct and important linguistic device for the representation of the Combine mind, others based on or supplementary to this. Reference to a hypothetical group. In Cuckoo’s Nest, sometimes certain hypothetical groups are mentioned. They may refer to the Combine or subgroups of the Combine. Among various means of expressions, the personal pronoun “they/them” is a common choice. It should be noted that the anaphoric and cataphoric usages of the pronoun “they” to refer explicitly to the Combine instead of a hypothetical group need to be excluded as references to a hypothetical group. [4.8] All this morning I been waiting for them to fog us in again. The last few days they been doing it more and more. It’s my idea they’ re doing it on account of McMurphy. They haven’t got him fixed with controls yet, and they’ re trying to catch him off guard. They can see he’s due to be a problem; a half a dozen times already he’s roused Cheswick and Harding and some of the others to where it looked like they might actually stand up to one of the black boys—but always, just the time it looked like the patient might be helped, the fog would start, like it’s starting now. (Kesey, 1962: 132, my emphasis) In excerpt [4.8], without an explicit noun functioning either as an antecedent for the anaphor “they” or a postcedent for the cataphor “they”, the pronoun “they” refers to a hypothetical group. Judging from this group’s fogging activity and the aim to “catch him off guard” as “they haven’t got him fixed with control”, it is quite possible that this hypothetical group refers to the Combine or a subgroup of the Combine. Bromden uses on many occasions a hypothetical group “they” to refer to the Combine. Other lexical items can also be found to refer to a hypothetical group. For example, Bromden uses “everybody” to refer to a hypothetical group: “Everybody worked on him because he was big, and wouldn’t give in, and did like he pleased. Everybody worked on him just the way they’re working on you” (Kesey, 1962: 220). Such a hypothetical group

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“everybody” confuses his conversation partner McMurphy as to who is referred to, and at McMurphy’s request, Bromden makes it explicit— the Combine. Similarly, when McMurphy says “there’s something bigger making all this mess” (Kesey, 1962: 192), he seems to realize there is some agency behind the Big Nurse, and to Bromden, this “something bigger” is the Combine. Metonymy. Metonymy can be found when a part-whole relationship is applied to the reference of the Combine. In various places, Bromden mentions the non-existent machinery in the wall, such as “the machinery goes to fumbling”, “the machinery hums up smooth again” (Kesey, 1962: 36) and “[t]he machinery sounds about you reach a steady cruising speed” (Kesey, 1962: 38). Or, he may even mention a specific kind of machinery: “I don’t hear anything but a faint reeling rhythm, what I figure is a tape recorder somewhere getting all of this” (Kesey, 1962: 62). For Bromden, the machinery is a tool installed by the Combine on the ward, and its non-stop surveillance over the inmates’ behavior shows the pervasive presence of the Combine mind. Passive voice. The use of the passive voice to refer to the Combine is not frequent in Cuckoo’s Nest. However, within its limited uses, it is still not hard to find the incidences in which a Combine mind seems to be responsible for the actions expressed through the passive voice: [4.9] They’ve been maneuvered again into grilling one of their friends like he was a criminal and they were all prosecutors and judge and jury. (Kesey, 1962: 56)

[4.10] We mustn’t be ashamed of our behavior; it’s the way we little animals were meant to behave. (Kesey, 1962: 66) In [4.9], an invisible force seems to exert a psychological pressure on the patients and maneuver them to torture one of their own kind. In [4.10], a larger force regulates how the madmen are supposed to behave. What they have in common is that it is the Combine mind that is doing the maneuvering and regulating job behind. The use of the passive voice indirectly refers to the Combine mind. Presupposition. Very often, narrator Bromden’s narration becomes, in Bakhtinian terms, a double-voiced discourse (Bakhtin, 1984). That is to

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say, Bromden, when expressing his view or describing others’ actions, presupposes the existence of a norm, either underpinning the current situation or banning it. In the following examples, we can see a banning norm: banning people from laughing openly: [4.11] I realize all of a sudden it’s the first laugh I’ve heard in years. (Kesey, 1962: 12)

[4.12] The doctor … just as tickled by this new man’s brassy way of talking right up as the rest of us, but, just like the rest of us, he’s careful not to let himself come right out and laugh. (Kesey, 1962: 46)

[4.13] The doctor is working so hard to keep from giggling again he can’t answer. (Kesey, 1962: 47) The fact that McMurphy’s laugh is the first one Bromden has heard in years and that the doctor tries so hard to conceal his laughter when amused speak for their norm-conscious minds: one should not laugh. This not-to-laugh norm is shared by the medical staff as well as the patients, and people can hardly perceive its existence had it not been challenged. Likewise, singing on the ward is also reckoned unthinkable: [4.14] 1 Singing! 2 Everybody’s thunderstruck. 3 They haven’t heard such a thing in years, not on this ward. 4 Most of the Acutes in the dorm are up on their elbows, blinking and listening. 5 They look at one another and raise their eyebrows. 6 How come the black boys haven’t hushed him up out there? 7 They never let anybody raise that much racket before, did they? 8 How come they treat this new guy different? 9 He’s a man made outa skin and bone that’s due to get weak and pale and die, just like the rest of us. 10 He lives under the same laws, gotta eat, bumps up against the same troubles; 11 these things make him just as vulnerable to the Combine as anybody else, don’t they? (Kesey, 1962: 91–92)

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The fact that everybody is thunderstruck at hearing McMurphy singing, like the aforementioned laughing, presupposes that people are not allowed to sing on the ward. This presupposition is again a norm shared by the group mind. Unlike the above representation of the not-to-laugh norm, this not-to-sing norm is represented by, among other means, intermental free indirect thought (Palmer, 2011: 229). Sentences 6–9 (Sentences 10 and 11 are more complicated, as discussed in section “Focalization Slipping” below) in excerpt [4.14] feature an intermental free indirect thought that expresses the inmates’ group mind: their conjectures on someone breaking the unbreakable norm. In both cases, narrator Bromden expresses a view that is apparently a group view—a view of the medical staff as well as of the patients themselves. This is where the dialogicality (Bakhtin, 1984) chimes in to make it a double-voiced discourse. In addition, the groups’ unproblematic acceptance of the norms unanimously points at a super strong agency as the norm maker, and undoubtedly it is the Combine in accordance with the context. Therefore, it can be argued that the presuppositions are an indispensable means to indirectly refer to the Combine mind. Finally, to recap the linguistic devices employed in Cuckoo’s Nest to represent the Combine mind, we can conclude that explicit reference is the most direct means in shaping a delusional concept into a group mind, while the rest (hypothetical group, metonymy, passive voice and presupposition) are all different kinds of rhetorical devices to indirectly refer to the Combine mind. These rhetorical devices add to the sense that the Combine mind is omnipresent and pervasive, controlling and adjusting every fabric of people’s life within its dominance. Normalization The prevalence of the Combine mind, the prototypical social mind of madness, indicates the close ties between intermental madness and intramental madness. The former is variously involved in the latter, most noticeably through normalization and the subsequent norm-reinforcing actions, but it is also liable to disintegration once the equilibrium between the two is disrupted. I presently focus on normalization and turn to disintegration later when discussing the dynamicity of intermental madness. The large intermental unit, the Combine mind, is complex but visible to a close reader of Cuckoo’s Nest. This is where all the social norms, including the norms of madness, are produced, very often through its

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core norm-establishing group. The ward, as a “factory of the Combine” (Kesey, 1962: 40), is designed to carry out the mission of adjustment, that is to say, to reinforce the norms by the Combine. The Big Nurse, as a “high-ranking official” (Kesey, 1962: 192) for the Combine, is probably a member of the norm-establishing group but also engaged in the activities of norm-reinforcement, while her subordinates undoubtedly play the role of norm-reinforcers. Thus, the Combine mind represents the authoritative social mind in Cuckoo’s Nest that has a final say on the norms of madness: what madness is, who is mad and what to do with madness. The most straightforward normalization activity is by exerting the norms explicitly. Each time there is a new admission, Doctor Spivey is on his feet to explain the complete theory of Therapeutic Community. Upon McMurphy’s arrival, he does the same, as Bromden has observed: [4.15] I’ve heard that theory of the Therapeutic Community enough times to repeat it forwards and backwards—how a guy has to learn to get along in a group before he’ll be able to function in a normal society; how the group can help the guy by showing him where he’s out of place; how society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t, so you got to measure up. All that stuff. Every time we get a new patient on the ward the doctor goes into the theory with both feet; …working toward making worthwhile citizens to turn back Outside onto the street. (Kesey, 1962: 49) Clearly, in Doctor Spivey’s theory, a madman is defined as someone who fails to “function in a normal society” and is in need of knowing “where he’s out of place”; his mental illness is not defined medically but socially—“society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t”, so he needs to “measure up”; he is not a “worthwhile” citizen. Doctor Spivey’s theory represents the social norms of madness, and his action reinforces the normalization process. As a member of the ward unit, Doctor Spivey is part of the Combine mind which, ranking at the top of the hierarchical structure of power, is the norm-establishing agency responsible for the judgment of social orders and behaviors, madness included. The underlying logic is that individuals should behave in certain, well-specified ways stipulated by the Combine mind. Otherwise, they will fall into the victims of adjustment.

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In terms of madness, the norms of the Combine mind are to a large extent executed and reinforced by the ward unit. The ward molds its products following the norms of the Combine. The success of the ward product is measured by, as Bromden has observed, how well the patient is adjusted to his surroundings: [4.16] Yes. This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, … He’s adjusted to surroundings finally….it brings joy to the Big Nurse’s heart; something that came in all twisted different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold. Watch him sliding across the land with a welded grin, fitting into some nice little neighborhood where they’re just now digging trenches along the street to lay pipes for city water. He’s happy with it. He’s adjusted to surroundings finally…. “Why, I’ve never seen anything to beat the change in Maxwell Taber since he’s got back from that hospital; a little black and blue around the eyes, a little weight lost, and, you know what? he’s a new man. Gad, modern American science …” And the light is on in his basement window way past midnight every night… (Kesey, 1962: 40, my emphasis) That madmen are failed products or mistakes of the society to be fixed to function normally again is one norm on madness upheld by the Combine mind. This norm pervades each and every fabric of the society, and for long no one seems to even doubt its legitimacy. For example, in excerpt [4.16], the quoted direct speech is a flagrant admiration of the hospital’s success in fixing up patient Taber. However, no contextual information is available as to who the speaker is. One possible explanation for this anonymous speech is that it is an onlooker’s judgment on the Combine’s product. This unidentified speech may represent a general group mind, which obviously takes the Combine’s norms of madness as social norms by default. The Combine’s norms of madness are so prevalent that even the patients view themselves accordingly. For Bromden, most of the patients

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are “machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in” (Kesey, 1962: 16), whereas for Harding, both Doctor Spivey and the patients are rabbits who are “all in here because we can’t adjust to our rabbithood” (Kesey, 1962: 64), and in his definition, the patients are “[f]ailures, we are—feeble, stunted, weak little creatures in a weak little race. Rabbits, sans whambam; a pathetic notion” (Kesey, 1962: 67). Based on the above discussion, it can be argued that in Cuckoo’s Nest, when defining madness, the ailment per se is not as important. What is important, however, is the norms established by the Combine mind, which are so pervasive that not a single soul can be exempted from them. Through normalization and the subsequent norm-reinforcing actions, intermental madness, the intangible social groups’ thought of madness, makes its way into the intramental madness of the flesh-and-blood social beings. Simply put: madness is anything that falls out of the range of the norms. As long as the norms remain unchallenged, the world under the dominance of the Combine mind will be stable and will benefit those who benefit from them. This explains for the Big Nurse’s fetish about keeping the ward in order and crushing everything that stands in her way. Cuckoo’s Nest is a duplex of intramental madness and intermental madness. However, when the normalized are not homogeneous, a potential disturbing force may disrupt the normalization process. McMurphy represents such a disturbing force in Cuckoo’s Nest. He challenges the norms by the Combine mind, refuses to be normalized and brings fundamental changes to others on his denormalization journey. Even though a doctor once admits that “he is simply a shrewd con man, and not mentally ill at all” (Kesey, 1962: 154), the norm-reinforcers prefer to view him as “a disturbing influence” and “a danger, in fact” (Kesey, 1962: 154). Two points can be concluded based on the above observation. First, based on this intermental view on McMurphy’s “madness”, the Big Nurse’s final intramental decision on McMurphy’s lobotomy is both legitimate and professional. Second, McMurphy’s denormalization struggles, in contrast to the normalization process, are potentially therapeutically valuable by shaking the very social basis of madness, and consequently McMurphy is considered as a practitioner of practical psychotherapy, a point pursued further below.

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The Social Bases of Madness The above intermental investigations of madness seem to target at the Combine mind through and through, contrasting its normalization practice with McMurphy’s denormalization. A Bromdenian interpretation of madness this may sound like, as the Combine is nevertheless a delusional concept by a psychotic mind. However, it rings true to a sane mind so long as one cares to understand madness in terms of its social bases. In the present section, I pursue further the intermental madness study by investigating its social bases, namely, madness as a social construction and madness as an ontological insecurity. Madness as a Social Construction That devilish manifesto “society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t, so you got to measure up” (Kesey, 1962: 49) hangs over the cuckoo’s nest, demonizing the medical staff and bedeviling the patients. Cuckoo’s Nest, in its most condensed form, fashions madness as an intermental decision, withal, a technical output of modern science and technology, and a literal version of social construction of madness. Madness as an intermental decision. Psychiatrists are by profession the guardians of man’s mental well-being, but what can be more ironical for their professionalism when they diagnose a sane man insane? Such absurd practices take place in Cuckoo’s Nest under the professionals’ zealous devotion, or at least they appear to be. In the staff meeting following McMurphy’s TV rebellion (see Excerpt 2.20), the doctors dig into their expertise reservoir to throw various labels of mental illness onto McMurphy, such as “Schizophrenic reaction”, “Latent Homosexual with Reaction Formation”, “Negative Oedipal” (Kesey, 1962: 156) and so forth. Thus, it is through the act of intermental decision-making that various labels of mental illness are attached to a sane man. Artistically, Kesey builds a social construction site of madness in its literal sense: a man’s sanity is but a matter of subjective judgment by the authority and, in the present context, intermental decision in the name of diagnosis. The professionals abuse fully their professional power, manifesting the devilish manifesto “society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” (Kesey, 1962: 49) to its highest degree. Instead of seeing McMurphy as who he really is, the doctors are undoubtedly merely seeing a projection of their own theories about him (May, 1958), and worse still, to serve their own purposes—for the safety of their jobs. However, in seeing the doctors’

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diagnosis as a social construction of madness, I am in the least attempt to equate the diagnosis of madness with a social process of labeling, for such a position is precarious. Rather, my purpose is to highlight Kesey’s observation on the highly subjective nature of psychiatric diagnosis of his day. For another example, Bromden tells in a hallucinating manner how the doctors’ verbal discourse can indeed “materialize” a patient: [4.17] I been in meetings where they kept talking about a patient so long that the patient materialized in the flesh, nude on the coffee table in front of them, vulnerable to any fiendish notion they took: they’d have him smeared around in an awful mess before they were finished. (Kesey, 1962: 151) The doctors’ talks about the patient sound so real that Bromden can even visualize the patient appearing on the spot, nude and vulnerable. In a most vivid manner, Bromden verbalizes the literal version of the abstract concept of “social construction of madness”. Bromden’s literalization, a psychopath’s conceptualization strategy, acutely and accurately portrays a picture of social construction of mental illness. However, for Kesey, the madmen are not only passively constructed by the social force; under pressure, they may be actively involved in the construction process themselves. [4.18] When twenty minutes had passed, she looked at her watch and said, “Am I to take it that there’s not a man among you that has committed some act that he has never admitted?” She reached in the basket for the log book. “Must we go over past history?” That triggered something, some acoustic device in the walls, rigged to turn on at just the sound of those words coming from her mouth. The Acutes stiffened. Their mouths opened in unison. Her sweeping eyes stopped on the first man along the wall. His mouth worked. “I robbed a cash register in a service station.” She moved to the next man. “I tried to take my little sister to bed.”

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Her eyes clicked to the next man; each one jumped like a shooting-gallery target. “I—one time—wanted to take my brother to bed.” “I killed my cat when I was six. Oh, God forgive me, I stoned her to death and said my neighbor did it.” “I lied about trying. I did take my sister!” “So did I! So did I!” “And me! And me!” It was better than she’d dreamed. They were all shouting to outdo one another, going further and further, no way of stopping, telling things that wouldn’t ever let them look one another in the eye again. The nurse nodding at each confession and saying Yes, yes, yes. (Kesey, 1962: 50–51) Excerpt [4.18] exhibits an absurd scene in which the inmates compete to show how mad they are. This is the so-called group therapy, an act of ruminating over the inmates’ past for digging out the cracks in their minds. Under the pressure from the authority, the Big Nurse in the present context, the inmates are forced to comply by publicizing their shameful past, or even fabricating false shames. Their active contribution delights the Big Nurse, for this furnishes her with solid evidence for the men’s mental illness, and therefore her subsequent treatment becomes legitimate. This makes another site of social construction of madness in its literal sense. Probably the most satirical part with this construction site is that the inmates are not only victimized, but also victimizing themselves. Madness as a technical output. Kesey’s fictional portrayal of “social construction of madness” does not stop at the literal version; he pushes the concept even further by materializing it. In various places, Bromden narrates the ward’s products, including both the “successful” ones such as Taber and the “culls” such as Ellis and Ruckly. Both Ellis and Ruckly are the technical failures, for the technicians overloaded them in their treatments, while Taber becomes a “new man”, an admirable success of “modern American science” (Kesey, 1962: 40). This technical materialization of madness culminates in McMurphy’s lobotomy, the brain chopping surgery that renders McMurphy from an unbeatable hero into a “vegetable” and a real madman.

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[4.19] The swelling had gone down enough in the eyes that they were open; they stared into the full light of the moon, open and undreaming, glazed from being open so long without blinking until they were like smudged fuses in a fuse box. (Kesey, 1962: 322) However, unlike the ward’s “culls” that are the outcome of a technical failure, the “vegetable” McMurphy is a technical success. The advanced technology of medicine successfully transforms a sane and robust man into a mindless morbid figure. In an adroit artistic design, Kesey transfers, in the parlance of systemic functional grammar, a relational process (madness is a social construction) into a material process (society constructs madness), and thus a metaphorical concept turns into a tangible materialization process. In McMurphy’s fate, the reader sees the destructive force of the social norm—“society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t, so you got to measure up” (Kesey, 1962: 49)—for those who dare not to toe the line. This makes the most horrible and saddening scene in Cuckoo’s Nest, even more disturbing than McMurphy’s death. By presenting it both in a literal version and as a materialization process, Kesey exaggerates the social construction of madness in a theater of the absurd. As for the reader, it is when this metaphorical concept is seen in its literal and materialized version that its absurdity becomes most startling. Madness as an Ontological Insecurity The previous intermental investigations of madness also reveal that the ward, a loyal normalization reinforcer of the Combine mind, normalizes through its destructive therapeutic practices, whereas McMurphy’s denormalization is akin to a constructive practical psychotherapy. Seeing from an existential perspective, the two therapeutic practices differ fundamentally in their impacts on the patients’ sense of ontological security: the ward destroys the patients’ ontological security while McMurphy fosters it. To realize the process in which one’s primary ontological security is reached, according to Laing (1990: 42), is fundamental in understanding “how certain psychoses can develop”. In other words, ontological insecurity can be an important root for psychoses. Once again Chief Bromden is an exemplar for such an observation. According to the discussions in Chapter 3, Bromden’s fog can be explained in terms of his hallucinations, a symptom of schizophrenia. This

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interpretation seems to be as far as what a diagnosis by DSM -5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) can carry us to. However, if we dig into this fog phenomenon further by examining its existential basis in line with humanistic psychology, we may find Bromden’s fog has much to tell us beyond the nonsense of a hallucinating mind. The content of his hallucinations is actually meaningful; it reflects his sense of ontological insecurity: he is seeking to preserve his existence via isolation while his fog serves for such an end. Bromden’s fog fits in Laing’s observation on an ontologically insecure person: If the individual cannot take the realness, aliveness, autonomy, and identity of himself and others for granted, then he has to become absorbed in contriving ways of trying to be real, of keeping himself or others alive, of preserving his identity, in efforts, as he will often put it, to prevent himself losing his self. (Laing, 1990: 42–43)

Anxieties and dangers arise as a result of ontological insecurity, followed by the subsequent attempts to deal with such anxieties and dangers. Thus, the fog, instead of being a random item in Bromden’s hallucinations, provides him a possibility of isolation, and functions as a chief means in his maneuver to preserve his identity under the pressure of ontological insecurity. Laing argues that an ontologically insecure person may experience himself as “primarily split into a mind and a body”, which can be “an attempt to deal with the basic underlying insecurity”, and if “the individual begins to identify himself too exclusively with that part of him which feels unembodied”, it is possible that he may end up in psychosis (Laing, 1990: 65). In Cuckoo’s Nest, there is a scene that literally presents this mind–body split: [4.20] It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger. I watched, part of them, laughing with them—and somehow not with them. I was off the boat, blown up off the water and skating the wind with those black birds, high above myself, and I could look down and see myself and the rest of the guys, see the boat rocking there in the middle of those diving birds, see McMurphy surrounded by his dozen people, and watch them, us, swinging a laughter that rang out on the water in ever-widening circles, farther and farther, until it crashed up

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on beaches all over the coast, on beaches all over all coasts, in wave after wave after wave. (Kesey, 1962: 250) In excerpt [4.20], Bromden is literally split into two, with one part watching over the other part. His embodied half is in the boat together with the men, but his unembodied half is up in the sky looking down at himself and the others. Bromden’s literalization of a divided self, a symptom of delusion judged by the standards of DSM -5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), may reveal at a deeper level his existential crisis, namely, his effort to deal with his ontological insecurity. As a matter of fact, Bromden is not alone in suffering from ontological insecurity; many other madmen in Cuckoo’s Nest possess the same psychosis root, albeit they manifest their madness in multitudinous ways. Harding’s homosexual tendency and Billy’s inability in achieving an independent manhood, for example, drive them mad because they fail to reach a point of ontological security. Their compliance is thus, like Bromden’s fog, their chief maneuver to preserve their subjectivity, or their mind in their own divided self. When we see madness in terms of ontological insecurity, the contrasting values of the two aforementioned “therapies” become selfevident. The ward’s behavioristic and mechanistic treatments pose an inherent threat to the inmates’ ontological security: surveillance, medication, seclusion and surgery are all potential acts that threaten the inmates’ “whole being-in-his-world” (Laing, 1990: 17), enshrouding the inmates in their torturous past. By contrast, McMurphy’s humanistic way encourages the inmates to develop a sense of ontological security by finding strength in themselves and looking forward to the future, thus recollecting their “whole being-in-his-world”. In the heart of the tug-of-war between the two contrasting therapeutic practices is the patients’ ontological security: to be mad or to be sane, that is a matter of ontological security. Therefore, for Kesey, madness is not simply a cluster of signs and symptoms; madness is deeply seated in one’s ontological insecurity. A Critique of Kraepelinian Psychiatry A knowledge of Kesey’s times will shed light on his understanding of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. The 1960s saw political and social structures challenged in the West, and the traditional Kraepelin-type positivist psychiatry, which is “based on the natural sciences and uses the mechanistic metaphor of natural science to construct mental illness” (Torn,

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2009: 66), is unprecedentedly challenged by the anti-psychiatry movement. The term anti-psychiatry was coined by David Cooper in his 1967 book Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry, but some leading figures in this camp such as Szasz and Laing are openly against such a label. The antipsychiatry movement of the 1960s–1970s launched “an assault on the very legitimacy of psychiatry” (Burns, 2006: 93), as Burns has observed: The anti-psychiatry message was that psychiatry did not so much need improving as scrapping. At its best it was confused and confusing and at its worst a truly evil instrument of oppression masquerading as a benign medical practice. (Burns, 2006: 93)

Three iconic figures are generally seen associated with anti-psychiatry: the French philosopher Michel Foucault, the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, a Hungarian immigrant to the US and the Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing. In his extremely influential book Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (first published in French in 1961 under the title Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la Folie à L’âge Classique), Foucault (1988) sees psychiatry as, rather than curing and liberating, repressive and controlling, and therefore challenges the very basis of psychiatric practice. Szasz argues forcefully in his seminal book The Myth of Mental Illness (first published in 1961) that “there can be no such thing as mental illness”, and he proposes that the term “mental illness” is “a metaphor” (Szasz, 1974: ix). With a series of best-selling books, particularly his first and most influential book The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (first published in 1959), Laing “turned the psychiatric world upside down” (Burns, 2006: 94). He criticizes the Kraepelin-type positivism underlying psychiatry, arguing instead for a person-centered approach to medicine. Kesey, an important leader of the counterculture movement in the 1960s, echoes in his fictional portrayal of madness with his contemporaries who challenge the medical culture of the day. Into the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey integrates his observation on how psychiatry is used by the society as a coercive instrument of oppression in controlling deviant behaviors as well as his disapproval of the behaviorist and mechanistic practices of the Kraepelin-type positivist psychiatry. However, in stressing Kesey’s alignment with anti-psychiatry, I am not saying that Kesey denies the cognitive neuropsychological evidence in madness. Indeed, as the discussions in Chapter 3 indicate, Kesey recog-

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nizes the cognitive bases of madness. My purpose here is to explore the bases upon which Kesey depicts madness as a social construction and ontological insecurity. Madness as a difference and psychiatry as a coercive instrument of oppression. Although anti-psychiatry is soon challenged by Neo-Kraepelin psychiatry, its social consequence is far-reaching. Foucault argues how it has permanently challenged the role of the psychiatrists as the holder of truth about madness: Fundamentally, the whole of modern psychiatry is permeated by antipsychiatry, if by that we understand everything that calls into question the role of the psychiatrist previously given responsibility for producing the truth of illness within the hospital space. (Foucault, 2006: 342)

By presenting madness as a social construction, Kesey challenges the role of psychiatrists that ascend to power with the Kraepelin-type psychiatry. The group meeting to diagnose McMurphy’s mental disorder (see Excerpt [2.20]) deconstructs the role of psychiatrists. McMurphy’s “madness” is a glaring medical untruth formally formulated by the medical professionals. The simple fact is that McMurphy is different, or deviant by the ward’s standard, and consequently he is announced mad by the psychiatrists. In an exaggerated manner, Kesey portrays how a difference is constructed as a madness. This absurd “diagnosis” is based on two generally accepted practices in psychiatry: madness as a difference and psychiatry as a coercive instrument of oppression. Kesey’s design of McMurphy’s “madness” is rooted in his understanding of madness as a difference, a view that is consistent with the challenge to the highly subjective diagnostic process by psychiatrists from the camp of anti-psychiatry. Anti-psychiatrists question the judgment of “madness as a difference” commonly practiced in psychiatry. For example, Sarbin (1990) argues that diagnosticians encode the deviant behavior with a medical term schizophrenia in the absence of reliable tests. Likewise, the philosopher Foucault (1988: 116) also identifies the close relationship between madness and difference: “Madness is immediately perceived as a difference: whence the forms of spontaneous and collective judgment sought, not from physicians, but from men of good sense”. If it is only absurd for the doctors to apply “madness as a difference” as a criterion in the diagnosis of McMurphy’s mental disorder, then, in the

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case of Harding, its application is beyond absurdity: it can even induce madness: [4.21] “… I discovered at an early age that I was—shall we be kind and say different ? It’s a better, more general word than the other one. I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voice of millions chanting, ‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different.” (Kesey, 1962: 307–308, my emphasis) In Harding’s analysis of the cause of his own madness, he points out that it is the society’s intolerance of and the collective judgment on his difference that make him sick. This time, instead of entertaining his reader in a theater of the absurd, Kesey announces through Harding his sober concern over the heavy costs by a biased view on madness, and this leads to the issue of psychiatry as an instrument of oppression. The diagnosis process of McMurphy’s mental disorder exemplifies madness as an “emergent product of social relations and their discourse” (Torn, 2009: 84). For many critics, the language used in the process of diagnosis both names and constructs the mental disorders, which may otherwise not exist without the process of diagnosis-making (Brown, 1990; Sarbin, 1990). For example, Brown (1990) argues that the diagnosis process endows psychiatry with the power to label and manage people on behalf of the wider society. McMurphy’s various psychotic labels show exactly how madness emerges as a product of discourse management and power struggle. In addition, Kesey also sees psychiatry as a means of physical oppression and controlling. For example, through the startling materialization processes, he portrays how the ward can make a sane man insane. Notably, the title “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” itself is perhaps a most condensed expression in this regard. “Cuckoo” can be used to refer to a madman, and “cuckoo’s nest” is a metaphorical expression for mental institution. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey depicts an extremely oppressive and controlling mental institution, which deprives the inmates of their freedom and isolates them from the outside world. Through his fictional

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portrayal of the mental institution, Kesey, echoing anti-psychiatry, voices his critiques of the devastating mental institutions. Based on the above discussions, it can be argued that by presenting madness as a social construction, Kesey critiques the Kraepelin-type psychiatry that produces “the illusion of similarity between psychiatry and medicine, which in turn upholds the credibility and expert status of the profession” (Torn, 2009: 85). For Kesey, this alignment of psychiatry to medicine endows psychiatry with its unearned power. Behavioristic and mechanistic psychiatric treatment being more damaging than helpful. If seeing madness as a social construction is Kesey’s social critiques of psychiatry, then, seeing madness as an ontological insecurity may indicate his footing in existential philosophy. In construing madness as an ontological insecurity, Kesey challenges the Kraepelin-type positivism underlying psychiatry by portraying it as behavioristic and mechanistic, indicating that its treatment is more damaging than helpful. Laing critiques the limitations of “scientific” and “objective” practices by psychiatrists: The clinical psychiatrist, wishing to be more ‘scientific’ or ‘objective’, may propose to confine himself to the ‘objectively’ observable behaviour of the patient before him. The simplest reply to this is that it is impossible. To see ‘signs’ of ‘disease’ is not to see neutrally. (Laing, 1990: 31)

And he argues for an alternative approach to viewing a patient’s behavior: Now it seems clear that this patient’s behaviour can be seen in at least two ways, analogous to the ways of seeing vase or face. One may see his behaviour as ‘signs’ of a ‘disease’ one may see his behaviour as expressive of his existence. The existential-phenomenological construction is an inference about the way the other is feeling and acting. (Laing, 1990: 30–31)

My knowledge of Kesey’s life does not allow me to say with confidence how much he knows about anti-psychiatry or existentialism; however, it seems that vestiges of an existential understanding of madness permeate Cuckoo’s Nest through and through. Instead of digging into his life to prove such an observation, which is not within the purview of the present study, I examine some evidence in Cuckoo’s Nest, to trace his critiques of

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the inadequacy and harmful consequences of the behavioristic and mechanistic therapeutic practices as well as his appeal to a person-centered approach to psychiatry. In his existential study of madness, Laing (1990) argues that ontological insecurity may lead to psychosis. The previously discussed “madness as an ontological insecurity” makes concrete examples to show Kesey’s existential grounding. Three more seemingly irrelevant examples are further examined, which, I hope, suffice to better expound the existential basis in Kesey’s understanding of madness. The first example concerns the direct mention of Freud. It seems that Kesey does not have a high opinion of the Freudian psychotherapy, the then dominant practice in psychiatry. Harding, the most knowledgeable patient in the ward, mentions Freud’s name twice. Rather than showing off his knowledge, Harding seems more likely to imply the inadequacy of Freud’s theory: [4.22] “So,” he says, “it’s as simple as that, as stupidly simple as that. You’re on our ward six hours and have already simplified all the work of Freud, Jung, and Maxwell Jones and summed it up in one analogy: it’s a ‘peckin’ party.’” (Kesey, 1962: 58) McMurphy calls the group therapy a “peckin’ party”, and after finally agrees with him on this point, Harding points out that McMurphy simplifies all the work led by Freud into an analogy—a “peckin’ party”. In an analogous way, the Freudian psychotherapy is linked to a vulgar expression. Similarly, Harding points out the inadequacy in the Freudian theory in explaining the changes that happen to the inmates. Its explanatory inadequacy may indicate it is equally inadequate in treatment: [4.23] Harding shook his head. “I don’t think I can give you an answer. Oh, I could give you Freudian reasons with fancy talk, and that would be right as far as it went. But what you want are the reasons for the reasons, and I’m not able to give you those.” (Kesey, 1962: 307) The second example can be found in Kesey’s use of mechanistic metaphor. In their seminal paper, Semino and Swindlehurst (1996) find that Bromden’s characteristic use of mechanistic metaphor reflects his mechanistic world view that forms his mind style. The two authors relate

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Bromden’s psychotic mind style to his familiarity with machinery in his early life. This cognitive interpretation is a groundbreaking finding. However, Kesey’s choice of the mechanistic metaphor may not simply reflect the fictional character’s mind style; it may also reflect Kesey’s view on the Kraepelin-type positivist psychiatry. Based on natural sciences, this approach uses the mechanistic metaphor of natural science to conceptualize mental illness. This metaphor construes human beings as machines, and under its guidance scientists and practitioners “look up human beings as organismic objects” (Sarbin, 1990: 279). This said, it may not simply be a coincidence that Kesey endows Bromden with a mechanistic mind style, for it will not be unreasonable to assume a close connection between one’s linguistic choice and his ideological position. Kesey’s mechanistic metaphors may reflect his critiques of the behavioristic and mechanistic psychiatry that is very much in vogue in his day. The last example I want to mention is a very minor but interesting point. A detail in Cuckoo’s Nest catches my attention: the Big Nurse’s mispronunciation of McMurphy as McMurry. David Lodge (1992: 37) famously argues that “[i]n a novel names are never neutral” and “[t]he naming of characters is always an important part of creating them”. McMurry may be reminiscent of the Scottish philosopher John MacMurray (1891–1976), whose thought can be classified as personalist because his writings focus primarily on the nature of human beings. In his 1957 book Self as Agent, MacMurray writes: “We should expect that the emergence of a scientific psychology would be paralleled by a transition from an organic to a personal … conception of unity” (MacMurray, 1957: 37). Laing, in his 1959 book Divided Self , quotes this from MacMurray to argue that “it is difficult to explain the persistence in all our thinking of elements of what MacMurray has called the ‘biological analogy’” (Laing, 1990: 23). Besides, the time when the three books made their debut is also worth noticing: MacMurray’s book is in 1957, Laing’s in 1959 and Kesey’s in 1962. Laing’s theories emerged and extended his influences in the 1960s, and both Laing and Kesey can be seen as leaders of the counterculture movements in the 1960s. Given McMurphy’s strong opposition to the mechanistic and behavioristic approach practiced on the ward, can a close reader simply dismiss the Big Nurse’s mispronunciation of McMurphy’s name as a slip of tongue? This said, I warn myself of any possible over-stretching in the interpretation. However, I believe it is equally ignorant to turn a deaf ear to Kesey’s masterly design even at the risk of over-interpretation.

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Finally, to put an end to the discussions on Kesey’s existential grounding, I would like to place Cuckoo’s Nest into a larger picture. The existential perspective in anti-psychiatry has important roots in existential philosophy pioneered by thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Diversified as these philosophers are, in their thoughts, they share a common concern: the anxiety that is inherent in human existence. Existentialist writers such as Sartre, de Bouvoir and Camus have written extensively on existentialism, and novelists such as Dostoevsky and Kafka also show their existential concerns by writing about the confusion and alienation that people experience in their confrontation with meaninglessness and absurdity. Seen in this tradition, the Keseyian madness further enriches the existential literature.

4.2

Dynamicity of Intermental Madness

Like intramental madness, which is dynamic, intermental madness is also subject to changes across time when the equilibrium of its constituents is disrupted. Thus, it is important to examine the dynamicity of intermental madness from a diachronic perspective for an all-round picture. Given intermental madness is less tangible than intramental madness, a possible way to approach the dynamicity of intermental madness is through people who constitute the intermental units. In what follows, I focus on the Combine mind, the most authoritative social mind of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, examining the various interactions among the intermental units and the ensuing impacts on intermental madness. Dialogues with the Combine Mind One way to examine the dynamicity of intermental madness is to look into the dialogic relationships between the Combine mind and other intermental units. The different dialogic relationships either reinforce the stability of the Combine mind, thus the stability of intermental madness, or induce dynamicity and bring changes to the structure of intermental madness. As discussed in section “The Linguistic Devices”, presuppositions make Bromden’s narration a double-voiced discourse in which a norm by the Combine mind is presupposed to exist. Indeed, Cuckoo’s Nest is essentially in the Bakhtinian terms dialogic (Bakhtin, 1984), exemplified by but not confined to presuppositions. Bakhtin holds that

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“dialogic relationships are a much broader phenomenon than mere rejoinders in a dialogue”, and sees dialogic relationships as “an almost universal phenomenon, permeating all human speech and all relationships and manifestations of human life” (Bakhtin, 1984: 40). Examined under the Bakhtinian dialogicality, Cuckoo’s Nest resonates with dialogues between intermental units, most noticeably between the Combine mind and the other units. Invisible as the Combine is, its norms of madness are omnipresent in Cuckoo’s Nest. In one way or another, different intermental units or individuals are dialoguing with the Combine mind concerning the norms of madness. Of course, such dialogues do not simply take place in the form of “external, compositionally expressed dialogues carried on by characters”; they are present in “all relationships among external and internal parts and elements” (Bakhtin, 1984: 40). In particular, the dialogues take on the feature of hidden dialogicality, where the “second speaker is present invisibly, his words are not there, but deep traces left by these words have a determining influence on all the present and visible words of the first speaker” (Bakhtin, 1984: 197). The ward unit is dialoguing with the Combine mind in an affirmative and conspiring voice. This dialogic relationship reinforces the stability of the Combine mind. As a subgroup of the Combine mind, the ward unit on the whole is a porte-parole of its norms of madness. Withal, it is also the executive force of the norms. The Big Nurse is fully entitled to the above two roles, and both her words and actions reflect that she approves of the Combine’s norms and safeguards them wholeheartedly. [4.24] “Is that a mortal sin? I mean, normal people get to sleep late on the weekends.” “You men are in this hospital,” she would say like she was repeating it for the hundredth time, “because of your proven inability to adjust to society. The doctor and I believe that every minute spent in the company of others, with some exceptions, is therapeutic, while every minute spent brooding alone only increases your separation.” (Kesey, 1962: 167) In excerpt [4.24], when responding to the inmates’ demand on the change of schedule, the Big Nurse, a porte-parole par excellence of the Combine mind’s verdict on madness, emphasizes their “inability to adjust

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to society”. Meanwhile, her explicitation of the norm is an act of reinforcement in itself. It has been the Big Nurse’s strategy for reinforcing the madness norms so as to carry out the subsequent acts of adjustment. For example, as a punishment on the inmates’ rebellious behaviors, the Big Nurse decides to take away their tub room, but she announces it in the name of “therapeutic value” by telling the men that they “could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World” (Kesey, 1962: 199). Her announcement, consistent with the judgment on madness by the Combine mind, reinforces the judgment. Two dialogic relations can be discerned in the above dialogues: one explicit and one implicit. Explicitly, it is external dialogues between the Big Nurse and the inmates, in which the Big Nurse tyrannically rules over the inmates. Implicitly, a hidden dialogicality is present between the Big Nurse and the invisible Combine mind. As part of the Combine mind, the Big Nurse fully acknowledges her loyalty to and responsibility in this intermental unit, embodying and reinforcing its social and moral norms. This is a hidden dialogue between a speaker who is present and a speaker who is invisible but whose presence is nonetheless omnipresent. It is this hidden dialogicality that shapes the moral standard and manifests itself in the external dialogues that are directly presented to the reader. By contrast, McMurphy’s dialogues with the Combine mind are polemic, potentially disturbing the stability of the Combine mind and bringing dynamicity to intermental madness. He argues loudly with the Big Nurse and with the patients, making the external dialogues (in conversation) noisy. However, equally noisy are McMurphy’s hidden dialogues with the Combine mind, a voice of defying and defiance. In his argument with Harding, McMurphy insists that the madmen on the ward are all sane, not crazier than people outside: [4.25] “You’re talking like a crazy ma – ” “Like a crazy man? How astute.” “Damn it, Harding, I didn’t mean it like that. You ain’t crazy that way. I mean – hell, I been surprised how sane you guys all are. As near as I can tell you’re not any crazier than the average asshole on the street – ”. (Kesey, 1962: 65) Externally, this is a dialogue between two characters arguing over the sanity of the inmates, but internally a hidden dialogicality shows

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McMurphy’s argument with the norms of madness imposed by the Combine mind—the madmen inside are as sane as the people outside under a different norm. To a close reader, his overt argument over the men’s sanity is a covert challenge to the social norms of madness. He is not simply arguing with his visible conversational partner; he is also dialoguing with an invisible conversational partner that holds a strong fortress in establishing unbreachable social norms, right or wrong. If McMurphy’s judgment on the inmates’ sanity is a hidden dialogicality that shows his disagreement on the prevalent norms of madness, then his various challenges to the Big Nurse are, internally, violent dialogues with the Combine mind—dialogues between an individual and a large intermental unit—on his perception of the absurdity of the norms and his defiance. Cuckoo’s Nest hosts a site of the conflicts between McMurphy and the Big Nurse through and through, too numerous for an exhaustive list. A glimpse at the various names McMurphy calls the Big Nurse may reveal the tip of the iceberg: Miss Rat-shed, a ball-cutter, a bitch and a buzzard, among others. All these names reveal McMurphy’s contempt of and even hatred to the Big Nurse, but to a close reader the hidden dialogicality lies in McMurphy’s overt defiance to the social norms by the Combine mind as can be heard in his loud outcry: “‘Ya know, ma’am,’ he says, ‘ya know—that is the ex-act thing somebody always tells me about the rules …’” (Kesey, 1962: 26, emphasis in original). The patients form a medium-sized intermental unit—the patient unit and their internal dialogues with the Combine mind change from complying to defying. At the beginning, they view themselves as “machines with flaws inside” (Kesey, 1962: 16) or as rabbits that “can’t adjust to our rabbithood” (Kesey, 1962: 64). These are examples of their internal dialogues with the Combine mind in a complying voice. In this dialogic relationship, they give up their discourse power and accept the prevalent judgment that they are men with “proven inability to adjust to society” (Kesey, 1962: 167), and therefore, they kowtow to the norms of madness. The patient unit’s complying dialogues are an important precondition for the Combine mind to exist in peace. However, upon McMurphy’s arrival and under his influence, the group mind of the patient unit undergoes profound changes; so are the hidden dialogues. If their vote for watching the baseball game is their initial defying dialogue with the Combine mind, then the following various rebellious acts such as Scanlon bouncing the basketball through the window of the nurse station, the fishing trip, the ward party… and above

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all Bromden’s killing of the post-operative McMurphy are all increasingly defying dialogues with the Combine mind. The dialogues are so violent that the Combine’s norms of madness have lost the previous prestige, and even the Combine mind is under a constant threat of disintegration. Based on the above analyses, a close relationship can be observed between madness and the hidden dialogicality in Cuckoo’s Nest: normalization and acceptance of madness, or denormalization and defiance to madness. The former stabilizes the norms of intermental madness while the latter contributes to the dynamicity of intermental madness. The change of the dialogic relationship may indeed change the judgment on madness, which will in turn bring its due impacts on and even disintegration of the Combine mind itself. Disintegration of the Combine Mind The different dialogic relationships with the Combine mind are the hidden force that fosters or undermines the power and stability of the Combine mind. The changes of the dialogic relationships bring the Combine mind from integration to disintegration. Before McMurphy’s arrival, the two intermental units—the ward unit and the patient unit—coexist in a static relationship: the ward unit adjusting and the patient unit adjusted. The basis for this stability lies in their common views on madness following the norms by the Combine mind. The ward unit is a subset of the Combine mind, and consequently it represents the Combine mind’s norms of madness. We may find that there is an overlap between the Combine mind and the ward unit in terms of their views and actions concerning madness. This relationship can be represented by the Venn diagram in Fig. 4.1. The integrity of the Combine mind depends on how well the ward unit can exert the norms on the patient unit. It is assumed that when the ward unit and patient unit share a solid basis of the norms, the Combine mind is in a state of integration; when the basis is shaken, the Combine mind is in a state of disintegration. Table 4.1 provides a detailed list of the internal dialogues on madness by the ward unit and the patient unit respectively before McMurphy’s arrival and the relationships between the two units. From Table 4.1, it can be observed that the two units are unanimous in their views on the norms of madness. Both groups believe that there is a

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CM=Combine Mind WU=Ward Unit

Fig. 4.1 The ward unit as a subset of the combine mind (Source The author)

Table 4.1 A comparison of the dialogues on madness between the ward unit and the patient unit (1) Unit norms

Who establishes the norm? What is madness? What are madmen?

How are the madmen adjusted? What are the results of adjustment?

Intermental The ward unit

The patient unit

Relationship

“…society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” “inability to adjust to society” “working toward making worthwhile citizens to turn back Outside onto the street” Therapeutic values

“It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different” “can’t adjust to our rabbithood” “rabbits” “machines with flaws inside”

Traumatic nightmares

−

“He’s adjusted to surroundings finally”

“just another robot for the Combine”

−

+ + +

Note “+” when there is an agreement between the two units; “−” when there is a disagreement between the two units (same for Table 4.2)

core group responsible for establishing the norms, and both use a vague term “society” to refer to this group. The two groups also share their views on madness as inability to adjust to the society and the madmen as worthless and inferior. Such a commonality on the norms of madness

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forms a strong basis for the stability of the Combine mind, for a controlling force can remain intact only when the controlled acknowledges and accepts its game rules. However, as for the adjustment, the two groups hold opposing views: the ward’s therapeutic practices, highly valued by the staff, are to the patients’ mind traumatic nightmares, and to the patient unit, a successful discharge from the hospital that the ward staff take so much pride in is merely another “robot” by the Combine. This indicates that given the consensus on the norms of madness, a completely harmonious co-existence of the adjusting and the adjusted is still impossible. Again, a Venn diagram helps clarify the relationships of different intermental units (see Fig. 4.2). Within this seemingly stable Combine mind (ward unit) vs. patient unit relationship, there exist, however, potential dynamic force interactions when examined under Talmy’s (2000) schematic system of force dynamics. The Agonist, i.e., the force-exerting entity, is the Combine mind (its subset the ward unit included), and the Antagonist that opposes the force by the Agonist is the patient unit. Both the Agonist and the Antagonist are intermental units, and the interactions between the two are interpsychological force interactions. The Combine mind exerts the force of social norms of madness on the patient, while the patients, with some initial resistance to the force, are much weaker and fail in the opposition movement. As a result, the normalization is successful and the Combine mind’s norms of madness are generally accepted by all members of the society. The normalization process of intermental madness can be represented by a causative type with the extended causation of motion

CM=Combine Mind WU=Ward unit PU=Patient Unit

Fig. 4.2 The interrelations of the combine mind, the ward unit and the patient unit (1) (Source The author)

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Fig. 4.3 The “causative-extended-motion” pattern (normalization)1 (Source The author)

(hereafter “causative-extended-motion”) of interpsychological force interactions (see Fig. 4.3). Upon McMurphy’s arrival and under his impact, the mind of the patient unit begins to undergo dramatic changes. Toward the end of Cuckoo’s Nest, a completely different set of norms concerning madness and reactions to the ward’s adjustment are practiced by the patients. Table 4.2 gives a full list of the patient unit’s new internal dialogues with the Combine mind and the changed relationship between the ward unit and the patient unit. Instead of submitting themselves to the Combine’s judgment, the patients hold their fate in their own hands. For example, Bromden narrates that “Sefelt and Fredrickson signed out together Against Medical Advice, and two days later another three Acutes left, and six more transferred to another ward” (Kesey, 1962: 319). The patients leave the ward one after another, and finally Bromden breaks the window and makes his escape. These actions all result from their changed views on who decides who is sane and who is not. As a result, the patients return to the society, defeating the judgment on their inability to adjust to the society. They still have their own troubles, but as Harding says: “They’re still sick men in lots of ways. But at least there’s that: they are sick men now. No more rabbits” (Kesey, 1962: 307). Clearly, concerning the norms of 1 Figure 4.3 is diagrammed based on Diagram 21 in Talmy (2000: 434). The circle in the middle represents the Agonist, and the block on its right side represents the Antagonist. The “+” sign indicates the agent is stronger in force, and the “>” sign indicates motion. “Exertion” refers to how force dynamics works interpsychologically in the psychological domain.

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Table 4.2 A comparison of the dialogues on madness between the ward unit and the patient unit (2) Unit norms

Who establishes the norm? What is madness? What are madmen?

How are the madmen adjusted? What are the results of adjustment?

Intermental The ward unit

The patient unit

Relationship

“…society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” “inability to adjust to society” “working toward making worthwhile citizens to turn back Outside onto the street” Therapeutic values

Patients decide their own fate

−

Patients return to the society “they are sick men now. No more rabbits”

−

Bromden beats the EST Bromden kills McMurphy

−

“He’s adjusted to surroundings finally”

−

−

madness, the mind of the patient unit has completely changed, in a direction that is opposite to the norms set by the Combine mind. Meanwhile, their reactions to the adjustments change from the previous agonizing experiences to challenging and even rebellious acts, as exemplified by Bromden’s success in withstanding the brain murdering EST treatment and his merciful killing of McMurphy: [4.26] I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn’t have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that. (Kesey, 1962: 322) Therefore, the patient unit’s new internal dialogues with the Combine mind alters the relationship between the ward unit and the patient unit. The Combine mind’s normalization turns into the patient unit’s denormalization. The denormalization process sees a fundamental change in the interactions of force dynamics between the Combine mind and the patient

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unit. The newly empowered Antagonist, i.e., the patient unit, successfully opposes the normalizing force from the Agonist, i.e., the Combine mind. As a result, the Combine unit’s normalization process comes to a halt. The shift in power accordingly alters the force interaction pattern. The denormalization process of intermental madness can be represented by a causative type with the extended causation of rest (hereafter “causative-extended-rest”) of interpsychological force interactions (see Fig. 4.4). When the force interaction pattern between the Agonist (the Combine mind) and the Antagonist (the patient unit) changes from the “causativeextended-motion” pattern to the “causative-extended-rest” pattern, normalization changes into denormalization. As a result, the common basis between the ward unit and the patient unit is nullified, as shown in the Venn diagram in Fig. 4.5. From Fig. 4.5, it can be observed that instead of constituting a subsection of the Combine mind as in the past, the patient unit now gains an independent status. When the controlling loses the controlled and the adjusting loses the adjusted, they renounce their basis of existence. Besides, being an opposing force, the newly independent patient unit now greatly undermines the integrity of the Combine mind, as Bromden has observed: “Maybe the Combine wasn’t all-powerful” (Kesey, 1962: 305). Based on the above discussions, it can be presently concluded that changes in the hidden dialogicality, that is, the internal dialogues between

Fig. 4.4 The “causative-extended-rest” pattern (denormalization)2 (Source The author)

2 Figure 4.4 is diagrammed based on Diagram 21 in Talmy (2000, 434). See Fig. 4.3 for the meaning of the signs.

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CM=Combine Mind WU=Ward Unit PU=Patient Unit

Fig. 4.5 The interrelations of the combine mind, the ward unit and the patient unit (2) (Source The author)

the patient unit and the Combine mind, are a hidden force that leads to the disintegration of the Combine mind. A reading from the perspective of intermental minds and its ensuing dialogicality helps the reader see madness as a function of both intramental and intermental madness (the social mind of madness). The social mind is omnipresent in every aspect of the characters’ life, albeit it is not overtly presented in the plot. In addition to revealing the relationships between intramental madness and the social mind behind, the present investigations of intermental madness, to borrow Shen’s terms, also help uncover in the novel the covert progression, “an ethical-aesthetic undercurrent running throughout the text” (Shen, 2014). That is to say, under the overt progression of the madmen’s madness in the story world, we may uncover the covert progression of the social mind of madness, an undercurrent that interweaves with the surface torrent of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest.

4.3

The Narrative Representation of Intermental Madness

Madness is intermental; it exists in a complicated relationship vis-à-vis the society. Based on the investigations in the previous two sections that mainly address the issue of “what”, the present section endeavors into the issue of “how”: how intermental madness is represented in Cuckoo’s Nest. In Chapter 2, I proposed a multi-faceted and multi-layered model to study fictional minds. This observation still remains valid. However, when I reached this conclusion in Chapter 2, my observations were largely channeled through intramental focalization, as I was mainly seeing the story world by following the first-person narrator Chief Bromden’s point

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of view. Such an intramental focalization is conducive to the representation of an individual consciousness, and it is indispensable to exploring intramental madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. Besides, some discussions, such as the embedded camera lens concerning the doctors’ diagnosis of McMurphy’s “mental disorder”, can also contribute to the understanding of the focalization strategies for “the social construction of madness”, which is a very important aspect in relation to intermental madness. However, if we treat Bromden’s point of view as the only vantage point to see the story world, then, it will be very much limited. In the present section, I further enrich discussions on the multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation by incorporating the dimension of intermental focalization. Embedded Intermental Focalization Searle (1992: 156–157) points out how our perception can be limited: “Whenever we perceive anything or think about anything, we always do so under some aspects and not others”. Palmer uses the term “aspectuality” to investigate how the story world can be aspectual: “its characters can only ever experience it from a particular perceptual and cognitive aspect at any one time” (Palmer, 2010: 12). Focalization and aspectuality, according to Palmer, complement each other: Focalization occurs when the reader is presented with the aspect of the storyworld that is being experienced by the focalizer at that moment. In this context, the concept of aspectuality serves as a reminder that, meanwhile, the storyworld is also being experienced differently, under other aspects, by all of the characters who are not currently being focalized in the text. (Palmer, 2010: 40)

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, we cannot afford to experience the story world from one point of view and remain blind to the others. Therefore, it will be equally rewarding to experience the story world from an intermental point of view. Compared with the intramental focalization, which is more consistent and overt, the intermental focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest can be much gappier and more covert, embedded within the intramental focalization

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and constituting different levels of intentionality.3 Besides, an intermental focalization does not necessarily correspond to an intermental mind: an intermental mind can be focalized through an intramental focalization and vice versa. The intermental minds can also differ in their degree of explicitness: from explicit intermental functioning in the form of intermental thought report or intermental free indirect thought to the less explicit intermental functioning conflated with other minds. At the most explicit end, we may find group minds represented in the form of intermental free indirect thought or intermental thought report. However, even this most explicit type of intermental mind is found to be embedded within layered focalization, as can be observed in excerpt [4.27]: [4.27] 1 They could sense the change that most of us were only suspecting; 2 these weren’t the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse that they’d watched take their insults on the dock this morning. 3 They didn’t exactly apologize to the girl for the things they’d said, but when they asked to see the fish she’d caught they were just as polite as pie. (Kesey, 1962: 254) Excerpt [4.27] is about the loafers’ changed attitude upon the madmen’s return from fishing. In sentences 1 and 2, three levels of intentionality can be counted: 1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how the loafers (a medium-sized intermental group) experience 3. the fact that the madmen (patient unit) changed. Level 1 is about an individual mind, whereas levels 2 and 3 are about group minds (the loafers and the madmen). Sentence 1 is focalized through a single consciousness—the narrator and character Bromden, while the focalized is the loafers’ group mind in the form of an intermental thought report. The focalization becomes more complicated at sentence 2. Focalized from a homogeneous intermental consciousness, sentence 2 is focalized on the loafers’ mind—their discovery of the 3 The term is used in line with Searle (1992) and Palmer (2010, 2011). In the philosophy of mind, it refers to the “aboutness” of mental states.

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Table 4.3 Levels of focalization Focalizer

Focalized

Intramental (Bromden) −→ Level 1 Intermental thought report

Intermental (the loafers) Level 2 Intermental free indirect thought

madmen’s changes—in the form of an intermental free indirect thought (Table 4.3). Therefore, we may find that a focalization embedding occurs at level 2, that is to say, an intermental focalization is embedded within an intramental focalization. When an intermental consciousness presents its own group mind directly through intermental focalization as exemplified by sentence 2, we may find an explicit intermental mind representation. Less explicitly, a group mind may be represented in the discourses or thoughts by its representatives or subgroups who speak on its behalf as shown in [4.28]. [4.28] “Please understand: We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of thought about their therapeutic value. A good many of you are in here because you could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World, because you refused to face up to them, because you tried to circumvent them and avoid them. At some time – perhaps in your childhood – you may have been allowed to get away with flouting the rules of society. When you broke a rule you knew it. You wanted to be dealt with, needed it, but the punishment did not come. That foolish lenience on the part of your parents may have been the germ that grew into your present illness. I tell you this hoping you will understand that it is entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline and order.” (Kesey, 1962: 199–200, my emphasis) The Big Nurse decides to punish the patients for their rebellious behaviors for watching the baseball game on TV. Excerpt [4.28] is her explanation before the announcement. Five levels of intentionality can be counted:

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1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how the Big Nurse presents 3. how the staff (ward unit) experience 4. how the patients (patient unit) experience 5. the fact that they break the rules set by the society (social mind). Levels 1 and 2 are about the individual minds (Bromden and the Big Nurse); levels 3, 4 and 5 are about the group minds (the staff, the patients and the society). Level 3 makes the most basic level of focalization because it is from the staff’s point of view that this section of the text is presented to the reader. Examined from this level of intentionality, the focalizer is a homogeneous intermental group—the ward unit, or more clearly, the staff of the mental institution, and the focalized is their thoughts from an inside view. This forms an intermental focalization at level 3. However, if we view this section of text from level 1, this intermental focalization is embedded within narrator Bromden’s intramental focalization—an internal perceptual focalization on the Big Nurse’s speech. On the other hand, if we view the same text from level 5, we may find the staff’s thoughts represent the mind of a larger intermental unit. In Section 4.1, I discussed the Combine mind as an epitome of the social forces behind madness by a psychotic mind. If we skim its delusional layer, then, what remains of the Combine mind is a social mind on madness par excellence, and it is exactly this social mind that is focalized on at level 5. In other words, the thoughts of a large intermental group are conflated with those of one of its subgroups and focalized through the intermental focalization of this subgroup. Thus, by way of conflation, the social mind is represented through the intermental focalization of its subgroup, and this exhibits a less explicit type of intermental mind representation. Experiencing the story world from such an intermental perspective may help understanding the social forces in Cuckoo’s Nest. As a member of the ward unit that is in turn a subgroup of the social mind of madness, the Big Nurse presents, from the staff’s perspective (“we”), the importance of the rules and orders to the patients: the patients are ill because they “could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World”, they “refused to face up to them”, and they “tried to circumvent them and avoid them”; it is their parents’ leniency that leads to their present “illness”, for they failed to give their children timely “punishment” when they flouted “the rules of society”; disciplines and orders are for the patients’ good. However, as a subgroup of the social mind, the staff’s view on madness represents

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that of a larger intermental group—the social mind of madness: it is the society that decides that the rule-breaking behaviors are illness to be cured by punishment for the sake of the patients. The intermental consciousness of the social mind, embedded in layered focalization, is the ultimate mind that empowers an intramental behavior—the Big Nurse’s assertion of the rules and orders—to be legitimately forced on the patients. Still less explicitly, intermental minds can be represented by the impact an intermental mind produces on the other minds. The social mind about madness has its due impacts on the patients themselves, and this may be observed from how the patients view themselves in line with the judgment on madness by the social mind. [4.29] “…But in any case, the point you bring up simply indicates that you are a healthy, functioning and adequate rabbit, whereas most of us in here even lack the sexual ability to make the grade as adequate rabbits. Failures, we are – feeble, stunted, weak little creatures in a weak little race. Rabbits, sans whambam; a pathetic notion.” … “…There’s not a man here that isn’t afraid he is losing or has already lost his whambam. We comical little creatures can’t even achieve masculinity in the rabbit world, that’s how weak and inadequate we are. Hee. We are – the rabbits, one might say, of the rabbit world!” (Kesey, 1962: 67) Excerpt [4.29] is taken from the argument between Harding and McMurphy. Four levels of intentionality can be counted in this free direct speech by Harding: 1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how Harding presents 3. how the patients (patient unit) experience 4. the fact that they are mentally ill (social mind). Levels 1 and 2 are about the individual minds (Bromden and Harding) focalized through intramental focalization; levels 3 and 4 are about intermental minds focalized through intermental focalization. The basic level of focalization is level 3, an intermental focalization where the focalizer

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is the homogeneous intermental group—the patients and the focalized is an inside view of their thoughts on their own identity: castrated feeble rabbits. Like [4.28], this intermental focalization at level 3 is embedded within the intramental perceptual focalization by the narrator at level 1, and reflects the impacts of the consciousness of a larger intermental group—the social mind of madness at level 4, for the patients’ judgment on their inadequacy corresponds to that by the social mind. If we say in [4.28] the staff interact with the social consciousness by representing it as a subgroup, then in [4.29] the patients interact with the social consciousness by acknowledging its impacts, an even less explicit way in representing the social mind of madness. Based on the above discussions, we can observe that although differing in degrees of explicitness, the intermental minds in Cuckoo’s Nest share one common feature—embeddedness. More importantly, the embedded intermental focalization contributes in many ways to the narrative representation of intermental minds, albeit there is no one-to-one correspondence between an intermental focalization and an intermental mind. This explains why the intermental consciousness is less noticeable and gappier than the predominant individual consciousness in Cuckoo’s Nest, and a close reader needs to see the story world from an intermental perspective to construct a “continuing consciousness” (Palmer, 2010: 40) for the intermental minds. However, it is important to notice that the embedded intermental consciousness, existing in juxtaposition with the intramental consciousness, is indispensable to the fundamental dialogicality of Cuckoo’s Nest. Focalization Slipping In general, the gappy intermental focalization is embedded within a dominant pattern of intramental focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest. This is based on a vertical view of focalization. If we examine the text horizontally, we may find that intermental focalization is placed in juxtaposition with intramental focalization, and thus the techniques for the transition between the two types of focalization are important areas of investigation. Leech and Short (2007) use the term “slipping” to refer to the manipulation of point of view in the representation of consciousness: a slipping occurs when the text changes from a narrative statement to an interior portrayal without the reader’s notice. After Leech and Short (2007), I use the term “focalization slipping” to refer to the switching between intramental

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focalization and intermental focalization in the text without the reader’s notice, and therefore, the reader tends to take the point of view channeled through that focalization, too. A slipping between intramental focalization and intermental focalization may occur within the thought representation as shown in excerpt [4.14]. It is reproduced below as [4.30] for the sake of convenience: [4.30] 1 Singing! 2 Everybody’s thunderstruck. 3 They haven’t heard such a thing in years, not on this ward. 4 Most of the Acutes in the dorm are up on their elbows, blinking and listening. 5 They look at one another and raise their eye-brows. 6 How come the black boys haven’t hushed him up out there? 7 They never let anybody raise that much racket before, did they? 8 How come they treat this new guy different? 9 He’s a man made outa skin and bone that’s due to get weak and pale and die, just like the rest of us. 10 He lives under the same laws, gotta eat, bumps up against the same troubles; 11 These things make him just as vulnerable to the Combine as anybody else, don’t they? (Kesey, 1962: 91–92) The Acutes are very much shocked at hearing McMurphy singing on the ward, and their mind is represented in the form of free indirect thought. However, if we examine the free indirect thought from sentence 6 to sentence 11 closely, we may notice a slipping occurs from intermental focalization to intramental focalization in this part. From sentence 6 to sentence 10,4 we may count at least three levels of intentionality: 1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how the Acutes (patient unit) experience 3. the fact that McMurphy is singing on the ward. At level 2, the Acutes’ mind is focalized through an intermental focalization. The focalizer is the homogeneous intermental group and the focalized is an inside view of their thoughts: Why isn’t McMurphy’s norm-breaking behavior harnessed? Isn’t McMurphy the same as the rest? However, the thought representation becomes more complicated in 4 The ending boundary can be fuzzy.

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sentence 11 where a characteristic word by narrator Bromden—“Combine”—catches the reader’s attention. This makes sentence 11 sound more like Bromden’s thought than the Acutes’. This induces a focalization slipping from intermental focalization to intramental focalization, where the focalizer is the narrator and the focalized is an inside view of his own thought in the form of intramental free indirect thought. In sentence 11, three levels of intentionality can be counted: 1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how he experiences 3. the fact that McMurphy is singing on the ward. The focalization slipping naturally connects the intermental consciousness with the intramental consciousness. The boundary where a slipping occurs may not be clear-cut; it can be fuzzy. In the above discussion, I counted the intermental focalization up to sentence 10; however, it is possible to read sentence 10 either as the Acutes’ intermental thought or Bromden’s intramental thought, and this makes the boundary between an intramental and an intermental focalization fuzzy. The focalization slipping enables a simultaneous representation of both the intermental and intramental consciousness—an intermental mind that is accustomed to the social norms of madness and an individual mind that is gripped by the Combine’s control. Focalization slipping may also occur between thought and action, representing an intermental thought from both the internal and external perspectives. Following Palmer’s (2004, 2010, 2011) thought-action continuum that represents a fictional mind, I use the term “intermental thought-action continuum” to refer to the representation of an intermental mind in a narrative fiction: the intermental mind can be embodied and represented by an intermental action. In Cuckoo’s Nest, a symbiotic relationship can be seen between focalization slipping and thought-action continuum. The presentation of group actions may incur an intramental focalization: the focalizer is a single consciousness and the focalized is an outside view of the group action. For example, in excerpt [4.30] sentences 4 and 5 are focalized on the Acutes’ action—their group reactions to the sound of singing—they are “up on their elbows”, “blinking” and “listening”, and they “look at one

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another” and “raise their eye-brows”. Behind the group action is a homogeneous intermental mind: curious, unbelieving and shocked. Following sentence 6, as discussed above, an embedded intermental focalization occurs and the intermental thought is represented in an intermental free indirect thought. Although sentences 4 and 5 focus on the group action whereas sentences 6–9 (or 10) focus on the intermental thoughts, they all represent the group mind, thus forming an intermental thought-action continuum. Therefore, we can see that the mode of focalization slips from an intramental to an intermental focalization within this intermental thought-action continuum. In addition, sentence 2 also deserves further attention. “Everybody’s thunderstruck” is focalized through an intramental focalization. However, is the focalized a group action or a group thought in the form of intermental thought report? The boundary seems to be fuzzy. Therefore, to add to the discussion of intermental thoughtaction continuum, we may say that it may not only join up the group action and thought; it can also be a melange of action and thought. One more example will suffice to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between focalization slipping and intermental thought-action continuum. In excerpt [4.27] discussed above, we may find in sentence 3 that when the loafers politely asked the girl to see her fish, they reveal their group mind—their newly gained respect for the girl and the madmen. The loafers’ group action described in sentence 3, together with the intermental thought report in sentence 1 and intermental free indirect thought in sentence 2, form an intermental thought-action continuum, representing the loafers’ group mind: their changed view on the madmen. Concomitantly, focalization slipping occurs as the focalizer shifts from the narrator in sentence 1 to the loafers in sentence 2, a slipping from intramental focalization to intermental focalization, and then back to intramental focalization again in sentence 3 as the focalizer shifts back to the narrator. Thanks to focalization slipping, the group actions and group minds are naturally linked together, forming intermental thought-action continuums. Thus, we may conclude that in Cuckoo’s Nest, the intermental consciousness, albeit gappy, is in juxtaposition with the intramental consciousness, and more importantly, it is as robust and physical as the intramental consciousness. Kesey’s intermental consciousness is embodied.

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Pseudo-intermental Focalization The dialogic relationship between intramental consciousness and intermental consciousness is further complicated when a pseudo-intermental focalization is involved. By pseudo-intermental focalization, I refer to the situation in which the focalizer is a single consciousness in the disguise of an intermental consciousness. [4.31] “Boys, I ’ve given a great deal of thought to what I am about to say. I ’ve talked it over with the doctor and with the rest of the staff , and, as much as we regretted it, we all came to the same conclusion—that there should be some manner of punishment meted out for the unspeakable behavior concerning the house duties three weeks ago.” She raised her hand and looked around. “We waited this long to say anything, hoping that you men would take it upon yourselves to apologize for the rebellious way you acted. But not a one of you has shown the slightest sign of remorse.” … “We must take away a privilege. And after careful consideration of the circumstances of this rebellion, we’ve decided that there would be a certain justice in taking away the privilege of the tub room that you men have been using for your card games during the day. Does this seem unfair?” (Kesey, 1962: 199–200, my emphasis) In announcing her tyrannical punishment for the patients’ TV rebellion, the Big Nurse frames her personal wish as a group decision. A pseudo-intermental focalization serves such a purpose. Four levels of intentionality can be counted in [4.31]: 1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how the Big Nurse presents 3. how the staff (ward unit) experience 4. the fact that the patients (patient unit) must experience some punishment. Levels 1 and 2 are about individual minds (Bromden and the Big Nurse), and level 3 and level 4 are about group minds (the staff and

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the patients). It is at level 3 that an intermental focalization is embedded two levels down within an intramental focalization: the focalizer is a homogenous intermental consciousness, and the focalized can be an intermental emotion (“regretted”), an intermental cognition (“conclusion”) and finally intermental actions (“waited”, “must take away” and “decided”). By resorting to an intermental focalization, the Big Nurse presents her personal desire (taking the tub room away) as an intermental decision. Thus, as shown in [4.31], when the intermental consciousness as the focalizer indeed reflects an intramental consciousness, we may have an intramental focalization in the disguise of intermental focalization, namely, a pseudo-intermental focalization. A similar example can be found in the Big Nurse’s announcement to give McMurphy a shock therapy: [4.32] She talks to him about how they, the patients downstairs on our ward, at a special group meeting yesterday afternoon, agreed with the staff that it might be beneficial that he receive some shock therapy—unless he realizes his mistakes. (Kesey, 1962: 280, my emphasis) Four levels of intentionality can be counted in [4.32]: 1. The narrator (Bromden) presents 2. how the Big Nurse presents 3. how the patients (patient unit) and the staff (ward unit) experience 4. the fact that McMurphy must experience the shock therapy. Levels 1, 2 and 4 are about individual minds, while level 3 is about group minds. Like in [4.31], the Big Nurse once again imposes her personal desire as a group decision, only to enlarge the group membership this time by including both the staff and the patients. It is the pseudointermental focalization again that serves for such a purpose. Formally, the focalizer appears to be an intermental consciousness including the staff as well as the patients, and the focalized is an inside view of the intermental decision, whereas the real focalizer is a single consciousness and the focalized is an intramental desire. That a pseudo-intermental focalization can be effectively employed by the Big Nurse for her private ends shows the prevalence of the group

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mind and its due impacts on the individual minds. This further demonstrates the dialogic relationship between an intramental consciousness and an intermental consciousness. It is in the constant dialogues with intermental consciousness that an intramental consciousness can be recognized, shaped and fortified. The Big Nurse, to gain an authoritative position, resorts to the group mind to back her up, when she senses the potential power difference in her one-vs.-many situation. The pseudointermental focalization contributes to the representation of intermental madness in two important ways. First, it shows how institutional power can be abused to serve personal interests in relation to madness. In both [4.31] and [4.32], the Big Nurse’s personal ideas of punishment, aiming at the rebellious behaviors, are focalized through an intermental consciousness as a group decision, thus authoritative and righteous. Second, it shows the ubiquitousness of social mind of madness. An intermental view has become a default perspective for people to view madness, and as a social consensus, it has ascended to such a prestigious position that even the victimized may accept it without a second thought. Pseudointermental focalization further complements intermental focalization in the representation of intermental madness. In all, I extrapolate three intermental focalization strategies that Kesey employs in representing intermental madness: intermental focalizations embedded within intramental focalizations, intermental focalizations existing in juxtaposition with intramental focalizations and pseudointermental focalizations. These are all focalization strategies indispensable to the construction of the covert, gappy yet continuous intermental consciousness of madness, contributing to the dialogic relationship between intramental and intermental consciousness. Finally, I would like to end the analyses in the present chapter by arguing that Kesey’s narrative representation of intermental madness is again not a uniquely Keseyian invention. To probe into the social nature of madness from an intermental perspective has always been an important concern by writers of madness narratives. For example, Lu Xun, a Chinese master of madness narrative, has portrayed more than once the intermental consciousness of madness in his short stories. In his “Diary of a Madman”, Lu Xun constructs an intermental cannibal consciousness. Like Bromden’s Combine, this cannibal consciousness is delusional, but it is the very force that drives the madman mad. In “The Lamp of Eternity”, Lu Xun portrays another intermental consciousness—Goodlight Villagers’ group mind—that takes the young man’s difference as madness. This

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echoes Harding’s accusation of the society’s pointing fingers at his difference that leads to his “madness”. Although these narratives are focalized through different modes of focalization, they all choose to represent intramental madness against the dialogic relationships between intermental consciousness and intramental consciousness. The writers’ consistency in their intermental representation of madness might not be simply technical coincidences; it can be their common observation on the nature of madness.

4.4

Summary

This chapter focuses on the social mad minds in fictional narratives from an external perspective. It strives for answering two basic questions about intermental madness. What is intermental madness? How is it represented? To answer the question of “what”, I conduct a case study on the Combine mind, a prototypical group mind in Cuckoo’s Nest and examine the social bases of madness. To answer the question of “how”, I investigate Kesey’s focalization strategies for the representation of intermental madness. I start my investigations of what intermental madness is from a synchronic perspective. The term “Combine mind” is coined after Bromden’s delusional concept “Combine”. It is used in the present study to refer to the social mind of madness. I begin by investigating the various intermental units in the story world. The largest intermental unit—the Combine mind—is populated with real fictional people that are also members of other small intermental units and/or medium-sized intermental units. The different intermental units under the Combine mind exist in a hierarchical relationship. Not included in but closely related to the Combine mind is a medium-sized intermental unit—the patient unit. Five linguistic devices are found to help shape a delusional concept “Combine” into a group mind: explicit reference, reference to a hypothetical group, metonymy, passive voice and presupposition. Intramental madness is to a large extent under the impact of the Combine mind that establishes the norms of madness and reinforces its normalization practices through the subordinating intermental units. Kesey’s representation of intermental madness is built upon solid social bases. In representing madness as a social construction, he challenges the highly subjective nature of the diagnosis process of mental illness by fashioning it as a ridiculous intermental decision. Besides, via

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Bromden’s literalization, an idiosyncratic conceptualization strategy by a schizophrenic mind, he represents how the doctors can “materialize” a patient through their words. He even pushes the concept further by portraying madness as a technical output of modern science and technology. Meanwhile, Kesey sees the madmen not merely as the passive products of social construction; they are sometimes actively involved in the construction process. Kesey also sees madness as an ontological insecurity. The patients’ madness, from an existential perspective, can be understood as their efforts to preserve their identity in facing anxiety and danger. By building his understanding of madness on the aforementioned two social bases, Kesey launches his critiques of the Kraepelin-type positivist psychiatry. For one thing, by representing madness as a social construction, Kesey portrays madness as a difference most noticeably through the protagonist McMurphy (other madmen also included), and the mental institution as a coercive instrument for oppression. For another, in seeing madness as an ontological insecurity, Kesey challenges the Kraepelin-type positivism underlying psychiatry by portraying it as behavioristic and mechanistic. In tackling the social bases of madness, Kesey further enriches the existential literature. From a diachronic perspective, intermental madness is seen as dynamic, subject to change based on the force interaction patterns of the constitutive intermental units. The different intermental units are dialoguing with the Combine mind in various manners. When the patient unit is dialoguing with the Combine mind in a complying voice, a “causativeextended-motion” pattern of interpsychological force interaction is seen under the Combine mind’s successful normalization. When the patient unit is dialoguing with the Combine mind in a defying voice, a “causativeextended-rest” pattern of interpsychological force interaction is seen under the patient unit’s denormalization. As a result, the basis of intermental madness is shaken, and hence the Combine mind goes from integration to disintegration. Finally, in the present chapter I investigate Kesey’s focalization strategies for representing intermental madness. To address this task, I incorporate the intermental dimension in my multi-faceted and multi-layered model of focalization and mental representation. First, from a vertical view, it is found that Kesey embeds intermental focalizations within intramental focalizations to represent intermental minds with different degrees of explicitness. Second, from a horizontal view, it is found that Kesey employs intermental focalizations in juxtaposition with intramental

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focalizations by means of focalization slipping. The focalization slipping joins up intermental consciousness with intramental consciousness and connects group action with thought in a thought-action continuum. Third, pseudo-intermental focalizations, in which an intramental focalization appears in the disguise of an intermental focalization, are employed to represent a personal desire as a group thought, testifying the prevalence of intermental madness. Thanks to these focalization strategies, the covert, gappy yet continuous intermental consciousness of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest becomes both robust and physical, engaged in a dialogic relationship with intramental consciousness.

References American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing. Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (C. Emerson, Ed. & Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Brown, P. (1990). The name game: Toward a sociology of diagnosis. The Journal of Mind and Behaviour, 11(3/4), 385–406. Burns, T. (2006). Psychiatry: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Cooper, D. (1967). Psychiatry and anti-psychiatry. Routledge. Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens: Body, emotion and the making of consciousness. Heinemann. Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason (R. Howard, Trans.). Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (2006). Psychiatric power: Lectures at the Collège de France 1973– 1974 (G. Burchell, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan. Kesey, K. (1962). One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Signet. Laing, R. D. (1990). The divided self: An existential study in sanity and madness. Penguin Books. Leech, G., & Short, M. (2007). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose (2nd ed.). Pearson Education Ltd. Lodge, D. (1992). The art of fiction: Illustrated from classic to modern text. Viking Press. Lu, X. (2009a). Diary of a madman (J. Lovell, Trans.). In The real story of Ah-Q and other tales of China (pp. 21–31). Penguin Books. Lu, X. (2009b). The lamp of eternity (J. Lovell, Trans.). In The real story of Ah-Q and other tales of China (pp. 206–215). Penguin Books. MacMurray, J. (1957). The self as agent. Faber & Faber.

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May, R. (1958). The origins and significance of the existential movement in psychology. In R. May, E. Angel, & H. F. Ellenberger (Eds.), Existence: A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology (pp. 3–36). Basic Books. Palmer, A. (2004). Fictional minds. University of Nebraska Press. Palmer, A. (2010). Social minds in the novel. The Ohio State University Press. Palmer, A. (2011). Social minds in fiction and criticism. Style, 45(2), 196–240. Sarbin, T. R. (1990). Toward the obsolescence of the schizophrenia hypothesis. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 11(3/4), 259–283. Searle, J. R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. MIT Press. Semino, E., & Swindlehurst, K. (1996). Metaphor and mind style in Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Style, 30(1), 143–166. Shen, D. (2014). Style and rhetoric of short narrative fiction: Covert progressions behind overt plots. Routledge. Szasz, T. S. (1974). The myth of mental illness: Foundation of a theory of personal conduct (Revised ed.). Harper & Row. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Concept structuring systems (Vol. 1). MIT Press. Torn, A. (2009). Madness and narrative understanding: A comparison of two female firsthand narratives of madness in the pre and post enlightenment periods. Doctoral dissertation, University of Bradford.

CHAPTER 5

Toward a Social Cognitive Understanding of Minds and Madness

This chapter addresses the nexus between fiction and cognition based on the exploration of the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest, aiming to formulate a social cognitive understanding of minds and madness. It begins by defining the Keseyian madness as a polysemous concept and a scalar phenomenon, offering an innovative interpretation to madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. Then, it focuses on the cognitive value of madness narratives by examining Cuckoo’s Nest as a cognitive experimentation. In line with a social cognitive understanding of minds and madness, the last two sections discuss the novelists’ contribution and what madness narratives contribute to our understanding of human minds by drawing on two analogies: Kesey as a psychologist and Cuckoo’s Nest as a source book of psychology.

5.1

Madness as a Scalar Phenomenon

As an epitome of madness in the world, the madness in Cuckoo’s Nest is a mental illness as well as a social malady. The intramental dimension and the intermental dimension are intertwined in madness, while the two dimensions have different degrees of manifestation in each individual madness. The quintessence of the Keseyian madness is a polysemous concept and a melange of cognitive dysfunctions and social differences.

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The Keseyian madness opens a window to a scale of madness in the real world. Multi-Focalization for a Polysemous Madness Narrated by the schizophrenic narrator Bromden, the Keseyian madness is represented in a mosaic of narratives. However, the reader may find that instead of being disturbed by the seemingly lack of coherence in the narrator’s discourse, one is deeply engrossed in the story world. Why? Admittedly, a partial answer may reside in the defamiliarizing effect produced by the narrative form: “The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult” (Shklovsky, 1965 [1917]: 12). However, the charm of the mosaic does not stop at its aesthetic value; it is Kesey’s unique perspective of madness that adds meaning to it. Each constituent of the mosaic is focalized through the narrator in a particular mental state, and thus, the mosaic is a revivification of the world in a schizophrenic narrator’s eyes. The gappy yet continuous intermental focalization also adds to the mosaicism in Cuckoo’s Nest. The seemingly disconnected narratives are inherently coherent, the centripetal force being the mad minds through which “madness” is displayed to the “normal”. Kesey’s multi-layered and multi-faceted focalization technically renders such a multi-dimensional view of madness possible. In addition, Kesey’s artistic sagacity does not stop at building up an intriguing fictional world of madness; it also contributes to a polysemous concept of madness. The co-existence of minds. Thanks to Kesey’s ingenious focalization strategy, the reader may find that in Cuckoo’s Nest the same character can be both sane and insane and that all the characters are mad in one way or another. In other words, instead of having one single mind, each character has several minds at the same time, while the difference oftentimes lies in the vantage point from which the mind is viewed. With his multi-layered and multi-faceted focalization, Kesey adroitly creates a co-existence of minds in the mad world of the cuckoo’s nest. Kesey’s multi-layered and multi-faceted focalization offers the reader a chance to view madness as a cluster of different types. Under this view, one “mad” mind may simultaneously exhibit a cognitive dysfunction, or a social difference, or both, with various degrees in between. A classic scene in Cuckoo’s Nest that I examined in detail in Chapters 2 and 3 is when Bromden, in his hallucination, sees the Big Nurse turns into a tractor: “she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell

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the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load” (Kesey, 1962: 5). In what follows, I reexamine this scene, but this time from the perspective of how Kesey’s focalization strategy contributes to the different types of “madness” that co-exist in one “mad” mind. Focalized internally through narrator Bromden, the above scene is an outside view of the physical transformation of the Big Nurse from a woman into a tractor, a perceptual facet of focalization. Of course, such a reading can be immediately dismissed by the reader as a narrative delirium based on his/her world knowledge, and the reader naturally seeks an explanation of this bizarre account from the narrator’s mental state. Then, a second layer of focalization through the psychological facet offers a plausible answer: cognitively focalized, this is an inside view of the free-floating notions (Frith, 1992) of Bromden’s thought, and the tractor and the smell come from his psychotic mind. This vantage point shows madness as a mental illness. However, to a close reader, a question may arise: why does it have to be a huge tractor instead of something else in Bromden’s hallucination? The answer lies in two more layers of focalization. Focalized through the psychological facet again but this time emotively, the bigness reflects Bromden’s deeply held fear out of his ontological insecurity. A distinctive feature of Bromden’s mind style can be understood in the metaphor—POWERFUL IS BIG (Semino & Swindlehurst, 1996), and in his delirium, he has a natural fear for colossal objects. This vantage point reveals madness as socially rooted. Focalized through the ideological facet, this machinery imagery reflects another distinctive feature in Bromden’s mind style—PEOPLE ARE MACHINES (Semino & Swindlehurst, 1996), and this explains why the Big Nurse turns into a tractor instead of, for example, a blood and flesh monster in Bromden’s hallucination. By endowing Bromden with a mechanistic mind style, Kesey directs the reader’s attention to the mechanistic and behavioristic practices of modern psychiatry, adding one more dimension to view madness. Therefore, by focalizing the same incident through multiple focalizations, Kesey constructs a heterogeneous madness that simultaneously ranges over the cognitive and social dimensions. In addition, Kesey interweaves present tense with past tense in constructing the mad and sane world in Cuckoo’s Nest. The jigsaw pattern of tenses and the ensuing three cognitive facets of focalization (interactional, concurrent and evidentiary) technically produce the artistic effect of the simultaneous co-existence of different minds within one character.

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The switching of the different cognitive facets of focalization in Cuckoo’s Nest guides the reader to Bromden’s different interactions with the event frame. By focalizing on the same event through different types of attention windowing, Kesey complements Genette’s (1980) multiple focalization from a cognitive dimension. Based on his studies on epistolary novels, Genette (1980: 190) points out that “the same event may be evoked several times according to the point of view of several letterwriting characters”, and christens it multiple focalization which forms a subtype of the internal focalization along with fixed and variable focalization. Based on Kesey’s three cognitive facets of focalization, we may speculate that had Genette included Cuckoo’s Nest in his sample texts, he might have added in the multiple focalization, besides different characters, different mental states of the same character. This speculation may somewhat sound offhanded, but Kesey’s focalization strategy does effectively contribute to this co-existence of minds in fictional narratives. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that, in a somewhat exaggerated fashion, Kesey’s artistic design of focalization technically makes it possible for the reader to see madness as a matter of point of view. In Chapters 2 and 3, I discussed in detail how Kesey employs the concurrent and evidentiary facets of focalization to represent a mad mind and a sane mind, respectively. For example, when Bromden says “I stand, stood up slowly, feeling numb between the shoulders” (Kesey, 1962: 287), the same action “standing” is focalized twice through two different perspectives: the first being the experiencing self’s struggle against the EST in a psychotic state, a concurrent facet of focalization; the second being a retrospective self’s sober account, an evidentiary facet of focalization. The concurrence of the two mental states in narrating one event indicates that the same mind can be simultaneously viewed both as sane and as insane. By focalizing on the same event this way, Kesey reconsiders and challenges the binary opposition between the sane and the insane and the absolute view of madness. The polysemous concept of madness. In Cuckoo’s Nest, the mad minds and sane minds, the individual minds of madness and the social minds of madness are all mingled together. The complexity of the mad minds gives rise to the multiple meanings of madness. To Kesey’s understanding, madness is never a concept with a single sense; it is polysemous. The coexistence of minds in Cuckoo’s Nest best serves the polysemy of madness. By enriching its intension and blurring the boundary of its extension,

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Kesey’s polysemous understanding of “madness” has greatly innovated the concept of literary madness. At an intramental level, when an incident lends itself to multiple focalizations through different layers and facets, each mind viewed reveals a different sense of madness. These minds form a cluster of different senses that are encompassed within the intension of the concept of madness. For example, when Bromden sees the Big Nurse “blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load” (Kesey, 1962: 5), two senses of madness can be derived from a reading through the psychological facet of focalization. The reading of Bromden’s bizarre account as his schizophrenic symptom from the vantage point of cognition furnishes the first sense of the concept—madness as a cognitive dysfunction. From the vantage point of emotion, the reading of Bromden’s fear of “bigness” gives rise to the second sense of the concept of madness—madness as an ontological insecurity stemmed from social differences. When the same scene is focalized through the ideological facet, the reading of Bromden’s mechanistic mind style reveals the third sense—madness as a product of the modern industrial society, or in Bromden’s idiosyncratic term—the Combine. Indeed, Kesey’s view of madmen as a product of the society lies in the heart of his definition of madness. In addition to the aforementioned mechanistic mind style, an indirect representation of madness as a social product, Kesey also explicitly mentions on several occasions the madmen are the product of the Combine—the hallucinating narrator Bromden’s all-powerful organization that runs the society. For example: [5.1] Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine’s product, the Chronics. Not in the hospital, these, to get fixed, but just to keep them from walking around the street giving the product a bad name. (Kesey, 1962: 15, my emphasis) In various ways, we may find that this madness-as-social-product sense of madness, as a recurrent theme, manifests itself in Cuckoo’s Nest. Admittedly, the above-listed senses are only three of the most important senses of the Keseyian madness. However, they neatly demonstrate Kesey’s polysemous understanding of madness in constructing the coexistence of different minds in one individual: the individual madness is

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a function of cognitive dysfunctions and social impacts. Such an understanding not only enriches the intension of the concept of madness, but also helps bring coherence to the mosaic of narratives in Cuckoo’s Nest. The seemingly incoherent narratives are manifestations of the different senses of madness joined together. Bromden’s schizophrenia, according to Frith (1992), is a mental disorder resulting from his impaired metarepresentation mechanism that leads to his disordered self-awareness. Therefore, from a cognitive perspective, what is at issue in madness is metarepresentation: one is mad when one fails to metarepresent; one is not mad when one is able to metarepresent. As a matter of fact, the disordered self-awareness is common among all the inmates (McMurphy excluded). This explains why Harding is regarded mentally ill but McMurphy is not, when both of them are deviant—Harding is homosexual1 and McMurphy “fights too much and fucks too much” (Kesey, 1962: 14). It is simply because Harding loses his self-awareness while McMurphy safeguards his. Many of the madmen’s signs and symptoms can be understood as their desperate efforts to keep their sense of self from breaking apart. Likewise, intermental focalization further contributes to the polysemous understanding of madness. In Cuckoo’s Nest, madness is defined unequivocally from a social dimension: “society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” (Kesey, 1962: 49), as Doctor Spivey has made it clear in his announcement. Embedded within Doctor Spivey’s intramental focalization is an intermental focalization, through which madness is defined by an intermental group—society. This adds one more sense to the concept of madness—madness is defined by the society. In a similar vein, when the Big Nurse mentions “[a] good many of you are in here because you could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World” (Kesey, 1962: 199), the same sense of madness—madness-as-social-definition—is conveyed through the embedded intermental focalization. The list of the senses contained in the Keseyian madness can be further expanded if one cares to, but so far it suffices to show the polysemous feature of Kesey’s concept of madness.

1 In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as an illness category from the DSM . It is replaced by several terms that went through several changes, and in 2013, in the DSM-5, it evolved into gender dysphoria, a term that emphasizes the distress a person feels about the mismatch between his/her gender identity and the sex at birth. DSM-5 excludes gender nonconformity from gender dysphoria.

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This said, we cannot, however, equate a particular type of focalization with a certain sense of “madness”. The relationship between focalization and the meaning of madness can never be simplified as such. It is possible, for example, to see madness as an ontological insecurity or madness as a social product through both an intramental focalization and an intermental focalization. What is at issue is that the different types of focalization offer the vantage points from which the different minds are viewed, and accordingly, the different senses of the concept of madness. In addition to the enriched intension, Kesey’s focalization strategy also contributes to an expanded extension of the concept of madness. His ingenious design of the two-minds-in-one-person challenges the default extension of the concept of madness. When madness becomes a matter of point of view, the default binary opposition between the sane and the insane is deconstructed, and madness, without a definite boundary, becomes a concept with fuzzy extension. Meanwhile, the default division between the “mad” and the “sane” in the “normal” world is trespassed. In Cuckoo’s Nest, the Big Nurse is vindictive, Doctor Spivey is ineffectual, the black aids are sadistic, and the inmates are witty and fun-loving. Therefore, in Cuckoo’s Nest, the “normal” are also mad and the “mad” are also sane. The “sane” and the “insane” are not categorically different; their sanity differs in degree and is determined by the vantage point from which they are viewed. Instead of contrasting the sane and the insane as black and white, Kesey makes the boundary between the two a grey area, and the judgment is subject to the point of view from which the same mind is approached. Endowing madness with a fuzzy extension, Kesey has enriched the concept by breaking its traditional self-contained territory. The Keseyian madness is a polysemous concept. Kesey redefines madness as a relatively open set, the intension being fluid and nonfinite and the extension being fuzzy. Instead of seeing madness as a concept consisting of two separate senses—illness and deviancy—that keep a clear boundary for each, he turns it into a concept with which the demarcation between the two senses becomes blurred. Imprisoned in the cuckoo’s nest are the madmen that showcase this definition of madness— there are the breathing “vegetables” who are socially dysfunctional, the schizophrenic Chief Bromden who feigns to be deaf and dumb, the homosexual Harding, the stuttering Billy Bibbit … and McMurphy who is simply deviant because he “fights too much and fucks too much” (Kesey, 1962: 14) and comes to the mental institution to escape the drudgery

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of the work farm. The fact that this weird assortment of madmen is co-hospitalized in the same mental institution may indicate in itself the featured hybridity in the definition of madness. In addition, the boundary between saneness and insaneness also becomes less distinct—the same person can be simultaneously mad and sane, as demonstrated by the concurrence of mental states through the concurrent facet of focalization. Kesey’s polysemous understanding of madness innovates the concept of literary madness. A polysemous madness via a multi-faceted and multi-layered focalization as examined above is a narrative strategy Kesey uses frequently in Cuckoo’s Nest. As a narrative pattern, it is Kesey’s technical innovation of literary madness. This said, one must not take the different facets of focalization as Kesey’s invention; they are not. Yet when the different facets are systematically layered up, it introduces a narrative polysemy in the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, perfectly matching the polysemous concept of madness. And it is at this point that his narrative innovation strikes a chord. Madness of various kinds through history finds its counterpart in the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest. To Kesey, the mad can be sagacious, an understanding that is akin to the Renaissance view of madness. He lavishly praises madness by making Harding sound like a sage and endowing McMurphy with a Christ-like savior’s image (e.g., Hicks, 2007 [1981]; Slater, 2007 [1988]; Vitkus, 1994). Madness in Cuckoo’s Nest is carnivalesque (e.g., Goluboff, 1991), the fool being the witty. To Kesey, the mad can also be deviant—“It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different” (Kesey, 1962: 308)—as demonstrated by the protagonist McMurphy and the homosexual Harding. To a Chinese reader, this madness-as-socialdifference judgment can be reminiscent of the madman in Lu Xun’s “The Lamp of Eternity” (Lu, 2009b)—the young man is considered mad by the villagers simply because of his persistence on putting off the lamp, a deviancy in the villagers’ eyes. Recognizing madness as a deviancy, however, Kesey does not simply dismiss madness as a social problem. Instead, he describes the various signs and symptoms of the inmates’ mental disorders with such great medical accuracy that the madness in Cuckoo’s Nest may even be used as textbook examples to illustrate the corresponding diagnosis criteria in DSM -5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Besides, as discussed above, his descriptions of Bromden’s schizophrenia fit perfectly into the cognitive neuropsychologist Frith’s

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(1992) theory of schizophrenia—a cognitive impairment of the metarepresentation mechanism that leads to one’s disordered self-awareness. Kesey also unequivocally expresses his dissent for the mechanistic and behavioristic therapeutic practices prevalent in the mental institutions of his day, and devotes a large portion of the novel to depicting the dismal reality: pills, injections, seclusion rooms, EST, lobotomy and so forth. When Bromden in his delusional manner calls a successful discharge from the hospital “another robot for the Combine” (Kesey, 1962: 17), it clearly shows Kesey’s ironic attitude toward the mechanistic practices. Kesey is obviously more sympathetic to a humanistic approach to madness, and in his representation of the consciousness crisis of the inmates, he is probing into the social dimension of mental illness—madness as an ontological insecurity. Thus, in Cuckoo’s Nes t, the deviant McMurphy cures but the professional medical staff do not, for McMurphy helps the inmates restore their self-awareness whereas the Big Nurse castrates the men mentally. Here, a close reader versed in Laing’s monograph The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (1990) may detect an intertextual voice. Kesey’s enriched concept of madness comes as a result of his synthesizing various traditions of madness and civilization and reproducing them in the fictional world of a mental institution. In Kesey’s representation of madness, the reader sees the reflection of a range of literary works with their due concern on madness or human mental functioning: the carnival imagery in Cervantes or Rabelais, the medical accuracy of the psychotic signs and symptoms in Lu Xun, and the keen observations on memory and consciousness in Proust, Joyce and Woolf, among others. The reader can also see in Kesey’s representation of madness his social concerns—an existential and humanistic understanding of madness in the anti-psychiatry movements of his day. In a theater of the absurd, Kesey unfolds an encyclopedic understanding of madness and offers his reader a literary madness so rich in its intension and so fuzzy in its extension that probably no single work prior to Kesey has included them all in one. Kesey’s innovation of the concept of literary madness is a great literary legacy. The Cognitive and Social Dimensions of Madness Kesey’s innovation of literary madness represents a milestone in the development of this concept. In constructing a kaleidoscopic world of madness,

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instead of presenting a random assortment of different understandings of madness, Kesey systematically unites its different senses into a coherent whole along two dimensions: the cognitive dimension and the social dimension. When madness is represented in the sense of mental dysfunction, it is essentially defined from a cognitive dimension. The various psychotic signs and symptoms such as Bromden’s hallucinations and delusions, according to cognitive neuropsychology, can all be boiled down to an impaired cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation. A direct consequence of metarepresentation defect is the madmen’s disordered selfawareness. By defining madness as a cognitive dysfunction, Kesey recognizes madness as a mental illness, and to seek the root of madness, instead of considering the etiology, he turns to the general cognitive mechanism. Kesey’s cognitive position is also evident in his dynamic representation of madness: the mad minds are not static, and any change that happens to the metarepresentation mechanism will have a direct impact on their mental states. Kesey’s cognitive understanding of madness gives metarepresentation its central position in his definition of madness. Meanwhile, Kesey’s social understanding of madness gives rise to many other senses of this concept. Kesey neatly sums up madness as the Combine’s product, a schizophrenic’s delusional term that wittily demonstrates madmen as a product of the maddening society, or intramental mental illness as a consequence of intermental madness. From the perspective of existential psychology and psychiatry, the disordered selfawareness explains for the lack of ontological security that leads to the individual’s psychosis, while the individual’s familial or social environment is often found to have a direct impact on his/her ontological insecurity. Thus, Kesey’s social position, on a par with his cognitive position, also underpins his polysemous concept of madness. Like the mosaic narratives that are inherently coherent, the seemingly dispersed senses of the Keseyian madness form a logical connection. Of the various senses, “madness-as-cognitive-dysfunction” forms the core sense of the concept of madness. Individual madness is known as a cognitive dysfunction, the root residing in a person’s impaired metarepresentation mechanism. With metarepresentation defect, one may have disordered self-awareness, which can be shown in psychotic signs and symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions. Meanwhile, a madman’s psychotic signs and symptoms can also be understood as a man’s desperate effort in coping with ontological insecurity crises, thus the sense

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of “madness-as-ontological-insecurity”. Via self-awareness, the sense of “madness-as-ontological-insecurity” from a social dimension is mapped onto the sense of “madness-as-cognitive-dysfunction” from a cognitive dimension, forming the second layer of the senses of the concept. Still on a larger peripheral, the other senses of madness from the social dimension, such as “madness-as-social-difference”, “madness-as-social-product” and “madness-as-social-definition”, can be connected, in one way or another, to the sense of “madness-as-ontological-insecurity”, constituting the third layer of the senses of the concept of madness (see Fig. 5.1). Thus, the Keseyian madness is essentially a social cognitive understanding of madness. To fully comprehend Kesey’s social cognitive position of madness, it is, however, also necessary to place it within a larger context beyond the novel itself—the famous 1960s, a turbulent decade of social, political and cultural conflicts in the West in general and in the industrial society of America in particular. Examined against the backdrops of the American society in the 1960s, Kesey’s concern with

Social Difference

Ontological Insecurity

Metarepresentation Cognitive Dysfunction

Social Definition

Social Product

Fig. 5.1 Senses of madness and their interrelations (Source The author)

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the interactions between the intramental and intermental dimensions of madness is not unique. In an age of socio-political totalitarianism reinforced by technocracy, Kesey is not alone in having a “fascinated revulsion towards totalitarian ordering and temperament” (Widmer, 1975: 123), thematizing social contradictions as individual mental disorders. This social-contradictions-personal-crisis theme can also be easily found in other madness narratives of the said era, such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America (1967), Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night (1968) and so forth. These narratives “transform deep social contradictions into a dynamic of personal crisis, a sense of there being no comfortable place in the world for the private self” (Ohmann, 1983: 218). Indeed, this theme is so prevalent that it can be seen as a typical literary feature of the 1960s in America. In addition, Kesey’s obsession with human minds represents another typical literary feature of the madness narratives of the 1960s. In this cluster of narratives, there is a new emphasis on consciousness, which exists, explicitly or implicitly, in almost all the important madness novels of the sixties, for example, Heller’s Yossarian, Pynchon’s Rachel Owlglass and Styron’s Nat Turner, among others. Kesey’s social and cognitive understanding of madness represents the literary trends of his time. Kesey also distinguishes himself with a consummate fusion of the cognitive and social dimensions by pushing the polemics between the institutions and individuals to their logical extremes, each distinctive yet fuzzy. Admittedly, the existent literature has touched upon the essence of the Keseyian madness. For example, following Laing (1967), Mills (1972) makes a connection of Bromden’s psychosis with his childhood memories and further argues that madness is the out-of-step of the “normal” society. Kunz (1975) and Killian (1981), based on their investigations of the madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, reveal that Kesey exposes the oppressive force of mental institutions in their treatment of the madmen. Insightful as these observations are, their treatments of the Keseyian madness may appear in a somewhat piecemeal fashion and rarely render a comprehensive view. In the current research, the polysemous interpretation of the Keseyian madness is conducive to a comprehensive view of madness. In addition, it also demonstrates the feasibility and practicality of applying the findings from the cognitive science of real minds to the study of literary madness.

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A Scale of Madness Kesey’s social cognitive understanding of madness redefines literary madness by modifying it into a polysemous concept with an open set of senses. This definition of madness, challenging the default binary opposition between the mad and the reason, furnishes a new view of madness as a scalar phenomenon. The discussions on the extension of the Keseyian madness indicate that the natural boundary between the sane and the insane in Cuckoo’s Nest is trespassed. In Cuckoo’s Nest, the madmen are a group of inmates confined in the mental institution. In contrast to the madmen, the Big Nurse and her cohorts are par excellence the “reason” in Foucault’s (1988) parlance, or the “normal” according to Laing’s definition: There are forms of alienation that are relatively strange to statistically “normal” forms of alienation. The “normally” alienated person, by reason of the fact that he acts more or less like everyone else, is taken to be sane. Other forms of alienation that are out of step with the prevailing state of alienation are those that are labelled by the “normal” majority as bad or mad. (Laing, 1967: 24)

Following the default judgment, we may see in Cuckoo’s Nest an opposition between the sane and the insane (Fig. 5.2): However, more often than not, Kesey’s fuzzy extension of madness reminds the reader of a different point of view. For example, McMurphy finds the patients sane: “I been surprised how sane you guys all are” (Kesey, 1962: 65), while Bromden finds the Big Nurse is “madder and more frustrated than ever, madder’n I ever saw her get” (Kesey, 1962: 98). Following this point of view, we may find that there is no unbridgeable trench between the mad and the reason. Besides, the direction of the scale, unlike the commonly held unidirectional belief that the mad

The

The

Mad

Reason

Fig. 5.2 A default view of the mad vs. the reason (Source The author)

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are insane and the reason are sane, can be reversed, depending on the criteria for (in)sanity. Accordingly, it is perfectly possible to view the Big Nurse as the insane and the inmates as the sane (see Fig. 5.3). The mad and the reason are the two poles on a scale of madness, while a number of components of madness, ranging from a cognitive dysfunction to a social difference and the various combination of the two, fill in the space in between. The different senses of madness discussed in section “Multi-Focalization for a Polysemous Madness” directly or indirectly make their way into the scale. Therefore, madness, to Kesey’s understanding, instead of being a binary opposition between the mad and the reason, or the abnormal and the normal, is a scalar phenomenon. Accordingly, a scale of madness can be formulated as below (see Fig. 5.4): By applying a scalar point of view to madness, Kesey challenges the “language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about madness” (Foucault, 1988: x–xi), and invites the reader to reevaluate the traditional division between the sane and the insane. The scale of madness, an understanding of madness derived from both a cognitive and a social dimension, may shed light on a new interpretation of Cuckoo’s Nest. As a modern classic, Cuckoo’s Nest has been widely researched. A large scholarship is devoted to the novel as an anti-authoritarian political criticism targeting at the American or Western industrial culture, especially the hegemonic power of the American capitalism (e.g., Abootalebi, 2018; Hicks, 2007 [1981]; Kaiser, 2015; Mills, 1972; Rochefort, 2018; Vitkus, 1994). Some other researchers see Cuckoo’s Nes t as a valuable source for exploring the American Indian’s dispossession problems and identity crisis (e.g., Leise, 2018; Reis, 2016; Ware, 1986). There is also a large body of research on Kesey’s critiques of the oppressing role of modern mental institutions and the mechanistic and behavioristic practices of psychiatry or his commitment to a humanistic psychiatry (e.g., Howlett, 1995; Killian, 1981; Kunz, 1975; Mills, 1972). As a matter of fact, Kesey’s critiques of the therapeutic practices in the mental institution have made such a strong social impact that in the medical field some of these practices, especially EST and lobotomy, have aroused great controversies and have been called into question. The aforementioned are but three of a large number of the values that researchers have found in Cuckoo’s Nest. Given the abundance of literature, one may

The Reason The Mad

Fig. 5.3 A Keseyian view of the mad and the reason (Source The author)

The Mad The Reason

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sane the reason normal

insane deviant

insane

pathological the mad sane

Fig. 5.4 A scale of madness (Source The author)

doubt if any new pursuit in this line can still come to fruition. To address this doubt, the scalar reading of madness in the current research can probably offer some fresh thoughts. It is true that great writers, for the most part, are great social critics, and a good many writers have taken it as their social responsibility to address the mental traumas of their people and lash on the social maladies. Kesey is no exception. However, when Kesey addresses the individual’s healing power, he distinguishes himself by not only lashing on the social cancers like most writers do, but also offering a potential way to understand madness and approach the mad minds. According to the scalar view of madness, Cuckoo’s Nest, populated with both the sane madmen and mad sane men, is a fictional world in which the default unreconcilable dividing line between the mad and the sane is thawed. Conceptually, this fictional truth overthrows the default dichotomy of the mad and the reason. Therefore, a diversified co-existence of the mad and the reason in a pluralistic world becomes an inevitable fact, a fact to be acknowledged and accepted rather than to be annulled. Such an understanding of madness may fundamentally bring about two consequences: first, the madmen are not inferior social beings; second, the mental institutions are not entitled to the absolute oppressive power over the madmen in the name of treatment. This new power relation may fundamentally shake the structural basis of modern mental institutions. Recognizing the pluralistic co-existence of the mad and the reason, Kesey, however, does not wipe out the inherent defect in the cognitive mechanism of the mad minds. He sees the nexus of cognitive and social factors that lead to the impaired metarepresentation mechanism as the very root from which madness is stemmed. Accordingly, he is prone to the therapeutic practices that are conducive to fostering a person’s metarepresentational ability, and he is against the mechanistic and behavioristic therapeutic practices that may potentially debilitate, maim or even disable one’s metarepresentation mechanism.

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Seeing madness as an open set with nonfinite senses that co-exist on the madness scale, Kesey endows madness with a positive meaning. Instead of seeing madness as a solely passive social product, as many writers do, Kesey also sees madness as an active construct that is capable of selfconstruction and growth provided it is understood and approached in a right way. This adds a new meaning to madness that is missing in the majority of madness narratives that similarly launch their attacks on the social evils. For example, Lu Xun, the precursor to modern Chinese literature, has portrayed madness with equal medical accuracy and attacked the maddening society as, if not more, relentlessly. By creating his series of madmen, Lu Xun aspires to change people’s spirit, but in the fictional worlds of his madmen, none of them seems to make a dent on the society: the madman in “Diary of a Madman” (Lu, 2009a) healed and took an official position; Chen Shicheng in “The White Light” (Lu, 2009c) died; the madman in “The Lamp of Eternity” (Lu, 2009b) ended up being locked up in the temple. The Luxunian madness is beyond hope. Similarly, James Joyce has unprecedentedly exposed the social paralysis of the Irish society in his Dubliners (2005 [1914]), but he offers no solution to the paralysis. In contrast, the Keseyian madmen are potentially more constructive with their self-healing power. Writing in an age when an inward look into consciousness becomes a new literary emphasis, Kesey treats madness beyond a deplorable pathological product of social oppression and persecution. His madness scale is a natural outcome of his time; it is also his ingenious contribution to understanding madness in particular and the human minds in general. My interest in the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest has motivated me to turn to the cognitive science of the real mind, including psychology, neuroscience and cognitive linguistics, for an interpretation of the fictional minds, and the results are rewarding: in tandem with the discoveries of the fictional characters’ mental functioning and the reader’s construal processes, the present study both defines madness as a scalar phenomenon and offers a new way to discuss it. In addition, the research finding of madness as a scalar phenomenon further demonstrates that narratives, as a basic human strategy to come to terms with the world, can be feasibly as well as fruitfully studied with the conceptual apparatus of cognitive science.

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5.2

Madness as Cognitive Experimentation

The natural kinship of Cuckoo’s Nest and cognitive science is not limited to a cognitive interpretation of the Keseyian madness only; Cuckoo’s Nest is in itself a testing ground for cognitive science. In his constant pursuit of the understanding of human consciousness, Kesey tantalizes with the metarepresentation mechanism in a mosaic of narratives of the mad minds, intuiting an important cognitive theory of schizophrenia that cognitive scientists come to know decades later. Meanwhile, Kesey also exploits the reader’s metarepresentational ability by introducing the unreliable narrator Bromden, making the ensuing reading experience akin to metarepresentation games. In addition, the reading experience, with its impacts on the reader’s consciousness, can be cognitively valuable. Kesey experiments with the metarepresentation mechanism in both his portrayal of the mad minds and his handling of the reader’s reaction to the novel, and in this sense, Cuckoo’s Nest can be regarded as a testing ground for the cognitive theory of consciousness. A Cognitive Impairment In 1962, the year of Cuckoo’s Nest, psychologists had no idea that defects in a general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation—could be crucial for the production of certain types of mental disorder. About three decades later, cognitive scientists found that the metarepresentation mechanism of patients with autism or schizophrenia can be impaired, and this forms the basis of a new, cognitive approach to mental disorders (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Frith, 1989, 1992; Happé, 1994). But thirty years prior to the cognitive scientists’ discovery, Kesey intuited in Cuckoo’s Nest a general cognitive mechanism underlying the various signs and symptoms of madness, foreboding a scientific finding in his artistic experience. In Chapter 3, I look into metarepresentation, but my analyses are primarily focused on one type of metarepresentation—mental representations of mental representations—in order to interpret the impaired cognitive mechanisms underlying Bromden’s schizophrenic signs and symptoms. In the present chapter, I further elaborate metarepresentation for a more fine-grained understanding of this basic cognitive mechanism. The word “metarepresentation” is shaped from the Greek prefix “meta” (μετα) meaning “beyond” or “after” and the word “representation”. It is the capacity of a mind to represent “a higher-order representation

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with a lower-order representation embedded inside it” (Wilson, 2000: 414). The idea of metarepresentation is not new. It has been in various studies of, for instance, philosophers, psychologists and linguists under a variety of names. For example, the Port-Royal Logic (seventeenth century) distinguishes between “ideas of things” and “ideas of signs”, the latter being a type of metarepresentation—mental representation of public signs. However, the term “metarepresentation” only came to wide use in the late 1980s following the publications of the pioneering works by Pylyshyn (1978), Sperber (1985) and Leslie (1987), among others. According to Sperber (2000), there are mainly four categories of mental representations: mental representations of mental representations, mental representations of public representations, public representations of mental representations and public representations of public representations. The first type, i.e., mental representations of mental representations, gains currency in recent years: “much recent work on metarepresentations is truly novel as a result of being pursued within the framework of cognitive science and of philosophy of cognition” (Sperber, 2000: 3). Psychologists, with a new understanding of the cognitive systems, seek explanations for mental disorders in the impaired metarepresentation mechanism and offer a new pathway to mental diseases such as autism (e.g., Frith, 1989) and schizophrenia (e.g., Frith, 1992). In particular, Frith’s (1992) cognitive neuropsychological framework, in which he attributes the various signs and symptoms of schizophrenia to the impairment of a general cognitive mechanism metarepresentation, is groundbreaking in schizophrenia research. Via a different route, Kesey reaches a similar understanding of madness in the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, but thirty years in advance. Honestly, I must be cautious when I say so because I may fall into the murky waters of circular reasoning by both analyzing the Keseyian madness within Frith’s cognitive framework (in Chapter 3) and trying to prove that Kesey sees madness as a cognitive impairment like Frith does but prior to the latter (in the present chapter). The circularity is not grounded. The truth is that it is Kesey’s cognitive understanding of madness that renders the madness in Cuckoo’s Nest to be suitably examined from a cognitive perspective, which in turn helps reveal the cognitive mechanisms underlying the various accurately described signs and symptoms of madness in the novel. The exploration of Kesey’s cognitive understanding of madness, in lieu of risking a circularity crime, may further reveal the scientific value of Cuckoo’s Nest.

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A contrast in Cuckoo’s Nest is particularly valuable in revealing Kesey’s congruence with Frith’s (1992) cognitive neuropsychological theory of schizophrenia: the contrast in how Kesey presents the signs and symptoms and how he presents the diagnosis of the mental disorders. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey describes the signs and symptoms of different kinds of mental disorder in minute details with medical precision, as exemplified by Bromden’s various signs and symptoms discussed previously. Yet, Kesey rarely attaches a diagnostic label to any patient, and on no occasion has he mentioned Bromden as a schizophrenic. In contrast, he ridicules the doctors’ diagnostic process in their desperate effort to attach a mental disorder label to McMurphy. This contrast, apart from its social critical value, also shows that Kesey considers signs and symptoms are more clinically reliable than diagnoses in judging the state of a person’s mental health. This view is equally shared by Frith (1992: 12): “diagnosis remains essentially arbitrary, while symptoms can be reliably assessed”. And on the basis of such a view, Frith (1992) hypothesizes that there is a common cognitive mechanism underlying the various signs and symptoms of schizophrenia (but not limited to schizophrenia only). Based on his classification of the surface manifestations of positive symptoms (abnormal experiences) and negative signs (abnormal behaviors), Frith concludes his cognitive neuropsychological framework as follows: I have proposed a, doubtless over-inclusive, framework for linking the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia to abnormal brain function in terms of a single cognitive process: metarepresentation. I have suggested how specific features of schizophrenia might arise from specific abnormalities in metarepresentation. This is the cognitive mechanism that enables us to be aware of our goals, our intentions, and the intentions of other people. (Frith, 1992: 133)

Likewise, by prioritizing the signs and symptoms over the diagnosis of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey is interested in a common underlying cognitive mechanism instead of etiology causes, an endeavor that is in consistency with his constant pursuit of understanding human consciousness. It is true that Kesey has never used the term “metarepresentation”, a jargon of the scientists not of the artists, but in his literary language, Kesey illustrates his understanding of how the cognitive system works for a conscious mind, the essence of a cognitive theory that Frith formulates in a scientific discourse thirty years later. Based on the analyses

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in Chapter 3, we understand Kesey’s descriptions of Bromden’s signs and symptoms, when judged by the cognitive neuropsychological framework of schizophrenia (Frith, 1992), perfectly match Frith’s classification criteria. Kesey precisely reveals a schizophrenic’s cognitive impairments of three areas of consciousness in which metarepresentation plays a key role: awareness of one’s own goals, awareness of one’s own intentions and awareness of other people’s intentions (Frith, 1992). When Kesey describes Bromden’s fog and “Air raid” and his feeling of hex while raising his hand for vote, he presents the positive symptoms reflecting the impaired self-monitoring ability that leads to disordered awareness of one’s own intentions. When he describes Bromden’s fears of the persecuting Combine, he is dealing with another positive symptom— persecutory delusion—that reflects disordered awareness of other people’s intentions. Meanwhile, Kesey also describes Bromden’s various abnormalities of behavior, including the negative behavioral abnormalities such as his social withdrawal, flattening of affect and his extreme form of poverty of action and speech, as well as the positive behavioral abnormalities such as his hysterical reaction to shaving. These signs indicate a poverty of will, a cognitive impairment of the awareness of one’s own goal. In the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey gives a full account of the surface manifestations of the cognitive impairments that result in the disordered awareness of one’s mental states. Bromden’s consciousness suffers as a result of these impairments. “The ability to metarepresent one’s own mental states plays an important role in consciousness and may even be seen as defining it” (Sperber, 2000: 5). Admittedly, a technical jargon like “metarepresentation” may appear to be out of place in a literary work, and it is unreasonable to expect its presence in Cuckoo’s Nest. However, Kesey does use the word “conscious” in its various forms (consciousness, subconscious, unconscious, self-consciously) for a couple of times in the novel. Given the intrinsic relations between consciousness and metarepresentation, therefore, in a somewhat over-inductive manner (but understandably), I would like to argue that it is highly likely that all of Bromden’s schizophrenic signs and symptoms point at the impairment of one general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation—and the Keseyian madness is a cognitive issue per se (a reminder: cognitive dysfunction as the core sense of the Keseyian madness). Kesey’s cognitive understanding of madness can be further proved by the way he deals with the patients’ cure. When the inmates gain more consciousness, they are on the way of recovery. For example, when

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Bromden struggles out of the EST and regains his consciousness, he says: “I saw an aide coming up the hall with a tray for me and knew this time I had them beat” (Kesey, 1962: 288, my emphasis). The clear source tag “I knew” indicates that Bromden is fully aware of his own thought and represents it in a second-order representation. This demonstrates his intact metarepresentational ability, a sign of his recovery. Therefore, it seems safe to make a tentative conclusion at present based on the contrast between Bromden’s conscious state and his unconscious state: the metarepresentation mechanism plays a key role in Bromden’s consciousness. Bromden is sane when he can metarepresent; he is insane when he fails to metarepresent. In the days when a cognitive interpretation of schizophrenia is still not known to psychologists, Kesey offers a cognitively based description of the mad minds. Without defining a cognitive term “metarepresentation”, Kesey intuits the crucial functions of a cognitive mechanism that plays a key role in a person’s consciousness. Like Proust who intuits how memory works in his In Search of the Lost Time (the French title: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu 2022), or Woolf who forebodes the split-brain in her fictional worlds of To the Lighthouse (1992a) and Mrs. Dalloway (1992b), Kesey foretells the birth of a cognitive neuropsychological theory of schizophrenia three decades ahead, and in this sense, Cuckoo’s Nest can be elevated to a precursor status in cognitive neuropsychology. A Test for the Reader When Kesey seeks to understand madness as a cognitive impairment, he turns Cuckoo’s Nest into an artwork pioneering in cognitive science. However, the scientific value of Cuckoo’s Nest is not limited to a cognitive understanding of the mad minds. In constructing the mad minds, Kesey also puts the reader’s metarepresentational ability to test. The reading process of Cuckoo’s Nest is akin to metarepresentation games. The reader is obliged to constantly construct and process mental representations based on the textual information to make sense of the story world. The reader’s decoding process puts (at least) three types of metarepresentation to test: mental representations of mental representations, mental representations of public representations and public representations of public representations. Thanks to the metarepresentation games, Cuckoo’s Nest, instead of causing a mental vertigo in the reader, makes a mad world both enticing

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and comprehensible. The opening scene of Cuckoo’s Nes t, an example par excellence to showcase the metarepresentation games, immediately puts the reader’s metarepresentational ability to test: [5.2] They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them. (Kesey, 1962: 3) As it is natural for the reader to treat the fictional narrator/character as a flesh-and-blood person, the semiotic signs can be seen to stand for narrator Bromden’s utterance: The Utterance (Bromden Said) “Black Boys … Commit Sex Acts in the Hall” P P

The utterance forms a public representation of public representation: P(P). Upon reacting to the semiotic signs of the text, the reader can mentally form an imagery of the black boys committing sex acts in the hall. The reader’s thought forms the mental representation of the public representation of the public representation: M(P[P]): The thought “the utterance (Bromden said) ‘black boys … commit sex acts in the hall’” M P P

However, such a bizarre imagery may immediately activate the reader’s extratextual knowledge that contradicts with this mental representation. Intrigued by this schema-conflicting first-order public representation, the reader may exercise his/her metarepresentational ability to make sense of the bizarreness. When this first-order representation is challenged, that is, when the reader suspects the truth value of the content of the P(P), he/ she may track the source of information to double check its reliability. Under this initiative, the reader will find that a second-order source tag is missing in the P(P), resulting in a mental representation mistaken as a public representation:

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(Bromden said) (he thought) “the black boys … commit sex acts in the hall” P M M

By correcting this mistake, the reader reformulates the P(P) into M(M), and thus, the new mental representation takes on the following form: The thought “the utterance (Bromden said) M

P the thought (Bromden thought)

‘black boys commit sex acts in the hall’ ” P/M

M

That is to say, now at the vantage position of a third-order representation, the reader metarepresents the opening scene of Cuckoo’s Nest as: M (M[M])

Now, the reader’s representation of this scene turns from a mental representation of a public representation of a public representation into a mental representation of mental representation of mental representation. The whole metarepresentational process can be demonstrated as follows: P(P) → M(P[P]) → M(M[M])

This metarepresentational process enables the reader to make sense of the absurd scene by discerning the relationship between the propositional truth and the reliability of the source of information. Simply put, the metarepresentational process is akin to a mise en abymes; that is, the reader knows that Bromden thinks that black boys commit sex acts in the hall. Therefore, to make sense of the bizarre imagery that Kesey presents at the opening of the novel, the reader needs to be aware of both his/ her own mental state and the narrator’s. The impossibility of this imagery activates the reader’s metarepresentation mechanism to seek an answer in the narrator’s mental state: it must be the narrator’s unusual mental state

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that leads to this unusual mental representation. The reader’s metarepresentational ability enables him/her, after a momentary confusion, to learn about the deranged mental state of the narrator and be prepared for an unreliable narrator from the start. Conscious of the position of a third-order intentional system, the reader is ready to see a first-order representation of the world from a schizophrenic’s mind, i.e., a secondorder intentional system of which the narrator, in a state of delirium, is often unaware, and the reader has to restore it based on his/her own metarepresentational ability. By having a madman as a narrator, a type of unreliable narrator in Booth’s (1961) parlance, Kesey first deceives the reader with a delusionary fictional world by deliberately twisting the source tag of a first-order mental representation. However, he soon disabuses the reader because when the impossibilities accumulate to a sufficient degree, they naturally activate the reader’s metarepresentation mechanism, and the reader tries to disambiguate between the content of the representation and the source of the representation. Kesey adroitly tantalizes with the reader’s metarepresentational ability to get him/her intrigued but at the same time not to induce a mental vertigo by placing too heavy a burden on the reader’s source-monitoring ability. Kesey’s metarepresentation strategy changes in accordance with the narrator’s mental state. As Bromden’s consciousness gradually improves, his narration becomes increasingly reliable. The two cognitive facets of focalization—the present-tense concurrent facet of focalization and the past-tense evidentiary facet of focalization discussed in Chapters 2 and 3—correspond to two types of narrators respectively: the present-tense unreliable narrator and the past-tense reliable narrator. Again, the reader needs to exercise his/her metarepresentational ability to detect the change of the narrator’s reliability accordingly. In Cuckoo’s Nest, a marked difference between a reliable and an unreliable narrator is the presence or absence of the source tag in the narrator’s representation. With the present-tense unreliable narrator, Kesey tends to conceal the source tag and tricks the reader into treating the narrator’s mental representation as a public representation. The present tense and the concurrent focalization, in this sense, are the “culprits” of this deceptive effect. The present-tense unreliable narrator has triple functions. First, such a narrator enables the reader to step directly into a madman’s mental world without realizing it. Second, the impossibilities of the represented world may activate the reader’s metarepresentation mechanism, and thus,

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the reader will further investigate the narrator’s mental state by monitoring the source of the information. Third, the reader has to stay alert to his/her own metarepresentational ability to keep track of the narrator’s mental state. The unreliable present-tense narrator keeps the reader’s metarepresentation mechanism to be on guard. Zunshine (2006) considers strong source-monitoring can be cognitively expensive, and points out that it is not the default state of mind. Indeed, Kesey has not kept the reader in the metarepresentation games throughout the whole novel. From time to time, Kesey switches to a reliable past-tense narrator and reduces the cognitive cost by having the reader’s metarepresentation off guard. Toward the end of the novel when the narrator’s mental state has greatly improved, the deranged mental worlds have had a full display and the reader’s curiosity has been to a large extent satisfied, Bromden’s narration becomes increasingly reliable. At this point, Kesey uses standard forms of mental representations of mental representations with a reliable past-tense narrator: [5.3] As I walked after them it came to me as a kind of sudden surprise that I was drunk, actually drunk, glowing and grinning and staggering drunk for the first time since the Army, drunk along with half a dozen other guys and a couple of girls – right on the Big Nurse’s ward! Drunk and running and laughing and carrying on with women square in the center of the Combine’s most powerful stronghold! I thought back on the night, on what we’d been doing, and it was near impossible to believe. I had to keep reminding myself that it had truly happened, that we had made it happen. (Kesey, 1962: 305, my emphasis) Through the evidentiary facet of focalization, Bromden provides a reliable narration of the ward party and his reflections upon it in [5.3]. The first-order mental representations (Bromden’s reflections) are clearly framed into the second-order representations that clearly indicate narrator Bromden as the source of the information (“it came to me as a kind of sudden surprise”; “I thought back”; “I had to keep reminding myself”). The past-tense Bromden sees things in a different way from the presenttense Bromden, and the changes of the information sources render him a reliable narrator.

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By attaching the explicit source tags to Bromden’s mental representations, Kesey disabuses the reader. The past tense and the evidentiary facet of focalization further contribute to this disambiguating effect. When the narrator’s metarepresentation is used as a default cognitive strategy that is in congruency with the reader’s, the reader’s alert level naturally drops, and less cognitive effort is involved. A new rapport between the narrator and the reader is established. Kesey first deceives the reader by presenting the narrator’s mental world as a real world. He challenges the reader’s metarepresentational ability with a figure of unreliable narrator by alerting him/her to the missing source tags and puts it into the reader’s hand to discern the truths from the untruths in the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest. Then, he undeceives the reader by restoring a figure of reliable narrator who speaks of the truths, triggering the reader’s metarepresentational ability by alerting him/her to the restored source tags. The alterations between the unreliable narrator and reliable narrator keep the reader adjusting in between by resorting to his/her metarepresentation mechanism. With his consummate manipulation of the reader’s metarepresentational ability, Kesey turns Cuckoo’s Nest into a ground of cognitive experimentation. Kesey intuitively exploits the metarepresentation mechanism to both deceive and disabuse the reader, arousing the reader’s curiosity and then gratifying the curiosity through the metarepresentation games. If we say Kesey experiments with the impaired cognitive mechanisms in his portrayal of the mad minds, then, we can say he also experiments with the reader’s sound cognitive mechanisms to make sense of the madness. The two experiments converge at one common ground—metarepresentation, the cognitive mechanism that defines human consciousness. This is the crucial mechanism for a mind to be aware of its own mental state, and this is also the key mechanism through which a normal mind can reach a mad mind. In this sense, Cuckoo’s Nest furnishes a fine-grained version of the working of the general cognitive mechanism of metarepresentation. Cognitive Engagement To better understand the cognitive value of Cuckoo’s Nest, we also need to examine the reading experience along with the textual investigation. Cognitive narratology has it as its task to address “the issue of readers’ cognitive and affective engagement with fiction” (Nikolajeva, 2014: 3), and to meet the challenge of this task, I presently investigate the

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reading experience of Cuckoo’s Nest in relation to the general human cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation. To stay focused on this issue, the following discussions in this section are mainly concerned with the reader’s cognitive engagement, but it does not imply that the reader’s affective engagement is less important. The affective engagement is equally important, and I elaborate on it in section The Therapeutic Value below shortly. About fifty years ago, Kingsley Widmer, by comparing Kesey’s One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest with Irving Goffman’s sociological work Asylum, two books published around the same time and treating the similar kind of social material, argues forcefully that “the ‘literature’ carries a certain kind of informing which the ‘science’ does not” (Widmer, 1975: 125). Through his Kesey-Goffman comparison, Widmer concludes: Given equivalent talent and intelligence, the novelist can, and in the Kesey-Goffman comparison does, outdo the sociologist in defining for consciousness institutional function and style and role and meaning. I must conclude that the shaping individual response provides more knowledge, theoretical and practical, than the science. (Widmer, 1975: 125, emphasis in original)

Widmer’s observation on the informing role of literature is extremely informative. But in an age when the critics are unassisted with the armamentarium of cognitive science, Widmer, who has astutely noticed the fusion of art and science, reaches his conclusion somewhat intuitively. This explains why he hardly furnishes a satisfactory explanation for his argument, and in passing, he attributes it to Kesey’s “fusion of social material and aesthetic consciousness”, emphasizing the special role of aesthetic consciousness: “But the literature has a shaping individual point of view, emphasized rather than disguised, and intensification which depends on meliorating the reality with aesthetic coherence” (Widmer, 1975: 125). Rereading Widmer almost half a century later, we find his observation on how literature may outdo science in informing still rings true. But, how does “aesthetic consciousness” work? Assisted with the armamentarium of cognitive science, we are now at a better position to answer this question. We may begin by considering the inherent differences residing in the language of literary and scientific discourse. Literary language is not formally separated from other types of language; nor

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does it involve special cognitive capacities in processing it. However, it is widely recognized that literature consists of “symbolic expressions”, suggesting “more than it says” (Daiches, 1964: 36). It is exactly this “more-than-it-says-ness” distinguishes literary discourse from scientific discourse, a discourse prioritizing accuracy, completeness and clarity over other qualities. My awkward coinage of “more-than-it-says-ness” entails a more lucid term—“symbolic meaning”. Echoing Daiches’s (1964) observation on symbolic expressions, Feng (2022: 475) sees symbolic meaning as both an outcome of defamiliarization and a resource for refamiliarization: “in defamiliarizing the fictional representation, the narrative text produces more symbolic meanings and ultimately refamiliarizes the reader with aspects of actual-world reality that are otherwise hardly perceivable”. Feng’s (2022) connection of symbolic meanings with defamiliarization/ refamiliarization, by involving the reader’s cognitive engagement, may shed some light on how Widmer’s (1975) “aesthetic consciousness” works. In what follows, to seek explanations for how cognitive mechanism works in aesthetic consciousness, I examine the reader’s cognitive engagement with Cuckoo’s Nest along the path of defamiliarization, symbolic meaning and refamiliarization. It is beyond doubt that Cuckoo’s Nest is imbued with richer meanings than literally written. The reader needs to go through the decoding process of the symbolic expressions to arrive at the various types of meanings that are encoded into the fictional world, be it literal meaning, metaphorical meaning or others. Take the metaphorical meaning as an example. Jakobson, based on the linguistic problems of the aphasics, discovers that language has two poles, i.e., the metaphoric and the metonymic poles, and he points out that in the literary schools of romanticism and symbolism the primacy is placed on metaphor and in realism on metonymy (Jakobson, 1956). Cuckoo’s Nest represents the type that is rich in symbolism.2 The symbolic expressions intrigue the reader to decipher the metaphorical meaning in the text. The foregoing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 have touched upon the metaphorical meaning in Cuckoo’s Nest, and

2 There is a rich scholarship on symbolism in Cuckoo’s Nest. For example, many scholars consider McMurphy as a Christ-like savior (e.g., Hicks, 2007 [1981]; Slater, 2007 [1988]; Vitkus, 1994). Waxler (1995) sees Cuckoo’s Nest as an Oedipal story. He observes that like Faulkner, Kesey sets the Chief on a symbolic search for the Father, thus placing Cuckoo’s Nest within the tradition of Oedipal stories.

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I presently continue this line of investigation by examining the reading experience in relation to the metaphorical meaning. The frequent use of metaphors in Cuckoo’s Nest, especially those complicated by the mad minds,3 impedes the reading process, as the reader has to slow down in search of the metaphorical meaning. This is a typical defamiliarizing effect. The estranged mad world may refresh the reader’s world schema, re-examining and perceiving the world in a different light. More importantly, intrigued by the intricacies of the individual experiences encoded in the story world, the reader naturally activates his/her metarepresentation mechanism to trace the intended meaning behind the metaphors. This meaning decoding process gradually heightens the reader’s awareness of the intention of others, and in the present situation, the intention of Kesey’s creation of the metaphors. This is when refamiliarization starts—a refamiliarization of one’s world as well as of the working of one’s own metarepresentation mechanism. Daiches (1964: 36) believes that literature evokes in the reader, regardless of his/her personal experience, “a heightened awareness of the beauty or terror or mystery or some other aspect or group of aspects of human life”. In view of Cuckoo’s Nest, this heightened awareness is the awareness of consciousness. Madness, in Kesey’s masterly representation, is a matter of absence of consciousness; sanity, a matter of presence of consciousness. As a cognitive response to Kesey’s literary representation of madness, a reader in the active meaning decoding process may identify with the characters in the story world, and therefore may become more self-conscious, both of the individual beings and of the social context. In other words, the reader comes out with a heightened awareness of the supreme power of consciousness—to be aware that one is aware of one’s goals and intentions. The rich metaphors make another site of cognitive experimentation in Cuckoo’s Nest, manifesting Kesey’s faith in the reader’s metarepresentational ability. Unlike the metarepresentation games to keep the reader both perplexed and relaxed, the meaning decoding process is a cognitive activity that both draws on the metarepresentation mechanism and directly teaches the reader the importance of its function.

3 In addition to Semino and Swindlehurst’s (1996) MACHINE metaphor and BIG metaphor, Dorst (2019) adds the ICE metaphor: Kesey’s systematic use of words directly related to ice (e.g., “ice”, “icy”, “snow” and so forth) and the relevant expressions (e.g., “cold”, “white” and so forth).

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This said, we need to be aware that it is inaccurate to equate Widmer’s (1975) “aesthetic consciousness” with the reader’s cognitive engagement; Widmer would have been upset with such a reductive version of his thought. However, an investigation based on the reader’s engagement does offer some plausible explanations to how the aesthetic consciousness performs the exceptional informing role. This cognitive investigation supplements the literary critic’s intuitive observation with a more concrete understanding of “how”—how the aesthetic consciousness brings about the informing effect. In this sense, we may say cognitive science augments the armamentarium of the literary critics for a fair chance to escape the so-called prison house of intuition (Hamilton, 2002: 3). It is equally important to note that even long before the arrival of cognitive poetics on the academic scene, scholars had noticed the exceptional cognitive value of literature. About seven decades ago, Wellek and Warren were among the earliest to recognize this: One cognitive value in the drama and novels would seem to be psychological. “The novelists can teach you more about human nature than the psychologists” is a familiar kind of assertion. … One might maintain that the great novels are source books for psychologists…. (Wellek & Warren, 1956: 33)

Like Widmer (1975), Wellek and Warren (1956) are looking into the unique function of literature, be it aesthetic consciousness or cognitive value. Equally impoverished with the conceptual apparatus of cognitive science, the two authors more explicitly touch upon the cognitive dimension of literature, though still unable to explain “how”. In their inquiry into the function of literature, Wellek and Warren (1956: 32) notice that “literature gives a knowledge of those particularities with which science and philosophy are not concerned”. The particularities that the two scholars refer to, by today’s standard, are the literary experience, i.e., the authorly encoding and the readerly decoding process, and in the context of the present study, the reading experience that triggers the reader’s metarepresentation mechanism to make sense of both the story world in Cuckoo’s Nest and the real world (with oneself included). In this book, by investigating the reader’s cognitive activities engaged in decoding the rich meaning encoded in Cuckoo’s Nest, i.e., the metarepresentational process, I endeavor to offer an explanation to “how”: how Widmer’s (1975) “aesthetic consciousness” can possibly do the informing

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work, and how Wellek and Warren’s (1956) “cognitive value” functions. The literary experience is the key to understanding the cognitive value of literature, both at the level of generic type and at the level of individual literary works. Given the same subject matter, the artistic representation of life experiences may endow the fictional works with richer meaning that otherwise cannot be accomplished by the reductionist methods of science. During the course of literary experience, the reader naturally experiences the miraculous “chemical reaction” with the fictional world—the defamiliarizing and refamiliarizing effects in deciphering the rich meaning in the literary discourse. In this sense, we probably can do justification to the argument that “[t]he novelists can teach you more about human nature than the psychologists” (Wellek & Warren, 1956: 33), and the argument that “the ‘literature’ carries a certain kind of informing which the ‘science’ does not” (Widmer, 1975: 125). Cuckoo’s Nest, a fine verbal art exceptionally rich in cognitive value, offers a perfect route to this understanding. By highlighting the reader’s cognitive response to Cuckoo’s Nest — heightened awareness of consciousness through fictional mad experiences, I intend to explain the cognitive value of this novel from the perspective of reading experience—response as such may foster the reader’s sense of consciousness. To end the discussion on Cuckoo’s Nest as cognitive experimentation, it is necessary to have a few words for further clarification. By addressing the difference between literary and scientific discourse, I do not mean that literature is a different type of language; nor do I consider the literary experience triggers any literature-specific cognitive mechanism. Instead, I find Stockwell’s (2020) view on this point especially illuminating. Therefore, I would like to quote from him to end the present section: The cognitive and perceptual and aesthetic and experiential values that we derive from literature are based on exactly the same capacities we have in relation to the language system and our lives as a whole. Literary works might do interesting and compelling things with those capacities, but just as there is no ‘language module’ in the brain, so there is no essential component of literariness that is peculiar and unique to the literary domain. (Stockwell, 2020: 2)

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Novelists as Psychologists

“Madeleine de Proust” is a highly common French expression to describe smells, tastes, sounds or any sensations reminding one of one’s childhood or simply bringing back emotional memories from a long time ago. When the novelist Marcel Proust was ruminating on his memory in his labor over In Search of the Lost Time, he probably never expected that his “madeleine de Proust” speaks of “some of modern neuroscience’s most basic tenets” (Lehrer, 2007: 76). Likewise, in her close observation on her own mind, Virginia Woolf “pierced the mystery of consciousness” (Lehrer, 2007: ix). In his study on the convergence of art and science, Lehrer (2007: viii) rightly observes: “As scientists were beginning to separate thoughts into their anatomical parts, these artists wanted to understand consciousness from the inside”. Therefore, it is possible to understand the title of Lehrer’s book—“Proust Was a Neuroscientist ”— in both its literal and its metaphorical sense. The novelists, with their genuine interest in the human cognitive life, share an abiding interest with the cognitive scientists in understanding the human mind. Like Proust and Woolf, the novelist Kesey, with his consummate understanding of the general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation—deserves the title of a “cognitive scientist”. To be more specific, Kesey probably can be regarded as a psychologist, for in his exploration of the madness, he is doing “the science of mind and behavior” as indicated in the subtitle of Gross’s (2020) inspiring book: Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour. In various places in Cuckoo’s Nest, we may find Kesey exploits ideas from different schools of psychology, taking an eclectic approach to psychology, but in general, with his firm faith in humans as cognitive and social beings, he is more inclined to humanistic psychology. Following Lehrer (2007) who argues that Proust was a neuroscientist, I consider the novelist Kesey as a de facto humanistic psychologist. In what follows, I examine Kesey’s alignment with humanistic psychology in his treatment of psychological matters in Cuckoo’s Nest. The Core Principles Kesey’s handling of psychological matters resonates with the core principles of humanistic psychology. To better understand Kesey’s thought of psychology, we may presently make a short detour to humanistic

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psychology, albeit we have previously touched upon this psychological approach. Humanistic psychology, drawing its root from existential philosophy and phenomenology, came to prominence in the mid-twentieth century as the “Third Force” in psychology in answer to the limitations of psychoanalysis (the “First Force”) and behaviorism (the “Second Force”). From the outset, humanistic psychology, prepared to “commit to the primacy of the experience”, is a “psychology of the whole being”, calling forth “a dynamic view of personal authenticity and responsibility” (Stern, 2015: xi). Humanistic psychology takes the lead in initiating a dialogue between science and humanities. Humanistic psychologists propose to use a few simple principles to understand people. Bugental’s (1964) five postulates, hailed as the core principles of humanistic psychology, are groundbreaking and remain influential to this day. The five postulates are: Man, as man, supersedes the sum of his parts. Man has his being in a human context. Man is aware. Man has choice. Man is intentional.

In Cuckoo’s Nes t, Kesey seems to follow the Bugentalian postulates of humanistic psychology intuitively. Underlying Kesey’s social cognitive understanding of madness are the core principles of humanistic psychology that demonstrate his thought of psychology. Man is a whole being. This is the overarching principle that underpins Kesey’s thought of psychology. The two opposing forces in Cuckoo’s Nest —McMurphy and the Big Nurse—represent two opposing views toward madmen. The former views madmen as integrated whole beings, as Harding says toward the end of the story: “they are sick men now” (Kesey, 1962: 307, my emphasis). By contrast, the latter views madmen as the socially dysfunctional subject to medical corrections, as Bromden says: “machines with flaws inside” (Kesey, 1962: 16, my emphasis). Therefore, in psychological terms, the fictional conflicts in Cuckoo’s Nest are transformed into the controversies between a person-centered humanistic psychology and a mechanistic and behavioristic psychology. Kesey characterizes McMurphy as a whole man. He eats to his heart’s content and compliments the cook on “sunnysiding the best eggs he

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ever ate” (Kesey, 1962: 103); he laughs, sings, gambles, curses and “fights too much and fucks too much” (Kesey, 1962: 14); he finds the inmates sane: “I been surprised how sane you guys all are” (Kesey, 1962: 65), but sees the Big Nurse as a bitch, a ball-cutter and a buzzard. In a word, McMurphy is a whole man par excellence. Kesey’s characterization of McMurphy as a whole man reflects his observation on the quintessential quality of human beings, an observation that corresponds to Bugental’s (1964: 23) understanding of humanistic psychology: “Humanistic psychology is concerned with man at his most human”. Conversely, Kesey exposes the mechanistic practices in the hospital that contrast with the whole man view. The Big Nurse is dedicated to breaking the men apart from being whole: “if she can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above the eyes” (Kesey, 1962: 191). This is exactly what happens to, for example, Harding and Bibbit first (“cut below the belt”) and then McMurphy (“above the eyes”) later. In an exaggerated manner, Kesey reveals a non-whole man view in the ward that matches its status as “a factory for the Combine” (Kesey, 1962: 40) by presenting the startling scenes of body parts. The delusional and hallucinating narrator Bromden relates a completely literal version of the body parts in the hospital. In his dream, he sees “a big machine room down in the bowels of a dam where people get cut up by robot workers” (Kesey, 1962: 90). In his delusion, he “finds out” the hospital’s secret of body-part transportation: [5.4] There’s a shipment of frozen parts come in downstairs – hearts and kidneys and brains and the like. I can hear them rumble into cold storage down the coal chute. (Kesey, 1962: 129) Via Bromden’s literalization, a typical feature of his impaired cognitive style, Kesey ridicules the mechanistic view of humans as the sum of their parts. The view of a man as a whole man that cannot be reduced to the components corresponds to the keystone position of humanistic psychology that “man must be recognized as something other than an additive product of various part-functions” (Bugental, 1964: 23). Man exists in a context. A whole man view entails a view of humans as biological as well as social beings. Bugental (1964: 23) stresses man’s relationship with context in his second postulate: “Man has his being in a human context”. Based on the analyses in Chapter 4, we can see that

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Kesey fully acknowledges the interrelations between man’s mental wellbeing and the human context: how the intimidating social environment induces man’s mental disorders, and how the individual’s mental states may have counter functions on the society. Fifty years after Bugental (1964) put up this postulate, Greening (2006) further expanded the concept of context by adding cosmic ecology along with human context. However, long before Greening’s expansion, Kesey seems to have noticed the intrinsic relationship between ecology and man’s mental health. Traditional Kesey scholars rarely noticed Kesey’s thought of ecology in Cuckoo’s Nest, but in recent years, ecology studies of this novel are gaining momentum in the scholarship. For example, Reis (2016) argues for Kesey’s contribution to the understanding of human-ecosystemic relationships, and Leise (2018) probes into the interrelations between Bromden’s mental illness and the destruction of Indian Americans’ land. Therefore, it is not hard to see that Kesey attaches importance to both a human context and a cosmic ecology in understanding man’s mental well-being. To Kesey, mental disorders come as a result of catastrophic human context or cosmic ecology, and so much the worse when both. Man is aware, intentional and has choice. Built upon the keystone of a whole man view, Kesey fully explores the meaning of awareness in Cuckoo’s Nest. Awareness is the key concept that bridges Kesey’s thought of psychology with Bugental’s (1964) last three postulates, i.e., man is aware, man has choice and man is intentional, as all the three postulates are awareness based. Throughout Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey is focused on the central issue of awareness, exploring the cognitive and social bases of disordered awareness and experimenting with man’s metarepresentational ability—the key cognitive mechanism that keeps a person aware. Kesey’s tireless pursuit of awareness reflects his understanding of awareness as an essential quality of human beings, a thought that corresponds with Bugental’s view of awareness as “an essential part of man’s being” (Bugental, 1964: 23). Bugental (1964: 23) states it as his third postulate of humanistic psychology— “Man is aware”. Greening (2006: 381) adds a metarepresentation explanation to this postulate: “Human beings are aware and aware of being aware—i.e., they are conscious”. Now re-examining Kesey’s concern with metarepresentation against the backdrop of humanistic psychology, we may gain some fresh insights: his exploration of metarepresentation in itself is a thought of humanistic psychology.

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The fourth Bugentalian postulate—“Man has choice” (Bugental, 1964: 24)—is also concerned with awareness. Bugental (1964: 24) fully recognizes the role of awareness in one’s choice: “When man is aware, he is aware that his choices make a difference in the flow of his awareness, that he is not a bystander but a participant in experience”. In Cuckoo’s Nest, the Big Nurse deprives the patients of their choices, thus their chances of being active participants in their own experiences. More often than not, she may force her own choice on the patients in the name of their own choice. For example, when Mr. Taber insists on knowing what medicine he is given before taking it, the Big Nurse stops the young nurse by saying “If Mr. Taber chooses to act like a child, he may have to be treated as such” (Kesey, 1962: 34). What happens to Mr. Taber subsequently is catastrophic: he is given a spine tap, an EST and an electroencephalograph, and he is kicked by the black boys and probably even raped by them. The Big Nurse smothers every choice in its embryo stage; day in and day out the madmen relinquish even the faintest idea of choice. Thus, it is not difficult to understand why the inmates are not enthusiastic when McMurphy calls to vote for changing the schedule to watch the baseball match for the first time, just as Billy Bibbit says: “what’s the use of it anyway” (Kesey, 1962: 119). No choice, no participation in their experience, the patients are no longer aware that they are capable of making choices and that their choices can make a difference. By contrast, toward the end of the story, as the patients gradually regain their awareness, it seems that everybody is making a choice: [5.5] After Harding signed out and was picked up by his wife, and George transferred to a different ward, just three of us were left out of the group that had been on the fishing crew, myself and Martini and Scanlon. I didn’t want to leave just yet, because she seemed to be too sure; she seemed to be waiting for one more round, and I wanted to be there in case it came off…. (Kesey, 1962: 321) The inmates are no longer passive recipients of what is forced upon them; they are active participants in what is going on in their lives. Kesey’s handling of the madmen’s choice is deeply rooted in his understanding of the meaning of choice for man and reflects his footing in

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humanistic psychology. When one is aware that his/her choices make a difference, both in the ongoing events and in his/her own consciousness, he/she is no more a bystander but an active participant in the experience and is capable of bringing changes. Another important aspect of awareness is being aware of one’s intention and goal. Bugental (1964: 24) puts it as the fifth postulate of humanistic psychology: “Man is intentional”. According to Bugental (1964: 24): “Man intends through having purpose, through valuing, and through creating and recognizing meaning. Man’s intentionality is the basis on which he builds his identity, and it distinguishes him from other species”. This principle meets with Maslow’s (1943, 1954) needs for selfactualization. Maslow (1954) posits that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy. From the most basic level to the highest level are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs. The first four levels are often referred to as deficiency needs (D-needs), and the top level is known as growth or being needs (B-needs). When a deficit need is “more or less” satisfied, humans will direct their activities toward meeting the needs of a higher level in the hierarchy. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged. Even if all these needs [physiological, safety, love and esteem] are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he, individually, is fitted for. (Maslow, 1954: 46)

Humans all want to move up the hierarchy toward a level of selfactualization. “What a man can be, he must be” (Maslow, 1954: 46). Carl Rogers views man’s actualizing tendency in a similar way: “in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities” (Rogers, 1980: 117). The madmen in Cuckoo’s Nest, differing in their individual problems and possessing idiosyncratic traits, are all denied their values as worthy social beings for their “proven inability to adjust to society” (Kesey, 1962: 167). When the madmen are denied the chance of valuable existence, they naturally relinquish their goals and cease seeking meaning and selfactualization. That is to say, the madmen are not intentional: they are no longer aware that they cause future event. Billy Bibbit cannot step out of his boyhood even in his thirties; the highly intelligent Harding dispels

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his gloomy days in the nuthouse; Bromden’s delusions and hallucinations give a direct manifestation of unawareness of intention. The madmen may differ in their attainment of the first four levels of needs, some with the safety needs unsatisfied, some with love and some with esteem, but none of them has reached the last level. With no growth needs satisfied, they stop moving up toward the highest level of the hierarchy of needs and fail to reach self-actualization. Therefore, the mental institution headed by the Big Nurse, when denying the valuable existence of the madmen, puts an end to their chances of self-growth and recovery. Given its central place in Cuckoo’s Nest, it is not hard to see that Kesey regards awareness as the quintessential quality to make humans human. Thus, to Kesey, the madmen’s disordered awareness is not only a cognitive impairment that underlies their psychotic signs and symptoms, but also a major factor that puts them inert and impedes their growth. Humans are conscious; humans have choices; humans aspire for fulfillment. From this perspective, we may argue that Kesey’s keen exploration of awareness is humanistic psychology per se. The Therapy Previous studies have long noticed the ironic contrast between the hospital and McMurphy in their “therapeutic value”, probing into the question of who is a real cure. Scholars find that the therapeutic practices of the medical professionals represented by the Big Nurse are generally regarded as a deconstructing force rather than a cure for the patients (e.g., Fick, 1989; Howlett, 1995). On the contrary, researchers widely acknowledge McMurphy’s positive impacts on the inmates, variously seeing him as a Christ-like savior (e.g., Hicks, 2007 [1981]), an anti-establishment hero (e.g., Kaiser, 2015; Rochefort, 2018; Vitkus, 1994), a carnival artist (e.g., Goluboff, 1991) and a practical therapist (e.g., Baurecht, 2007 [1982]; Havemann, 1971; Hicks, 2007 [1981]; Kunz, 1975). McMurphy’s curing role can even be found in studies other than literary criticism. For example, in a study of public administration, McCurdy (1995) mentions that McMurphy’s free-wheeling behavior helps bring about cures to other patients, including the schizophrenic narrator Chief Bromden.

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What on earth endows McMurphy with this therapeutic value? When re-scrutinizing the above research findings from the perspective of humanistic psychology, we may find these different views converge on a common ground—McMurphy fulfills the function of a helper (Propp, 1968 [1928]) in assisting the inmates in regaining their awareness and developing a healthier sense of self. In the terminology of humanistic psychology, a patient is not addressed as a “patient” but as a “client”, an important practice that is consistent with humanistic therapists’ nonpathologizing view of men. The humanistic therapists tend to look beyond the medical model of psychology. Instead of finding out what is wrong with a person, they try to find ways to help him/her strengthen what is right. “It has been my experience that people have a basically positive direction”, argues Carl Rogers (1961: 26, emphasis in original). It is exactly this nonpathologizing position that characterizes McMurphy’s view toward the inmates, which is essentially a reversed version of the Big Nurse’s. Soon after his arrival, McMurphy announces his observation: “I been surprised how sane you guys all are” (Kesey, 1962: 65). He despises the Big Nurse’s group therapy, a practice aiming at finding fault with people, describing it as a “[b]unch of chickens at a peckin’ party” (Kesey, 1962: 57). On the contrary, he instills a positive attitude of life into the inmates: to be one’s own self. Under his help, the inmates gradually view themselves differently and regain their consciousness. The non-professional McMurphy, with his nonpathologizing view and the ensuing positive therapeutic values, reduces the Big Nurse’s expertise framed within a pathologizing view to a laughing-stock. “Why do you seem so upset by that par-tik-uler question, Patient McMurphy?” (Kesey, 1962: 68). When Harding vividly mimics the Big Nurse’s tone with her customary address term “patient”, we get to know one of the bitterest ironies in Cuckoo’s Nest. Under McMurphy’s impact, Bromden progresses remarkably. The moment that Bromden makes his first utterance “thank you” is critical in his consciousness progression. In Chapter 3, I analyze McMurphy’s pivotal role in Bromden’s consciousness progression in that McMurphy acts as an antagonist in the causation pattern of force dynamics in interpsychological force interactions. Judging from the final outcome, McMurphy’s causing force has therapeutic values in practice. But is Kesey’s characterization of McMurphy—a man without a decent education and with no previous knowledge of and training in psychology—as

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a therapist scientifically grounded? To answer this question, I examine Bromden’s critical moment of change, i.e., the “thank you” moment, against the backdrop of humanistic therapy. Excerpt [5.6] is a snap shot of the “thank you” moment: [5.6] “Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won. off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in bed. And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you. He didn’t say anything right off. He was up on his elbow, watching me the way he’d watched the black boy, waiting for me to say something else. I picked up the package of gum from the bedspread and held it in my hand and told him Thank you. It didn’t sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying than laughing. He told me not to hurry, that he had till six-thirty in the morning to listen if I wanted to practice. He said a man been still long as me probably had a considerable lot to talk about, and he lay back on his pillow and waited. I thought for a minute for something to say to him, but the only thing that came to my mind was the kind of thing one man can’t say to another because it sounds wrong in words. When he saw I couldn’t say anything he crossed his hands behind his head and started talking himself. (Kesey, 1962: 217–218, my emphasis) A package of gum from McMurphy terminates Bromden’s perennial silence, and he breaks out with his first words in years—“Thank you”. This signifies a critical moment in Bromden’s change: after years of feigned dumbness and deafness that enclose him in an isolated world, Bromden resumes human communication. The way that McMurphy reignites Bromden’s desire to communicate is akin to a therapist’s role as a facilitator in Rogers’s person-centered approach. The person-centered approach expresses the primary theme of Rogers’s whole professional life as a humanistic therapist. He states the central hypothesis of the person-centered approach as follows:

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Individuals have within themselves vast resources for his self-understanding and for altering their self-concepts, basic attitudes, and self-directed behavior; these resources can be tapped if a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided. (Rogers, 1980: 115)

The Rogersian person-centered approach is philosophically built on two related tendencies: an actualizing tendency and a formative tendency. Rogers (1980: 114) regards them as “the foundation blocks of the person-centered approach”. Three conditions, argues Rogers (1980: 115), must be present for “a climate to be growth-promoting”: (1) genuineness, realness or congruence; (2) acceptance, or caring, or prizing; (3) empathetic understanding. Judging from McMurphy’s qualities, he happens to satisfy the aforementioned Rogersian conditions for creating a growth-promoting climate for the patients in the mental hospital. Upon his arrival, he immediately befriends all the inmates on the ward: “He keeps saying it’s a necessary thing to get around and meet the men he’ll be dealing with, part of a gambler’s job” (Kesey, 1962: 23). With his genuineness, he quickly establishes a rapport with all the inmates, and “they are all beginning to get a big kick out of going along with him” (Kesey, 1962: 19–20). His nontherapist identity and his realness in being himself add to his congruence with the experience. Genuineness, realness and congruence—the qualities that the reader finds in McMurphy—are the essential elements of the first aspect of the Rogersian conditions for a person-centered approach. Upon this basis, Bromden builds up his trust in McMurphy. Unlike the Big Nurse who casts her skeptical eye on and finds fault with every man on the ward, McMurphy readily accepts the men as they are. Similarly, when the Big Nurse is determined to deprive the men of their worldly pleasures, McMurphy cares about the men’s needs for games, cigarettes, girls… Seemingly “a backwoods braggart with no more sensitivity than a goose” (Kesey, 1962: 59), yet McMurphy knows Bromden’s craving for chewing gum, which is the last residue of his worldly pleasure. Therefore, when he gives Bromden that package of chewing gum, it triggers the critical moment of Bromden’s change, for it is McMurphy’s acceptance and caring—a fine example of the second aspect of the Rogersian conditions—that cultivates the climate of Bromden’s self-growth. Besides, the first conversation between the two men also demonstrates McMurphy’s empathic understanding—a condition that satisfies the third

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facilitative aspect of the Rogersian conditions. Seeing Bromden’s clumsiness in handling his tongue, McMurphy tells him “not to hurry”, “he had till six-thirty in the morning to listen if I wanted to practice”, and “a man been still long as me probably had a considerable lot to talk about” (Kesey, 1962: 218). McMurphy understands how Bromden feels and shows his genuine interest in listening to Bromden. Later, Bromden talks non-stop, sometimes in a delusional manner, but McMurphy listens nonjudgmentally. Akin to a humanistic therapist who “senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that the client is experiencing and communicates this understanding to the client” (Rogers, 1980:116), McMurphy’s understanding and encouraging attitudes thaw Bromden’s longtime frozen silence into a torrent of words. The above-analyzed qualities qualify McMurphy as a practical humanistic therapist, who creates a favorable climate that enables Bromden to be a “more effective growth-enhancer” (Rogers, 1980: 117) for himself. Bromden distinguishes himself with his tremendous size and immense power, but his psychotic experiences have turned him into a “vanishing American” (Kesey, 1962: 70). However, McMurphy prizes Bromden as “the biggest Indian I ever saw” (Kesey, 1962: 219), and he offers Bromden to join the fishing trip for free provided that he promises to lift the control panel, and he also offers him a training program to restore him to his former strength to do that. Instead of giving Bromden a free trip for nothing, McMurphy trades it for Bromden’s promise of lifting the control panel. Admittedly, McMurphy is a shrewd gambler, and this deal will bring him monetary gains, but at the same time, he safeguards Bromden’s needs for self-esteem and offers him a chance for self-actualization. In the terminology of humanistic psychology, McMurphy’s handling of the fishing trip best exemplifies the two foundation blocks of the Rogersian person-centered approach: the actualizing tendency and the formative tendency. In short, McMurphy prizes Bromden for what he is and has faith in Bromden’s ability to rebuild himself and actualize his goals. At the end of their first conversation, McMurphy confirms his belief in Bromden’s informative tendency whimsically: “You growed a half a foot already” (Kesey, 1962: 224). McMurphy’s trust in Bromden’s actualizing tendency and formative tendency facilitates Bromden to restore his own resources for selfunderstanding and for altering his self-concept. With his restored power, the giant Bromden fulfills his promise and lifts the control panel that

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McMurphy fails to lift. Now, Bromden notices the changes of his physical power: [5.7] I caught a look at myself in the mirror. He’d done what he said; my arms were big again, big as they were back in high school, back at the village, and my chest and shoulders were broad and hard. (Kesey, 1962: 269) What happens to Bromden showcases that individuals have their own resources for self-growth, and coincidentally, McMurphy fulfills the role of an ideal therapist by providing a definable climate in which these resources can be tapped. In this sense, Kesey characterizes McMurphy as a humanistic therapist that practices a person-centered approach to psychology. Upon reaching this observation, I warn myself against a reductionist approach in understanding McMurphy’s role as a humanistic therapist. Kesey endows McMurphy with a therapist role, but his characterization of McMurphy cannot be simply reduced to a therapist imagery, albeit it is an important one. However, the understanding of McMurphy as a practical humanistic therapist furnishes a good vantage point to observe Kesey’s alignment with humanistic psychology. As a novelist, Kesey characterizes McMurphy as “an avatar, a Christ – the healer, literally a fisher of men”, who serves as an “energy source and an inspiration to Bromden and his fellows” (Hicks, 2007 [1981]: 76). Kesey’s footing in human psychology makes his characterization of McMurphy scientifically plausible. The Societal Application In Cuckoo’s Nest, the inmates’ breakthroughs in their personal struggles for consciousness demonstrate Kesey’s concern with personal transformation, which is ipso facto humanistic psychology per se. However, Kesey’s thinking on humanistic psychology is not limited to personal growth; he is also concerned with societal application. Humanistic psychology, from the very outset, “has engaged fulsomely and fearlessly with the social, cultural and political, in a way that much of mainstream scientific, ‘positivistic’ psychology has sought to avoid” (House et al., 2017: 108). It is

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in the societal application of humanistic psychology that we see a consummate integration of Kesey’s perennial pursuit of human consciousness and his social engagement. The conflicts between the inmates and the Big Nurse in Cuckoo’s Nest instantiate a binary opposition between the mad and the reason, or the abnormal and the normal. In his fictional portrayal of the binary opposition, Kesey re-scrutinizes the established view of normality and redefines its nature. His compassion with the inmates and satire of the Big Nurse not only draw the reader to identify with the madmen, but also set him/ her to reexamine the nature of the normal, everyday experience. Erving Goffman is an early writer who challenges the binary opposition between normal people and mental patients. Drawing on his experience as an assistant physical therapist, Goffman proposes in 1961 the notion of a continuum that links the normal and the abnormal, a notion that may sound presumptuous to people acclimatized to the general practice in the mental hospitals. “There is an old saw that no clear-cut line can be drawn between normal people and mental patients: rather there is a continuum with the well-adjusted citizen at one end and the full-fledged psychotic at the other” (Goffman, 1961: 303). One year later, in a fictional world of madness, Kesey resonates Goffman’s continuum with scalar madness (see section Madness as a Scalar Phenomenon), the two poles being the mad and the reason. When Kesey goes deep down under their labeled identities and their manifest behaviors, he challenges the naïve presumption of normality by reversely portraying the madmen sane and the Big Nurse crazy, proffering a relative view of normality. Laing is among the earliest writers to explore socio-political topics under the inspiration of psychological humanism. In the case of schizophrenia, Laing argues that it is the common-sense view on normality to consider the psychiatrist sane and the patient insane: The psychiatrist, as ipso facto sane, shows that the patient is out of contact with him. The fact that he is out of contact with the patient shows that there is something wrong with the patient, but not with the psychiatrist. But if one ceases to identify with the clinical posture, and looks at the psychiatrist-patient couple without such presuppositions, then it is difficult to sustain this naïve view of the situation. (Laing, 1967: 90)

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In the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey seems to make a prediction of Laing’s aforementioned findings in context. From a default perspective, the madmen are categorized as insane and the medical professionals headed by the Big Nurse as sane, while in Kesey’s representation, a reversed picture holds: the madmen are sane, fun-loving and fun-seeking beings; the professionals are merciless, ineffectual and crazy. Kesey’s thought of normality breaks the shackle of the common-sense view on madness, matching with Laing’s understanding of schizophrenia: There is no such ‘condition’ as ‘schizophrenia’, but the label is a social fact and the social fact a political event. This political event, occurring in the civic order of society, imposes definitions and consequences on the labelled person. It is a social prescription that rationalizes a set of social actions whereby the labelled person is annexed by others, who are legally sanctioned, medically empowered, and morally obliged, to become responsible for the person labelled. The person labelled is inaugurated not only into a role, but into a career of patient, by the concerted action of a coalition (a ‘conspiracy’) of family, G.P., mental health officer, psychiatrists, nurses, psychiatric social workers, and often fellow patients. (Laing, 1967: 100, emphasis in original)

Laing’s above thought of schizophrenia as a labelled social fact seems to be a perfect scientific reinterpretation of Kesey’s fictional representation of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. The doctors’ group meeting to diagnose McMurphy’s madness is par excellence a labeling process; the persecution from the Big Nurse and the aids and the pressure from the family (e.g., Bromden’s mother, Billy Bibbit’s mother and Harding’s wife), society and even the fellow patients join hands in turning the patients into career patients, a label that they are gradually accustomed to and attached to. The parallel line between Kesey’s fictional representation of madness and Laing’s scientific exegesis of schizophrenia implicates that Kesey’s thought of madness is orientated toward societal application, i.e., challenging the default view of madness and normality. In a fictional world of reversed normality, Kesey makes the reader rethink the nature of “madness” and “normal” everyday experience. When the absoluteness of normality is deconstructed, the consequences can be far-reaching. And to borrow from Laing (1967: 11), what Kesey does is to “provide a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man”. Rogers is long engaged in exploring the function of consciousness. “Rogers’s writings are often interpreted as providing theoretical support

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for the notion that changes in individual consciousness will be sufficient to bring about a humanization of society” (O’Hara, 1989: 29). The analyses on the progression of Bromden’s consciousness in Chapter 3 confirm human beings’ actualizing tendency (Rogers, 1980) operative in positive and constructive ways. Being a full-fledged and chronic psychotic, Bromden still possesses the directional actualizing tendency, and once provided with facilitative conditions, he will progress in positive and constructive ways. “The actualizing tendency can, of course, be thwarted or warped, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism”, argues Rogers (1980: 118). This is exactly the case with Bromden. With his regained consciousness, Bromden is empowered to make his own choice—killing the postoperative McMurphy who otherwise will end up in a humiliating mindless existence and fleeing out of the mental institution. Bromden’s acts are an independent choice of a consciousness mind. Kesey’s characterization of Bromden from a full-fledged psychotic to a conscious man capable of intentional acts resonates with Rogers’ understanding of the function of consciousness: With greater self-awareness, a more informed choice is possible; a choice more free from interjects, a conscious choice that is even more in tune with the evolutionary flow. Such a person is more potentially aware, not only of the stimuli from outside, but of ideas and dreams, and of the ongoing flow of feelings, emotions, and physiological reactions that he or she senses from within. The greater this awareness, the most surely the person will float in a direction consonant with the directional evolutionary flow. (Rogers, 1980: 127–128, emphasis in original)

Although humanistic psychologists differ tremendously among themselves, from the very outset they hold one common belief “that the modernist techno-industrial paradigm had run its course and that the new mythos to guide human action was needed” (O’Hara, 2017: 111). Kesey’s inward-looking tendency, together with his pro-humanness and anti-technocratic worldview and his social commitment once again confirm my previous observation on the novelist Kesey as a de facto humanistic psychologist.

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5.4 Fictional Narratives as Source Book of Psychology The twentieth-century inward turn of literature “created art that was exquisitely self-conscious; its subject was our psychology” (Lehrer, 2007: viii). This literary trend seems to make the claim “the great novels are source books for psychologists” (Wellek & Warren, 1956: 33) more selfevident. A psychological novel by genre, Cuckoo’s Nest is especially rich in subject matters of psychology. It is true that the success of Cuckoo’s Nest brought Kesey instant fame as a novelist. However, if Cuckoo’s Nest does have a claim on the attention of future readers, much of that claim will be based on Kesey’s consummate integration of science and art in his representation of human mental experiences. With his abiding interest in human consciousness and humanistic outlook, Kesey turns the verbal art Cuckoo’s Nest into a source book of psychology. An “Encyclopedia” of Psychology A Cuckoo’s Nest reader versed in psychology may often be struck with awe at the width and depth of Kesey’s knowledge of psychology. Considering its wide coverage of psychological matters, the scientific value of Cuckoo’s Nest is akin to a concise encyclopedia of psychology. In addressing the goals of linguistic theory, Chomsky (1964) famously proposes three roughly delimited goals: observational adequacy, descriptive adequacy and explanatory adequacy. By analogy, the goals of psychological theory can be studied likewise. Observational adequacy. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey accurately describes the multifarious signs and symptoms of a variety of mental disorders. Drawing on Chomsky’s observational adequacy—“a grammar meets the level of OBSERVATIONAL ADEQUACY if it correctly describes the data on which it is based and nothing more” (Chomsky & Halle, 1965: 99, emphasis in original)—we may find that Kesey’s approach to psychology meets the goal of observational adequacy with correct descriptions of the data of psychology, i.e., the mental disorders. The case study of Bromden’s madness in Chapter 3 demonstrates that Kesey accurately and sufficiently represents the various signs and symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic. In fact, this is but a tiny part of Kesey’s descriptions of the psychotic minds. Even with the minor characters, Kesey pursues with the same observational adequacy, making Cuckoo’s

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Nest a site of the records of multifarious mental disorders. For example, in Kesey’s descriptions of Sefelt’s epileptic seizures, the reader sees “Sefelt’s jittering out of the line on one foot with his arms both up in the air, falls backward in a stiff arch, and the whites of his eyes come by me upside down” (Kesey, 1962: 176), and later, when Sefelt starts to pull back normal, the reader sees that “his eyes are beginning to roll back into the whites” (Kesey, 1962: 178). For another example, after McMurphy’s lobotomy, the reader sees in Kesey’s description a brainless husk: [5.8] The swelling had gone down enough in the eyes that they were open; they stared into the full light of the moon, open and undreaming, glazed from being open so long without blinking until they were like smudged fuses in a fuse box. (Kesey, 1962: 322) Admittedly, neither the case study on Bromden’s madness nor the above two examples are sufficient to provide a full picture of Kesey’s descriptions of the signs and symptoms of madness. However, the aforementioned incidences will suffice to give a close-up view of Kesey’s observational adequacy. Kesey’s descriptions correspond to a high degree the scientific illustrations of the particular types of mental illness. For example, as shown in Chapter 3, Bromden’s signs and symptoms meet perfectly the criteria of paranoid schizophrenia stipulated by DSM -5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey represents a wide range of mad minds with medical accuracy. For a reader with limited previous knowledge of psychology, Cuckoo’s Nest can undisputedly acquaint him/her with reliable information of various mental disorders. Descriptive adequacy. On the basis of observational adequacy, i.e., correct descriptions of madness, Kesey’s approach to psychology, by giving a correct account of the cognitive and social bases of madness, also meets the level of descriptive adequacy in Chomsky’s parlance. This is an analogical understanding per se. “We say that a grammar meets the level of DESCRIPTIVE ADEQUACY to the extent that it gives a correct account of the speaker’s ‘tacit knowledge’” (Chomsky & Halle, 1965: 99, emphasis in original). At the level of descriptive adequacy, both Chomsky and Kesey are concerned with the same question—“why?”. Chomsky considers “the principles that determine how utterances are interpreted

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in the language, and what structures are assigned to them by the speakerhearer” (Chomsky & Halle, 1965: 100), whereas Kesey digs into the principal causes of madness, both cognitively and socially. Chapter 3 pinpoints the cognitive bases of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest — the cognitive impairment of metarepresentation. Chapter 4 reveals its social bases—madness as a social construction and ontological insecurity. The common element that makes a connection between the cognitive and the social bases is consciousness: the negative correlation between consciousness and madness at both the intramental and intermental levels. Kesey’s central concern with consciousness as the key to understanding madness can find support in the works of, for example, cognitive neuropsychologists (e.g., Frith, 1992) and humanistic psychologists (e.g., Rogers, 1980), both stressing the functions of consciousness. Following the foregoing analogical reasoning, we may say that by giving a correct account of the “tacit causes” of madness, Kesey’s approach to psychology adequately addresses the goal of descriptive adequacy of a theory of psychology. Explanatory adequacy. To carry the linguistic theory analogy further, we may examine Kesey’s theory of psychology in terms of explanatory adequacy, the highest level of Chomsky’s goals of linguistic theory. “We say that a linguistic theory (n.b., not a grammar) meets the level of EXPLANATORY ADEQUACY to the extent that it provides a principled basis for the selection of descriptively adequate grammars” (Chomsky & Halle, 1965: 99–100, emphasis in original). Unlike the first two kinds of adequacy that aim at the level of a grammar, explanatory adequacy, broader in scope, aims at the level of a linguistic theory. Likewise, Kesey’s thought of psychology can only be upgraded to the level of a theory of psychology when it provides a principled basis for the selection of descriptively adequate approaches to psychology. And as indicated in the following discussion, it does. Reading Cuckoo’s Nest is akin to reliving the history of psychology. Kesey has a broad vision of psychology. Kesey’s strong alignment with humanistic psychology, instead of restricting his vision within a fixed school of psychology, motivates him to critically examine the other schools, proffering a synopsis of the major schools of psychology. Kesey keeps an open attitude toward different schools of psychology, and like many psychologists, he is eclectic in his approach by drawing from several approaches. Kesey’s open attitude, solid knowledge and critical appraisal

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are the premises for a theory of psychology with a principled basis for the selection of descriptively adequate approaches. The Freudian psychoanalysis, i.e., the first force psychology, holds an “orthodox” position in Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey uses the Freudian jargons directly. For example, in the doctors’ meeting, a young doctor’s diagnosis of McMurphy as “Negative Oedipal” is congratulated by his peers. Harding—the most knowledgeable patient—frequently mentions famous names and technical jargons of the psychoanalysis tradition. For example, Harding bitterly cries in his argument with McMurphy: “Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching id and heal the wounded superego” (Kesey, 1962: 59, my emphasis). Besides, a close reader may also find Kesey’s familiarity with the Freudian tradition in his various artistic designs, such as Bromden’s dream (Kesey, 1962: 86–89), which is reminiscent of the Freudian unconscious, the telling vestige of Oedipus complex inherent in the big-mother-and-little-son pairs (e.g., the Big Nurse and the patients; Bromden and his mother; Billy and his mother) and others. By and large, Kesey holds a critical attitude toward the domination of the Freudian tradition in psychology, which is suffused with sophisticated technical jargons and overemphasizes the unconscious. However, Kesey does not see psychoanalysis as completely valueless. Certain quintessential issues and methods of psychoanalysis, such as sexual repression and treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and psychoanalyst, resurface in Kesey’s theory of psychology, but in a different light. Likewise, the second force psychology—the school of behaviorism— also has a fair chance of display in Cuckoo’s Nest, and more under the spot light than psychoanalysis. Kesey’s understanding of behavioristic psychology is mainly represented through the ward’s quotidian practice. The Big Nurse is par excellence a porte-parole of behavioristic psychology: precise, mechanistic and inhuman. Kesey describes in minute details the Big Nurse’s toolkits: pills, injections, a basketful of tools, seclusion, electric shock therapy, lobotomy and so forth. Despite its wondrous benefits, the modernist techno-industrial paradigm is to blame for being the Big Nurse’s powerful accomplice. By representing the mechanistic and behavioristic practice as the paradigmatic practice on the ward, Kesey launches unremittingly his critiques of the second force psychology, which is the mainstream of psychology of his day. The third force psychology—humanistic psychology—is introduced as a counterforce to the behavioristic psychology. Like the Big Nurse

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who represents the behavioristic and mechanistic psychology, McMurphy, whose worldview conflates with the implied author’s, personifies humanistic psychology. Discussions in section Novelists as Psychologists have fully explored Kesey’s thought of humanistic psychology, which I do not repeat here. What I would like to stress further is that in viewing Kesey’s psychological theory as fundamentally humanistic, it does not mean that Kesey sees madness as an exclusive social issue and completely ignores the pathological bases of psychosis. On the contrary, as revealed in Chapter 3, Kesey’s representation of Bromden’s madness can be readily explained as a cognitive defect, i.e., the impairment of his metarepresentation mechanism. This indicates that Kesey’s theory of psychology has a range that is broad enough to encompass a selection of approaches to give descriptively adequate explanations for the causes of madness. After a somewhat seemingly digressive but necessary discussion on Kesey’s treatment of different schools of psychology, now it is time for us to return to our previous linguistic analogy. In light of Chomsky’s explanatory adequacy, Kesey’s theory of psychology provides a principled basis for the selection of descriptively adequate approaches to psychology. For example, we may discern the cognitive bases of madness following a cognitive neuropsychological approach and the social bases of madness following a humanistic approach. In this sense, we may say that Kesey’s psychological theory reaches the highest goal of a theory by meeting the level of explanatory adequacy. A few words of clarification are necessary at the present stage. Owing to Kesey’s remarkable psychological insights, I examine the width and depth of Kesey’s thought of psychology by way of a psychological theory. However, it will be inaccurate to simply equate Kesey’s psychological insights with a scientific theory per se. My discussions on Kesey’s theory of psychology are by nature analogical. Admittedly, this analogical understanding may possibly pose some potential challenge and even confusion. However, with a clarification of its analogical nature, understanding Kesey’s psychological insights via a scientific model can be rewarding: it can better reveal the scientific value of Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey accurately describes the phenomena of madness, correctly explains the causes of madness and provides a solid basis for the explanations. In this sense, we may say that Cuckoo’s Nest is a rich source book of psychology. Owing to the exceptional width and depth of Kesey’s knowledge of psychology that suffuses the fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, it is not an inaccurate statement to call this novel an “encyclopedia” of psychology.

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The Therapeutic Value By seeing Cuckoo’s Nest akin to an “encyclopedia” of psychology, we discern the rich source of psychology as an inherent ingredient of the novel. However, this analogy remains true only in terms of the psychological matters covered in Cuckoo’s Nest owing to Kesey’s accurate representation of psychological experiences, and it will be wrong to equate the novel with a work of psychology. As a matter of fact, rarely a reader turns to Cuckoo’s Nest to learn about psychology, albeit he/she may end up with increased knowledge of the subject. It is very likely a reader may simply turn to the novel for fun, but the reading experience itself may produce the ancillary therapeutic effect, and in this sense, Cuckoo’s Nest can also be regarded as a practical source book of psychology. The ancillary therapeutic effect lies in the reading experience—the reader’s cognitive and emotional response to the text. I have previously touched upon the reading experience when discussing the reader’s cognitive response to Cuckoo’s Nest in section Madness as Cognitive Experimentation, referring to the heightened awareness of one’s consciousness, a potential therapeutic value in the reader’s cognitive response. This, however, only addresses what Nikolajeva (2014) considers to be the reader’s cognitive engagement with fiction, and the equally important “affective engagement with fiction” that Nikolajeva (2014: 3) has mentioned remains to be investigated. In the present section, I focus on the reader’s emotional response, in hopes of better understanding the therapeutic value of Kesey’s theory of psychology and what Cuckoo’s Nest contributes to the knowledge of human emotion. Emotion is a relatively new research interest in literature study in the recent decades. For example, Hogan (2011: 12) argues for the legitimacy of using literature as data for scientific theorization of emotion: “In short, the arts – and the interpretation of the arts – should have some place in the ‘context of justification’ for some psychological and neuroscientific theorization, particularly regarding emotion”. Although emotion is a relatively new research interest, emotional response to literature is not a new discovery; this phenomenon has long been noted in history. Catharsis, a central word around which studies on emotional response cluster, can be traced back to Aristotle’s Poetics, albeit the exegesis of its original meaning remains in dispute. Nowadays, this word is commonly used to refer to the emotion relieving function of literature: “The function of literature,

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some say, is to relieve us – either writers or readers – from the pressure of emotions” (Wellek & Warren, 1956: 36). Whether literature can relieve or incite the reader’s emotions remains a question at issue, a challenge that calls for further investigations under “Literature and Psychology” (Wellek & Warren, 1956), but the emotional response to Cuckoo’s Nest, a partial by-product of the reader’s decoding of the affective meaning of the fictional narratives, may contribute further to understanding the therapeutic value of this novel in particular and the cognitive value of literature in general. Now, with enough digression and backgrounding, it is time for us to pin down the kind of emotional response that Cuckoo’s Nest may induce and its ensuing therapeutic effect. In essence, a Cuckoo’s Nest reader may experience a catharsis through the carnivalistic laughter when immersed in the story world. Such laughter, therapeutically valuable for the inmates in the fictional world, may also have the potential healing power to individual readers in the real world. In what follows, I first examine how the carnivalistic laughter in Cuckoo’s Nest helps the fictional characters restore their mental well-being, based on which I investigate its impacts on the reader. Cuckoo’s Nest hosts plentiful materials to find explanations in Russian formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque. The carnival imagery pervades all levels in Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy, once “a season on a skillo wheel in a carnival” (Kesey, 1962: 81) before coming to the ward, is characterized by the narrator Chief Bromden as “a carnival artist” (Kesey, 1962: 262). Goluboff (1991: 115) maps McMurphy’s image of a carnival artist onto his saving role: “McMurphy’s tenure as lord of misrule or carnival king frees the inmates from the hospital and returns them, if not to sanity, at least to a condition of creative self-sufficiency”. McMurphy’s saving role, to some other researchers, is to be interpreted in terms of a practical therapist (e.g., Baurecht, 2007 [1982]; Havemann, 1971; Hicks, 2007 [1981]; Kunz, 1975), a point I touch upon in section “The Therapy” above and to be further elaborated here. Bakhtin (1984b: 68) uncovers Rabelais’s concept of “the therapeutic power of laughter”, and by sourcing the “three most popular antique sources of the Rabelaisian

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philosophy of laughter”,4 he confirms “laughter as a universal philosophical principle that heals and regenerates (Bakhtin, 1984b: 70). Therefore, McMurphy’s saving power, to a large extent, lies in the carnivalistic nature of his system of practical psychotherapy. Cuckoo’s Nest is filled with carnivalistic scenes. McMurphy’s crowning ritual5 is proceeded immediately after he sets his foot on the ward: “Who’s the bull goose loony here?” (Kesey, 1962: 19). McMurphy targets this question toward the stuttering Billy Bibbit, who feels compelled to answer. Bibbit picks out the effeminate, college-educated Harding as the candidate. A comical scene is brought onto the stage as the two men try to beat each other down by proving himself to be crazier. Finally, the absurd crowning ritual ends up with Harding’s acknowledgment of McMurphy’s victory: [5.9] “I take off my hat,” Harding says, bows his head, and shakes hands with McMurphy. There’s no doubt in my mind that McMurphy’s won, but I’m not sure just what. (Kesey, 1962: 21) The crowning ritual sets forth a carnivalistic spirit that runs through the whole novel, especially in the four major scenes of revolts against the Big Nurse: the ward carnival, the TV revolt, the fishing trip and the party on the ward. These four carnivals are the testing grounds where McMurphy’s carnivalistic laughter demonstrates its therapeutic values. The aborted ward carnival . On his second day on the ward, McMurphy conned Doctor Spivey, the befuddled doctor who presides the ward, into proposing a ward carnival, which is nipped by the Big Nurse in the bud. However, the whole scene of this ward carnival proposal is like another absurd carnival, kindling the carnivalistic spirit in the minds of both the doctor and the patients. The representation of McMurphy’s mental events is kept to the minimal, but the narrator’s voice “[y]ou can

4 The first source is Rabelais’s Montpellier time; the second is Aristotle’s formula: “Of all living creatures only man is endowed with laughter”, and the third is Lucian, especially his image of Menippus laughing in the kingdom of the dead (Bakhtin, 1984b: 67–69). 5 Closely related to the festive laughter is the ritual of mock crowning and subsequent decrowning of the carnival king, which is the primary carnivalistic act. “Crowning/ decrowning is a dualistic ambivalent ritual, expressing the inevitability and at the same time the creative power of the shift-and-renewal, the joyful relativity of all structure and order, of all authority and all (hierarchical) position” (Bakhtin, 1984a: 124).

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tell a lot of the ideas are ideas he’s already talked over with McMurphy” (Kesey, 1962: 109) reminds the reader that the doctor is doing a puppet show, and McMurphy is holding the lines behind him. The TV revolt. The aborted ward carnival did not dishearten McMurphy, the carnival artist, from seeking carnival laughter, and he seizes the chance in the coming World Series. He leads the inmates to fight for watching the baseball games. His overt action of defiance drives the Big Nurse into hollers of threat, to which he turns a blind eye. The other inmates follow McMurphy’s suit, bringing the TV revolt into a new high: [5.10] And we’re all sitting there lined up in front of that blanked-out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could see the baseball game clear as day, and she’s ranting and screaming behind us. (Kesey, 1962: 144) The TV revolt action is a manifestation of the communal rebellion against the Big Nurse and the ward policy, and in a bitter-sweet comical laughter, it parallels the misrule in a carnival. If the ward carnival is a carnival that was aborted in its embryo stage, the TV revolt is perhaps a carnival that died in infancy. However, the carnival spirit has inflicted people’s mind in an irreversible way. Unlike the ward carnival, where McMurphy remains in the background, in the TV revolt carnival, McMurphy is an exemplar on the central stage. The fishing trip carnival . Like the previous two carnivals, the fishing trip carnival starts amidst forces of opposition. Fortunately, it did not die prematurely. Though both the doctor and the inmates are much ill at ease when they first set their foot outside, the carnival laughter is finally brought out in its true sense on the fishing boat: [5.11] While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water – laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier and the bicycle rider and the service- station guys and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse and all of it. … I notice Harding is collapsed beside McMurphy and is laughing too. And Scanlon from the bottom of the boat. At their own

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selves as well as at the rest of us. And the girl, with her eyes still smarting as she looks from her white breast to her red one, she starts laughing. And Sefelt and the doctor, and all. (Kesey, 1962: 249–250) The crew’s appearances and actions speak for their excited and cheerful minds, a wonderful product of the carnival laughter, a clear sign of the sick men’s regained vitality. The ward party carnival . Upon his return to the ward from the disturbed, McMurphy declines the escaping plan proposed by Chief Bromden and others for the sake of keeping his promise for Bibbit’s date with Candy. He proposes to make this occasion his going-away party, which turns out to be a wild gala, a carnival in its true sense. When the party comes into its full swing, a carnival misrule is permeated with the carnival laughter. To get the cough syrup to mix with vodka, McMurphy talks the night guard Mr. Turkle into picking the lock. “Turkle grinned and nodded his head lazily” (Kesey, 1962: 301). This starts the misrule by trespassing into the very center of the ward, followed by a series of misrule: reading the patients’ files and checking the nurses’ equipment. The cocktail of liquor and cough syrup, mixed with McMurphy and Turkle’s joke, drives the party into its climax: [5.12] We laughed till we were rolling about the couches and chairs, choking and teary-eyed. The girls were so weak from laughing they had to try two or three times to get to their feet. “I gotta … go tinkle,” the big one said and went weaving and giggling toward the latrine and missed the door… (Kesey, 1962: 302) This is the outbreak of the carnival laughter, a laughter that McMurphy planned in his ward carnival but was aborted in its embryo stage, a laughter that McMurphy sought for in watching the World Series but was suffocated in its infancy, a laughter that popped up on the fishing trip but was only possible outside the hospital, and now a laugher right in the center of the Big Nurse’s ward or the Combine in Bromden’s words. The wild laughter frees the men from the seizure of fear, but the cyclic nature of the carnival also foreshadows its down side. This ward party is a carnival in its true sense, where the ambivalent carnival laughter has its full play. In this carnival laughter, the fearful and weak inmates finally grow brave

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and strong, while the fearless and strong McMurphy becomes worn out. The carnivalistic theme deserves systematic investigation in its own right, but presently to stay focused, we will only examine the therapeutic value of the carnivalistic laughter. Why is the carnivalistic laughter so important for the mental well-being of both the doctor and the patients? To answer this question, we will first examine the semantic features of the McMurphian laughter and then probe into the neuropsychological basis for a scientific interpretation. That particular McMurphian laughter runs through Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy’s theory of laughter consists of three key components: laughter as a protector, a strength builder and a weapon. McMurphy’s understanding of laughter corresponds to the Bakhtinian theory of carnival laughter, where it is seen as something that “overcomes fear, for it knows no inhibitions, no limitations” (Bakhtin, 1984b: 90). McMurphy’s spontaneous, free, loud and real laughter seems to best meet Bakhtin’s criterion of a carnival laughter which is akin to a fear-buster. “Fear is the extreme expression of narrow-minded and stupid seriousness, which is defeated by laughter” (Bakhtin, 1984b: 47). The above-mentioned qualities—spontaneous, free, loud and real— constitute the semantic features of the interpretive schema of McMurphy’s laughter. The McMurphian laughter is infectious. As an example, Chief Bromden, who has feigned to be deaf and dumb for twenty years, gradually shows the same set of semantic features of the McMurphian laughter in his behavior. Excerpt [5.13] (some parts of this excerpt have been cited in [3.10] and [5.6], respectively; the abridged version is reproduced below as [5.13] for the sake of convenience) demonstrates Bromden’s crucial moment of change under the influence of McMurphy’s carnivalistic laughter. [5.13] “‘When you chew it in the morning,’” he sang in a whisper, “‘will it be too hard to bite?’ ” But the more I thought about it the funnier it seemed to me. I tried to stop it but I could feel I was about to laugh—not at McMurphy’s singing, but at my own self. “‘This question’s got me goin’, won’t somebody set me right; does the Spearmint lose its flavor on the bedpost over niiiite?’” He held out that last note and twiddled it down me like a feather. I couldn’t help but start to chuckle, and this made me scared I’d get to laughing and not be able to stop.

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… “Juicy Fruit is the best I can do for you at the moment, Chief. Package I won off Scanlon pitchin’ pennies.” And he got back in bed. And before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you. … It didn’t sound like much because my throat was rusty and my tongue creaked. He told me I sounded a little out of practice and laughed at that. I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow. It sounded more like crying than laughing. (Kesey, 1962: 217–218) The laughter comes out of Bromden automatically, a free expression of his mental state. Desirous for and out of practice of laughing as Bromden is, he follows McMurphy in laughing, regaining a basic quality of an individual life. Bromden is not only regaining his ability in laughing, but also regains his speech, a basic human character that he relinquished long ago. During the fishing trip, Bromden’s laugh turns out to be freer and more on his own, a sign of growing power. It shows more semantic features of the McMurphian laughter: “It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger” (Kesey, 1962: 250). Finally, at the ward party, the final carnival, Bromden’s laughter almost exhibits all the semantic features of a McMurphian laughter, showing an overlap in the semantic features in the interpretive schema and behavioral schema (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999): “We laughed till we were rolling about the couches and chairs, choking and teary-eyed” (Kesey, 1962: 302). Together with the others, Bromden bursts out that loud, wild laughter. In a drunk and laughing state, Bromden finds the once formidable Combine becomes less fearsome, and he is so much empowered that he grabs up McMurphy and the girl and carries them each in an arm like a giant, and “ran all the way to the day room with them hollering and kicking like kids” (Kesey, 1962: 305). Bromden is not alone infected by the McMurphian laughter; all the inmates (and Doctor Spivey) are reacting to the McMurphian laughter in more or less the same way. Excerpt [5.11] is a scene that fully demonstrates laughter is infectious and how the carnivalistic laughter can embolden men. The inmates who used to be afraid of loosening themselves and laughing, now laugh to their hearts’ content: spontaneous, free, wild and real. Even the doctor, who is supposed to be on the

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opposite side of the patients, is now joining the patients in laughing, a sign of the temporary collapse of the binary opposition. Thus, we may conclude that the infectious carnivalistic laughter is therapeutically effective in combating madness. How does laughter defeat fear? How can McMurphy drive his fellow inmates out of their “rabbit-hood” and bring about cures to them? Advent in modern neurosciences offers insights into these queries. Laughter has received increased attention in neuroscience studies in recent years. The discovery of the mirror neurons, a class of visuomotor neurons found in the macaque monkeys’ premotor cortex, contributes to a new understanding of laughter. To date, mirror neurons are considered by neuroscientists the neural foundation of verbal and nonverbal social interactions (Rizzolatti & Arbib, 1998). Although no direct evidence is given for how mirror neurons function in human laughter, Meyer et al. (2007) raise the issue if mirror neurons are also responsible for the (pre-) motor activity in the brains of individuals who only perceive short sequences of laughter, a research finding by Meyer et al. (2005). According to Meyer et al. (2007), when humans perceive laughter, auditory, (pre-) motor and primary somatosensory regions are most evident. This indicates the reciprocal interaction between the perception and expression of laughter. The perception of laughter induces expressive laughter which is reflected by “the recruitment of somatosensory and (pre-) motor loops in the subcentral gyrus, the postcentral gyrus and the Rolandic operculum” (Meyer et al., 2007: 256). Meyer et al. (2007) also argue that there is “mirror-like” transmission of emotive states that covaries with activation of audio-motor circuits—hearing laughter elicits the same internal sensations of chest movements as overt laughing does— as shown in the somatosensory activation in recipients. This provides neurological evidence for the statement that laughter is infectious. In their study of the mammalian brain, Panksepp and Burgdorf (2003: 540) conclude that “laughter is infectious and may transmit moods of positive social solidarity, thereby prompting cooperative forms of social engagement”. In line with the argument that laughter is infectious, Meyer et al. (2007: 254) believe laughter “may not only display the mirthful state or experience of one individual (be it monkey or human), but rather serves to actively influence the affective state of listeners, and their behavior accordingly”. This gives proof to neuroethological models that describe laughter as a “primal behavioral tool used by individuals – be they human or ape – to prompt other individuals of a peer group and

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to create a mirthful context for social interaction and communication” (Meyer et al., 2007: 245). Such a mirthful context is seen by neuroscientists as conducive to transmitting “moods of positive social solidarity, thereby prompting cooperative forms of social engagement” (Panksepp & Burgdorf, 2003: 540). In addition to the neuroscientific evidence, studies in social psychology also help explain laughter is infectious. Mimicry is found to occur unintentionally and even among strangers (van Baaren et al., 2004). Bargh et al. (1996) find that perception of another’s behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Chartrand and Bargh (1999) attribute the mechanism for the above finding to the perception-behavior link, which they argue is the cause of the chameleon effect. The term “chameleon effect” refers to “nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expression, and other behaviors of one’s interaction partners, such that one’s behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one’s current social environment” (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999: 893). Carver et al. (1983) give an interpretation to how individuals perceive and behave. They find that the process of viewing a model’s behavior activates a conceptual schema for use in interpretation, the activation of which activates behavioral information, and there is semantic relation between these two sets of information. In referring to Carver et al.’s (1983) study, Chartrand and Bargh (1999) put these as interpretive schemas and behavioral schemas that have substantial overlap in their semantic features. The findings from both neuroscience and social psychology give evidence to the therapeutic value of the carnivalistic laughter in Cuckoo’s Nest. The patients and even Doctor Spivey automatically pick up the McMurphian laughter and behave accordingly. This is the kind of chameleon effect (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999) which occurs as a natural cognitive and affective response to McMurphy’s laughter. The spontaneous, free, loud and real laughter is carnivalistic in nature. “Through this victory laughter clarified man’s consciousness and gave him a new outlook on life” (Bakhtin, 1984b: 91). The laughter produces camaraderie among the fellow inmates and even the doctor, freeing them from the grip of the Big Nurse’s terror and their own “rabbit-hood”. The emotional response to the McMurphian laughter in the fictional world may also shed light on the reader’s emotional response to fiction in the real world, justifying Hogan’s (2011) claim for the legitimacy of using literature as data for scientific theorization of emotion. When reading

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Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader may experience similar emotional response as the fictional characters do in the story world, and accordingly benefit from McMurphy’s practical psychotherapy as well. Endowed with the mirror neurons, the reader may relive the characters’ experiences in reading. According to Gallese and Goldman (1998), mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching observation and execution of goal-related motor actions, and they enable an organism to detect certain mental states of observed conspecifics. Gallese and Goldman (1998) hypothesize that this function is part of, or a precursor to folk psychologizing mechanism—a general mind-reading ability. They argue that simulation theory is in line with the findings from mirror neurons in giving explanations to mind reading: “a significant portion of mind-reading episodes involves the process of mimicking (or trying to mimic) the mental activity of the target agent” (Gallese & Goldman, 1998: 497). In other words, while reading, the reader may possibly experience the same emotional response to the carnivalistic laughter as the fictional characters do in the story world, and therefore, he/she may find the laughter cathartic and healing to his/her own mental agony. The carnivalistic spirits and scenes in Cuckoo’s Nest can relieve and release the reader from the tension of worldly pressures. To some readers, the tragedy of McMurphy can probably incite profuse tears, a catharsis to release longtime repression, and as a result, the reader may come out with a calmer mind. “And the spectator of a tragedy or the reader of a novel is also said to experience release and relief” (Wellek & Warren, 1956: 36). The ancillary therapeutic effect derived from the reader’s emotional response further confirms my previous argument that Cuckoo’s Nest can be regarded as a valuable source book of psychology. In general, individual works may incite different cognitive and emotional response from the reader, and individual persons may also respond differently to the same narrative fiction. The therapeutic value based on the reading experience of Cuckoo’s Nest instantiates the reader’s cognitive and emotional response to madness narratives in this line. However, a few words of clarification are necessary to avoid an over-inclusive conclusion. On the one hand, given its practical therapeutic value, the reading experience of Cuckoo’s Nest can be worlds apart from reading a book of psychology. In section “Cognitive Engagement” above, we discuss the reader’s cognitive response in relation to the differences between literary and scientific discourse. Likewise, the reader’s emotional response can be understood from the same perspective. Even with direct mentioning

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of certain psychological terms, the language of Cuckoo’s Nest, a fine example of verbal art, differs fundamentally from that of psychology, a fine example of science. The former may convey “a combination of recognition and insight” (Daiches, 1964: 134), whereas the latter only serves for recognition. And it is exactly with this “unique effect of imaginative literature” (Daiches, 1964: 134) that Cuckoo’s Nest may arouse the reader’s emotional response which in turn does the work like a therapeutist. On the other hand, by stressing the therapeutic value of Cuckoo’s Nest, I am by no means implying that Kesey’s novel is a science work, or a science work in the disguise of art. Cuckoo’s Nest is art, a chef-d’oeuvre of verbal art. However, it is impossible to understand Kesey’s art without taking into accounts its relationship with science. Kesey has not fathered a single theory of cognitive science, but by exploring life experiences, he reaches the same understanding of human consciousness like scientists do. In studying the convergence of art and science, Lehrer (2007: xii) says “any description of the brain requires both cultures, art and science”, and Kesey contributes to this goal by offering the reader an artistic experience of the human mind. This makes Kesey’s art endure.

5.5

Summary

In this chapter, based on the previous analyses of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest, I systematically investigate the intrinsic relationships between fiction and cognition by approaching minds and madness from both a cognitive and a social dimension. It begins with an innovative interpretation of the Keseyian madness. Based on the analyses in Chapters 3 and 4, I argue that Kesey innovates the concept of literary madness by presenting it as a polysemous concept, enriching its intension and blurring the boundary of its extension. Kesey’s ingenious design of focalization strategy is an indispensable narrative technique for shaping a polysemous concept of madness. The rich meanings in the Keseyian madness enable us to view it as a scalar phenomenon, with the mad and the reason on the two poles and various pathological and social conditions in between. Besides, instead of defining the scale as being unidirectional, Kesey offers a possibility to view it as bidirectional, depending on the criteria based on which madness is defined. From a social dimension, the Keseyian madness is in line with the Foucauldian tradition that challenges the orthodox binary opposition between the mad and the reason; from a cognitive dimension, it sees madness as a

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cognitive dysfunction rooted in a person’s metarepresentation mechanism. Therefore, Kesey’s understanding of madness is both cognitive and social. Then, I investigate further the cognitive value of madness narratives by drawing on the analogy of Cuckoo’s Nest as cognitive experimentation. Without a single mention of the cognitive term “metarepresentation”, Kesey intuits the crucial functions of a cognitive mechanism that plays a key role in a person’s consciousness. In a mosaic of narratives of the mad minds, Kesey portrays madness as a cognitive impairment of a general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation, matching a groundbreaking cognitive theory of schizophrenia that the cognitive neuropsychologist Frith (1992) formulated thirty years later. Kesey also puts the reader’s metarepresentation mechanism to test by designing an unreliable schizophrenic narrator Bromden, and accordingly reading Cuckoo’s Nest is like going through metarepresentation games. With his understanding of the metarepresentation mechanism, Kesey first deceives and then disabuses the reader with his masterly design of an unreliable narrator— Chief Bromden. In addition, the cognitive engagement with the mad world may also foster the reader’s metarepresentational ability and raise his/her self-awareness, a positive by-product of reading experience. Kesey experiments with the metarepresentation mechanism in both his portrayal of the mad minds and his handling of the reader’s cognitive engagement with the novel, and in this sense, Cuckoo’s Nest can be regarded as a testing ground for the cognitive theory of consciousness. I also investigate how novelists contribute to our understanding of human minds through their artistic experience by seeing Kesey as a de facto humanistic psychologist. Kesey’s thought of psychology underpins his fictional representation of madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. Three guiding principles of psychology can be identified accordingly: man is a whole being, man exists in a context and man is aware, intentional and has choices. These three principles match consummately with the core principles of humanistic psychology postulated by Bugental (1964). Kesey’s nonpathologizing position is embodied in his characterization of McMurphy as a practical psychotherapist. The way that McMurphy brings about cures to the inmates fits into the humanistic therapist Rogers’s (1980) person-centered approach. McMurphy satisfies all the three Rogersian conditions for a growth-promoting climate: genuineness, realness or congruence; acceptance, or caring, or prizing; empathetic understanding (Rogers, 1980: 115–116). Kesey also shares

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the similar concern of societal application with the humanistic psychologists. By representing madness as a scalar phenomenon, Kesey challenges the default binary opposition between the mad and the reason, and the diagnosis of madness in the mainstream psychology. Likewise, although humanistic psychologists differ greatly among themselves, since the very start humanistic psychology has been committed to the societal application that “much of mainstream scientific, ‘positivistic’ psychology has sought to avoid” (House et al., 2017: 108). Through fictional representation of the principles of psychology, therapeutic practices and social commitment, Kesey, in the fictional world, shares the same concern with humanistic psychologists in the real world. In this sense, the novelist Kesey can be regarded as a de facto humanistic psychologist. Finally, the nexus between fiction and cognition is examined by exploring Cuckoo’s Nes t as a source book of psychology. With its exceptional coverage and accuracy in representing psychological matters, including the description of the signs and symptoms of mental disorders, the cognitive and social bases of madness, and the broad vision of psychology theory, Cuckoo’s Nes t is akin to an “encyclopedia” of psychology. Meanwhile, Cuckoo’s Nes t can also be seen as a practical source book of psychology. The carnivalistic laughter in Cuckoo’s Nest, a magical antidote to madness in the fictional world, may have the similar impacts on the reader in the real world, and consequently may produce an ancillary therapeutic effect in the reading experience. For both its coverage of the subject matters and its practical therapeutic value, Cuckoo’s Nes t is a valuable source book of psychology. Into an enticing fictional world of Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey encodes his exceptional psychological experiences, and in decoding the rich meaning, we are offered a chance to venture into the nexus of fiction and cognition, ending up with new insights into human minds and madness, to understand humans as biological and social beings and to understand what makes humans human. In Cuckoo’s Nest, the art and the science are one and the same.

References Abootalebi, H. (2018). Paranoia and its ensuing effects in Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Neohelicon, 45(1), 367–377. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.

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Bakhtin, M. M. (1984a). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (C. Emerson, Ed. & Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1984b). Rabelais and his world (H. Isvolsky, Trans.). Indiana University Press. Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230–244. Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. MIT Press. Baurecht, W. C. (2007 [1982]). Separation, initiation, and return: Schizophrenic episode in One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (Bloom’s modern critical interpretation) (New ed., pp. 81–90). Infobase Publishing. Booth, W. (1961). The rhetoric of fiction. University of Chicago Press. Brautigan, R. (2010 [1967]). Trout fishing in America. Mariner Books. Bugental, J. F. T. (1964). The third force in psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 4(1), 19–26. Carver, C. S., Ganellen, R. J., Framing, W. J., & Chambers, W. (1983). Modeling: An analysis in terms of category accessibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19(5), 403–421. Chartrand, T., & Bargh, J. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perceptionbehavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(6), 893–910. Chomsky, N. (1964). Current issues in linguistic theory. In J. A. Fodor & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The structure of language: Readings in the philosophy of language (pp. 50–118). Prentice Hall. Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1965). Some controversial questions in phonological theory. Journal of Linguistics, 1(2), 97–138. Daiches, D. (1964). A study of literature: For readers and critics. Norton & Company. Dorst, A. G. (2019). Translating metaphorical mind style: Machinery and ice metaphors in Ken Kesey’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Perspectives, 27 (6), 875–889. Feng, Z. (2022). Metonymy as a semiotic resource in fictional narrative. Chinese Semiotic Studies, 18(3), 475–491. Fick, T. H. (1989). The hipster, the hero, and the psychic frontier in “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, 43(1/2), 31–57. Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason (R. Howard, Trans.). Vintage Books. Frith, C. D. (1992). The cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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CHAPTER 6

What Do Madness Narratives Offer to Cognitive Science?

From the outset, cognitive literary studies have been engaged in exploring the mind-narrative nexus, including the narrative representation of cognition, emotion, mental states and so forth. Madness narratives represent a unique opportunity to address this engagement. The reasons are threefold. First, madness is a common human experience that is still insufficiently understood—“we live in a world that generates madness and distress, fails frequently to address them adequately or appropriately and often can even make them worse” (Beresford, 2022: 1). Second, advancement in cognitive science, including psychology, neurology, cognitive linguistics and so forth, has endowed cognitive literary researchers with efficient tools and methods to investigate literary madness scientifically. Third, through the looking glass of (literary) madness, we may reflect on and gain a better understanding of our own mind. Therefore, fictional representation of madness, among a variety of literary phenomena, has become a favorite child from the marriage of literature and cognitive science. Within this academic milieu, this book has investigated the literary representation of minds and madness by taking Ken Kesey’s magnum opus One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as the exemplary text. Through a systematic study of the three nodes of fiction, cognition and interpretation as well as their interrelations, I endeavor to come up with a version of the minds and madness in Cuckoo’s Nest that is both theoretically wellgrounded and applicable to other fictional representations of mental states © Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 X. YANG, A Poetics of Minds and Madness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6_6

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and literary madness. Throughout the book, I intend to offer a theory of and/or a systematic approach to the mad minds in narrative fiction, as I have indicated in the title of the book—a poetics of the minds and madness. Therefore, in this final chapter, I relate the research findings based on the representation of mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest to a larger picture—what madness narratives offer to cognitive science. I conclude this book by arguing that in view of the fact that linguistic competence can be better understood via aphasia, the study of literary (fictional) representation of the abnormal mind (or madness) can be an important means or resource of studying the human mind. Fictional representation of the mad mind can be an object of reflection, while cognitive literary studies of madness can be a valid approach to developing a comprehensive theory of the mind.

6.1

An Object of Reflection

In his portrayal of the mad world in Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey aspires to transparency: in the deformed minds, he wants us to see how our own minds function. Kesey’s aspiration is also commonly shared by, among a good many novelists, most noticeably modernist writers who take an inward turn to human consciousness as the subject matter of reflection. Not aiming at an exhaustive list, but to see this common aspiration to transparency shared by the novelists, we may find the following exemplary novelists: Kesey’s precursors such as Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf in the West and Lu Xun in the East, his contemporaries and countrymen Joseph Heller and Jerome Salinger, and his followers across the Atlantic Ian McEwan and Mark Haddon, to name only a few. In their various forms of work and for their different goals, they have all inevitably explored how the human mind works. The novelists’ aspiration to transparency converges with the perennial pursuit of cognitive scientists, the career mind explorers. However, while the scientists are dedicated to the anatomical accuracy of the human thought in the laboratories, the novelists weave their understanding into fiction by manipulating their own armamentarium—language. The stylistic and narrative devices to the novelists are what the laboratory apparatus and tools to the scientists. A linkage between the textual property and fictional representation of the states of the human mind can be found in the narrative structures, a key medium for both the authorly construction and the readerly construal of the fictional minds. A good case in point

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as demonstrated in the present study is focalization—under the general pattern of intramental internal focalization, Kesey uses multi-faceted and multi-layered focalization, including both intramental and intermental focalization, for a multi-dimensional representation of fictional (mad) minds in Cuckoo’s Nest. At least two important messages can be derived from the exploration of focalization and mental representation in Cuckoo’s Nest in this book, i.e., what relevance fictional representations of (mad) mental states have to the study of the human mind or cognition, and how to study representations of (mad) minds in fictional narratives. We presently focus on the issue of “what”. The conception of this book has been largely inspired by Roman Jakobson, the twentieth-century structural linguist and literary theorist who makes the first systematic linguistic investigation into aphasia. He insightfully observes the feasibility and more importantly the benefits of the interface between aphasic studies and linguistics: [O]n the one hand, the amazing progress of structural linguistics has endowed the investigator with efficient tools and methods for the study of verbal regression and, on the other, the aphasic disintegration of the verbal pattern may provide the linguist with new insights into the general laws of language. (Jakobson, 1956: 56)

Thereafter, the new partnership between aphasic studies and linguistics has grown increasingly fruitful. Studies on aphasia follow the latest trends in linguistics for more efficient tools and methods. Theories and methods from different linguistic schools such as structural linguistics, generative linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, biolinguistics and so forth, have been variously applied to different kinds of aphasic investigations. For example, working memory has become a recent hit in aphasic studies. On the other hand, queries into what is absent in the aphasics’ language keep on feeding linguistic studies with new data and providing new insights into the general laws of language. The success of the interface between aphasic studies and linguistics emboldens me to understand the interrelations between fictional mad minds and cognitive science in a similar vein. The relevance that fictional representation of mad minds has to the study of human mind or cognition, simply put, can be summarized as follows: the progress of cognitive science has unprecedentedly boosted the study of fictional mad minds by

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providing cutting-edge concepts, theories and methods (the science-toliterature direction), while the study of fictional mad minds, reflecting the mental functioning of the real mind, offers a unique opportunity to better understand the human mind (the literature-to-science direction). And my explorations of the minds and madness in Cuckoo’s Nest are both initiated by this understanding and offer evidence for it. The science-to-literature direction investigation brings new interpretation to the Keseyian madness in Cuckoo’s Nest. One goal of this book is a cognitive poetic study of this modern classic madness narrative. To attain this goal, I presently draw on cognitive tools and methods, on a par with the textual and contextual resources of the narrative, to reach a comprehensive understanding of the fictional mad minds in this novel. In deciphering Kesey’s fictional representation of the mad minds, I arrive at a social cognitive understanding of the Keseyian madness, an understanding that further clarifies Kesey’s innovation of literary madness and complements Cuckoo’s Nest scholarship from a cognitive dimension. This research outcome, not by coincidence, addresses the goal of literary criticism inherent in cognitive poetics that Stockwell repeatedly emphasizes: Cognitive poetics, then, is clearly related also to the field of literary criticism. (Stockwell, 2002: 5; 2020: 7) A trivial way of doing cognitive poetics would be simply to take some of the insights from cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics, and treat literature as just another piece of data. (Stockwell, 2002: 5; 2020: 7)

Keeping in mind the potential danger (which is also what I guard against) of presenting cognitive poetics as “a highly limiting and deterministic approach which closes off many interpretations as being invalid” (Stockwell, 2002: 7), I owe my new interpretation of the Keseyian madness to the productive power of cognitive poetics in its one footing in cognitive science, the progress of which has furnished me with the right tools and methods to launch my present task from an advantageous position from the start. In an effort to comprehend the quintessential quality of the Keseyian madness, I oftentimes draw on the concepts and theories from the relevant fields of cognitive science, including cognitive linguistics, cognitive neuropsychology, and humanistic psychology. Meanwhile, I also see the cognitive phenomena, rather than being self-contained,

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are intertwined with social milieus in multitudinous ways. The cognitive study of fictional mad minds in social contexts contributes to a social cognitive understanding of the Keseyian madness. This practice, while further confirming the applicability of cognitive theories and concepts in literary studies, in turn gives rise to a contextualized cognitive approach to fictional representation of (mad) minds in narrative fiction in general. In addition, the logical status of fictional minds may further confirm the feasibility of the contextualized cognitive approach adopted in the present study. It is not unusual to see that the fictional minds may achieve an existence independent of the literary work after the writers have fathered them. They will continue to grow and mature in the reader’s mind. That is to say, knowing their fictional status, the reader still reacts to the fictional characters as if they are flesh-and-blood beings. In his exploration of the logical status of fictional discourse, Searle (1975: 329) argues: “Because the author has created these fictional characters, we on the other hand can make true statements about them as fictional characters”. Likewise, we may argue for the logical status of fictional minds: because the novelists have created these fictional characters, we may make true statements about them and study their minds by drawing on the concepts and theories of the cognitive science for real beings. This said, we need to be aware of the potential danger of overgeneralization by wiping out the differences between fictional minds and real minds, which is neither true nor desirable. However, it is undeniable that fictional minds can both teach us about the mental functioning of real minds and be validly accessed via many of the cognitive findings based on real minds. Accordingly, a knowledge of the state-of-arts of cognitive science can certainly shed light on fictional mad minds, and this scienceto-literature direction helps eschew the possible impressionistic fallacy in literary criticism. Meanwhile, the literature-to-science direction can be equally illuminating. Cognitive defects of the fictional minds oftentimes reflect the crucial cognitive mechanisms underpinning the quotidian experience of normal minds. In the fictional mad world in Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey intuits the cognitive basis of madness as a dysfunction of a general cognitive mechanism—metarepresentation. In his fictional representation of mad minds, Kesey enables the reader to see the crucial function of metarepresentation as a key cognitive mechanism for a conscious mind. Kesey’s understanding of how the human mind functions is comparably shared by many other madness writers. For example, the Chinese writer Lu Xun

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makes his protagonist in “The White Light” produce free-floating notions and his madman in “Diary of a Madman” misattribute his thought to others exactly like Bromden does in Cuckoo’s Nest. Based on their keen observations, both writers accurately represent madness as a dysfunction of the general cognitive mechanism of metarepresentation. This understanding, now proved by Frith’s (1992) cognitive neuropsychological theory of schizophrenia, shows novelists and scientists may reach the same understanding of how our minds function but via different routes. This observation can be further confirmed by other artists’ work, as Lehrer (2007: ix–x) has rightly argued: “We now know that Proust was right about memory, Cézanne was uncannily accurate about the visual cortex, Stein anticipated Chomsky, and Woolf pierced the mystery of consciousness; modern neuroscience has confirmed these artistic intuitions”. By exploring their own psychological experiences, the novelists reflect the mental functioning of real minds in their fictional representations of the mental states, very often in advance of the scientific discovery of their age. “[I]n the forms and fractures of their work, they wanted us to see ourselves” (Lehrer, 2007: viii). The cracking of the human mind, a common everyday experience, is often evanescent and escapes a less observant eye. However, with their more than ordinary sensitivity and keen observation, the novelists revivify the real-world madness in their fictional world. Without the faintest thought to deny the importance of empirical studies, I consider the madness narrative, for its condensed reflection of the real-world mind/brain fractures, as a unique object through which we may reflect upon our own minds. Again, a parallel line can be drawn between aphasia and madness. In terms of the disintegration of the sound pattern, Jakobson notices: Aphasic regression has proved to be a mirror of the child’s acquisition of speech sounds, it shows the child’s development in reverse. Furthermore, comparison of child language and aphasia enables us to establish several laws of implication. (Jakobson: 1956: 57)

Likewise, the madmen’s defective metarepresentation in Cuckoo’s Nest shows the crucial function of this cognitive mechanism for humans. This research finding based on Cuckoo’s Nest, further proved by other fictional representations of madness (e.g., Lu Xun’s madmen) and cognitive neuropsychological studies, speaks for the value of madness narratives as an object of reflection of the human mind.

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The above discussion on the interrelations between the fictional mad minds and real minds basically answers the question of “what”. Now we can turn to the issue of “how”. How can the representation of fictional minds be viably studied? Set on the interface between literature and cognitive science, this book, exploring the fictional representation of the mad minds in Cuckoo’s Nest, demonstrates a practical framework to explore the fictional mad minds in particular and fictional minds in general. The triangulate relationship of tense, focalization and mind that I formulate in Chapters 2 and 3 serves as a practical framework to study both the authorly construction and the readerly construal of madness through the textual property of the narrative, including the stylistic (linguistic) resources and the narrative structures. This framework, developed to study the madness representation in Cuckoo’s Nest, can be further generalized into a broader one—the triangulate relationship of language patterns, narrative structures and fictional minds—to study the representation of fictional minds in general. Under this framework, a systematic linguistic investigation of the literary language, narrative study of the literary text and cognitive study of the states of the mind co-contribute to a poetics of the minds residing in both the story world and the reader’s account. Stockwell (2002: 5) considers “cognitive poetics offers a means of discussing interpretation whether it is an authorly version of the world or a readerly account, and how those interpretations are made manifest in textuality”. And this language-narrative-mind triangle may be seen as a practical means to Stockwell’s “means of discussing interpretation”.

6.2

A Valid Approach

The past three decades have witnessed rapid development of cognitive literary studies, a research field that “has grown from virtual non-existence to an influential and diverse collection of research programs” (Hogan, 2022: 120). We are presently residing in an era when “a cognitive poetic turn of mind has already made itself felt across a range of approaches in literary studies, and arts and humanities more generally” (Stockwell, 2020: ix). The thought that cognitive literary studies can be a valid approach to studying the human mind, once a red herring, has gained its legitimacy especially in the camps of literary theorists and literary linguists, thanks to the ingenious work, for example, by Zunshine (2006, 2012), László (2008), Holland (2009), Hogan (2013, 2014) and Stockwell

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(2002, 2020), among others. With different research foci, they invariably find literature both readily applicable and uniquely valuable in cognitive studies. For example: This suggests that literature is likely to provide a vast new body of data to enrich and complicate our understanding of quotidian simulation as well. The focus of this book is on literature. In the course of investigating literature, however, it also develops an account of simulation that should be broadly applicable. (Hogan, 2013: xiii–xiv) … a properly conducted cognitive poetic exploration of a literary text tends to treat the work in its entirety, including its cultural significance, setting, and context, and this holistic approach has value in complementing the typical uses of literary sentences or short excerpts in the hands of cognitive psychologists. Relatedly, a consideration of literary reading with a due regard for the nuances of some critical theory offers a necessary comparator for empirical studies that are conducted in artificial, laboratory, or test conditions. (Stockwell, 2020: 71)

The abundance of the scholarship proves that literature can be and has been a viable way to understand the mental functioning of the real mind, and that literature can feed and is feeding cognitive science studies with invaluable and inexhaustible data. Against this backdrop of cognitive literary studies, what contributions can madness narratives particularly make as data or resource for cognitive science studies? Based on my explorations of the minds and madness in Kesey’s classic work One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I see madness narratives as an ancillary testing ground for psychology: the authorly craftmanship of the fictional mad minds often forebodes new discoveries of psychology; the readerly engagement with the fictional world is a simulated experience with madness; the cognitive scientists may take their cues from both to complement their laboratory work for a comprehensive theory of the human mind. My previous discussions on the Keseyian madness have to a large extent clarified its kinship with psychology. Underlying the social cognitive understanding of the Keseyian madness as a polysemous concept and a scalar phenomenon is a holistic view of human beings as whole beings, biological beings as well as social beings. Cuckoo’s Nest, by representing madness both as a cognitive dysfunction and a social difference, exemplifies an ideal and unique context to see man as a whole being and

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to study the whole mind of man. Madness studies and the whole-man view can be mutually illuminating: a comprehensive theory of madness can only be possible under a whole-man view, whereas madness testifies the importance of seeing humans as whole beings. Palmer argues that “narrative fiction is, in essence, the presentation of fictional mental functioning” (2004: 5), and that “[n]ovel reading is mind reading” (2009: 293). After Palmer, we may argue that madness narrative fiction is, in essence, the presentation of fictional mental functioning of the mad minds, and that reading madness narratives is reading the mad minds. The mental functioning of the mad minds necessarily involves the cognitive, neuropsychological and affective activities in social contexts, and reading the mad minds also involves the madmen’s mental functioning in the same type of contexts. Meanwhile, the reader’s cognitive, neuropsychological and affective responses to fictional madness may furnish unique data for cognitive studies. The reading experience of madness narratives can be a simulated experience of madness. This simulated experience can be of immense value in researches on mental disorders, the mental functioning of the human mind and psychotherapy, among others, as to be observed in my previous discussions on the metarepresentation games and the therapeutic effects in the reading experience of Cuckoo’s Nest: Kesey experiments with the madman’s defective cognitive mechanism to construct the story world and the reader’s sound cognitive mechanism to make sense of it, and accordingly, the reading experience of Cuckoo’s Nest is akin to a metarepresentation game; the reader’s cognitive and emotive engagement with the fictional mad world may possibly bring real-world transformations and impacts, thus an ancillary therapeutic effect. This being said, it should not, however, be an imposition on the cognitive scientists to see madness narratives as an ancillary testing ground for psychology. Thanks to the advancement of science, we can now understand humans as matters of neurons, cells, chemicals and so forth. This contributes significantly to our knowledge of humans as living organism for us to make sense of our biological endowments. However, it can be a dangerous position to see men, at the cost of our other no less important endowments, as living organism only, a mechanistic view of psychology and of man that Kesey bitterly battles against in Cuckoo’s Nest. Complex as our endowments are, humans have to be viewed, studied, understood and treated as whole men. Madness narratives, a unique whole-man site and an important component of human cognitive life, do have much to

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offer to cognitive science in understanding what makes humans human. In his widely read book Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer (2007) who has a neuroscience background, openly acknowledges the scientific value of literature. Likewise, a cognitive scientist with a broad vision would not simply shrug off a madness narrative for his/her disbelief in its inherent cognitive value. Narrative fiction, a unique product of human cognitive and cultural life, is both an object of reflection and an act of reflection of the human mind or cognition. Fiction and cognition can hardly stand alone without each other. By genealogy, narrative fiction is a brainchild, but in the tradition of literary criticism, the child is often honored without paying homage to its parent. This is excusable in a pre-cognitive age, but even when unarmed with the armamentarium of cognitive science, some great critics intuited the germination of cognitive literary studies. In this cognitive age, a flat refusal to cognitive science in literary studies is at best a parochial narrowness. This blunt statement may sound offhanded, but even the hard-nosed non-cognitivists can hardly deny that, among other things, narrative fiction is a cognitive product as well as a commodity. “[A]ll serious students of literature are cognitivists” (Palmer, 2011: 200). The cognitive poetic turn has to a large extent freed literary theorists and literary linguists from the so-called “prison house of intuition” (Hamilton, 2002: 3), and provided the cognitive scientists with an ancillary testing ground to complement their empirical studies on the anatomical parts of humans. Stockwell gladly embraces this situation and at the same time sees the blessed potential for a more prosperous future for cognitive poetics: Cognitive poetics is maturing as a discipline, but at the moment it is still possible to reach the edge of research very quickly in your study: everything is still provisional, new, and exciting, filled more with potential than masses of study as yet. (Stockwell, 2020: 14)

Madness narratives, for all the values I have explored in the present study, make a nice fit to address this potential. The ancient enigma of madness is revitalized in this cognitive age and offers a unique opportunity to study the nexus of fiction and cognition. This book, exploring the minds and madness in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest under a cognitive narratological approach, gladly responds to this opportunity and makes a step forward in demystifying the enigma of madness. Cognitive

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narratology, a fledging discipline of only about 20 years, is now in its prime youth, and by launching on a right platform from the start, it will take good care of both fiction and cognition, albeit cognitive studies of madness narratives are by no means confined to cognitive narratology. Following Burke and Troscianko (2013) and Shang (2014), who endorse the term “cognitive literary science”, I consider cognitive literary studies of madness narratives as an important field of cognitive literary science.

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Index

A Accessibility argument, 32, 33 Agonist, 99, 104, 105, 110–112, 124, 160, 163 Antagonist, 99, 104, 105, 110–112, 124, 160, 163 anti-psychiatry, 148, 149, 151, 154, 189 aphasia, 7 B Bakhtin, M.M., 138, 154, 155, 234, 235, 238, 241 Bal, M., 21–24, 35, 37, 40, 44, 47, 50, 51 Bugental, J.F.T, 214–218, 244 C carnival, 53, 66, 134, 189, 219, 235–239 carnivalesque, 188, 234 catharsis, 15, 233, 234, 242 chameleon effect, 241 Chomsky, N., 228–230, 232, 256

classical narratology, 9, 11, 20, 24, 29, 59, 61, 73, 78 cognitive approaches to literature, 2, 11, 31 cognitive experimentation, 15, 181, 207, 210, 212, 244 cognitive facets of focalization, 12, 64, 121, 184 cognitive literary studies, xiv, 11, 251, 252, 257, 258, 260, 261 cognitive narratology, 2, 9, 11, 20, 31 cognitive neuropsychology, xiii, 10, 84, 96, 123, 190, 254 cognitive poetics, 2, 11, 31, 211, 257 Cohn, D., 9, 29–32, 34, 37 Combine mind, 13, 14, 127, 128, 132–136, 138–142, 145, 154–158, 160–164, 168, 177, 178 conceptualization, 25–28, 31, 36, 38, 53, 113, 143, 178 concurrent, 12, 63, 67–73, 75, 76, 78, 117–119, 121, 122, 124, 183, 184, 205

© Social Sciences Academic Press 2023 X. YANG, A Poetics of Minds and Madness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5249-6

275

276

INDEX

construal, 12, 15, 20, 26, 27, 31, 32, 36–38, 77, 197, 257

D Daiches, D., 209, 210, 243 defamiliarization, 7, 209 defamiliarizing, 7, 182, 209, 210, 212 delusion, 86–88, 90, 93–98, 101, 107–109, 113, 116, 118, 120, 123, 128, 147, 190, 201, 219 direct thought, 30, 37, 76, 166 DSM , 3, 4, 88, 91, 146, 147, 186, 188, 229

E embedded focalization, 13, 23, 35, 37, 115–117, 124 evidentiary, 12, 63, 66–73, 75, 76, 78, 117–119, 121, 122, 124, 183, 184, 205–207 Exceptionality Thesis, 30, 31 external focalization, 21–23, 56, 58, 59, 73, 76, 78

F fictional minds, xiv, 3, 9, 12, 13, 20, 28–34, 37–39, 71, 76, 78, 100, 119, 121, 123, 125, 164, 197, 252, 255, 257 focalization, xiv, 2, 9, 10, 12–14, 19–29, 31, 34–41, 44–56, 58, 59, 61, 63–68, 70–79, 83, 112–119, 121, 122, 124, 127, 164–178, 182–188, 205–207, 243, 253, 257 focalization windowing, 12 force dynamics, 13, 36, 99, 100, 103, 105, 110, 112, 124, 160, 162, 220

Foucault, M., 3, 4, 148, 149, 193, 194 free-floating notion, 96, 97, 108, 109, 113–115, 118, 120, 123, 124, 183, 256 free indirect thought, 30, 37, 49, 171, 172 Freud, Sigmund, xiii, 11, 152 Frith, C.D., 15, 88, 92–99, 108, 123, 183, 186, 188, 199, 200, 230, 244, 256 Frith, U., 198, 199

G Genette, G., 2, 9, 12, 20–24, 34, 40, 49, 56, 58, 66, 73, 75, 78, 122, 184 Goffman, E., 208, 225

H hallucination, 25, 50, 85, 86, 88, 90, 93, 94, 96, 97, 101, 102, 107, 108, 113–115, 117, 118, 123, 145, 146, 182, 183, 190, 219 Heller, J., 8, 122, 192, 252 Herman, D., 2, 26, 27, 30–33 Hogan, P.C., 33, 233, 241, 257, 258 humanistic psychology, 10, 15, 128, 146, 213–216, 218–220, 223, 224, 230, 231, 244

I interactional, 12, 63–66, 68, 70–72, 75, 76, 78, 183 intermental focalization, 14, 28, 29, 34, 35, 38, 165, 167–176, 178, 186, 187, 253 intermental free indirect thought, 138, 166, 167, 173

INDEX

intermental madness, 7, 14, 102, 127, 128, 132, 138, 141, 142, 154, 156, 158, 160, 163–165, 176–178 intermental thought report, 166, 173 intermental unit, 127, 128, 130–132, 154–158, 160, 168, 177, 178 internal focalization, 12, 21–23, 35, 40, 53, 56, 58, 73, 74, 76, 78, 116, 117, 124, 184, 253 intramental focalization, 14, 29, 35, 165, 167, 168, 170–173, 175, 176, 178, 186 intramental madness, 7, 13, 71, 83, 99, 102, 112, 123, 124, 127, 128, 138, 141, 154, 164, 165, 177

J Jahn, M., 21, 24–26, 36, 61 Jakobson, R., 7, 209, 253, 256 Joyce, J., 6, 32, 189, 197, 252

L Laing, R.D., 145–148, 151–153, 189, 192, 193, 225, 226 Langacker, R.W., 26, 31 Lehrer, J., 1, 213, 228, 243, 256, 260 literary madness, xiii, xiv, 9, 14, 84, 185, 188, 189, 192, 193, 243, 252 Lu, Xun, 6, 115, 117, 176, 188, 189, 197, 252, 255, 256

M Margolin, U., 3, 24, 27, 28, 36 marked agitations, 88, 90 Maslow, A.H., 218 Mediation argument, 32, 33

277

mental disorder, 3–6, 8, 90, 91, 128, 149, 150, 165, 186, 188, 192, 198–200, 216, 228, 229, 245, 259 mental representation, xiv, 3, 9, 10, 12, 19, 29–31, 34, 37–39, 76, 77, 79, 84, 115, 116, 124, 165, 177, 178, 198, 199, 202–207, 253 metaphor, 21, 49, 52–54, 100, 147, 148, 152, 183, 210 metarepresentation, 13, 15, 33, 83, 95–99, 102, 108, 109, 113, 115–118, 120, 123, 124, 186, 189, 190, 196, 198–200, 202–208, 210, 211, 213, 216, 230, 232, 244, 255, 256, 259 mind style, 49, 152, 183, 185 mirror neurons, 240, 242 multi-faceted and multi-layered model, xiv, 19, 73, 76, 77, 79, 124, 164, 178 N negative behavior disorder, 92 Nikolajeva, M., 11, 207, 233 O ontological insecurity, 14, 142, 145–147, 149, 151, 152, 178, 183, 185, 187, 189, 190, 230 P Palmer, A., 3, 28–30, 33–35, 127, 128, 130, 132, 138, 165, 166, 170, 172, 260 person-centered approach, 148, 152, 221–224, 244 point of view, 1, 2, 20–23, 25, 40, 61, 165, 168, 170, 184, 187, 193, 194, 208

278

INDEX

positive behavior disorder, 92 poverty of action, 88, 90, 92, 108, 201 Proust, M., 189, 202, 213, 252, 256 pseudo-intermental focalization, 14, 175, 176, 179 psychoanalysis, xiii, 10, 214, 231 psychological realism, xiii, 8

social mind, 14, 28, 34, 127, 128, 138, 139, 154, 164, 168–170, 176, 177, 184 speech category approach, 19, 29, 31, 37 Sperber, D., 3, 95, 97, 199, 201 Stockwell, P., 212, 254, 257, 258, 260

R refamiliarization, 209, 210 refamiliarizing, 212 Rimmon-Kenan, S., 2, 23, 24, 35, 40, 46, 47, 50–52, 72–75, 78, 122 Rogers, C.R., 218, 220–223, 226, 227, 230, 244

T Talmy, L., 13, 26, 31, 61–63, 65–68, 70, 71, 73, 78, 99, 100, 102, 110, 112, 123, 160 Theory of Mind, 32, 33, 97, 116, 123, 124 theory theory, 32, 33 thought-action continuum, 14, 172, 173, 179 thought report, 30, 37, 166 Todorov, T., 21

S scalar phenomenon, 14, 181, 193, 194, 197, 243, 245, 258 schizophrenia, 56, 83, 88, 90–92, 94–97, 101, 102, 105, 108, 113, 145, 149, 186, 188, 198–202, 225, 226, 229, 244, 256 Searle, J., 165, 166, 255 Semino, E., 49, 52, 152, 183 Shklovsky, V., 6, 7, 182 simulation theory, 32, 242 social construction, 4, 14, 56, 128, 142–145, 149, 151, 165, 177, 230 social difference, 4–6, 181, 182, 185, 194, 258

W Warren, A., 211, 212, 228, 234, 242 Wellek, R., 211, 212, 228, 234, 242 windowing of attention, 61–63, 68, 71, 76, 78 windows of focalization, 25, 36 Woolf, V., 1, 189, 202, 213, 252, 256 Z zero focalization, 21–23, 49, 74, 124 Zunshine, L., 33, 206, 257