ARTISTIC MODELING OF A SCHIZOPHRENIC DISCOURSE (A COGNITIVE ASPECT)

Abstract

The article concentrates on the application and empirical verification of the Theory of Mind (Mind-Reading), the term used by cognitive psychologists to describe our ability to explain people’s behaviour in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs and desires. The research is predicated on the ideas of L. Zunshine, D. Herman, M. Fludernik, I. Bockting. The content of the article reflects the results of the analysis of an artistically (aesthetically) modeled schizophrenic discourse (henceforth SD) in William Faulkner’s second section (Quentin Compson’s monologue) of “The Sound and the Fury”. The SD is a type of a discourse of the character’s altered state of consciousness when his or her systems of perception and cognition function following an autonomous pattern under the extreme circumstances (O. Selivanova). The first part of the article contains a few comments on the underpinnings of a cognitive approach to a literary narrative. The conclusion is made that cognitively oriented investigation of a piece of fiction provides a reconceptualisation of the basic parameters of a narrative, such as focalization, narrator, character, spatio-temporal coordinates, implied author. The second part of the article is a proof of the validity of the following hypothesis: a SD requires an ongoing, non-stop interaction between the “actual possible world” (M. L. Ryan) of the novel and the reader. The former is characterized by modulated snippets of Quentin’s thoughts, allusions, and memories, sometimes reminding us of Molly Bloom’s monologue in J.Joyce’s “Ulysses”. The latter has his or her own cognitive processing potential and cognitive adaptation “mechanism”. The efficiency of this “game” between the SD and the reader depends on how capable he or she is to identify and monitor (track) the sources of utterances, thoughts and memories that surface in Quentin’s consciousness. The examples from the text of Faulkner’s novel illustrate the procedure of source tracking in Quentin’s SD and provide evidence of the destruction of Quentin’s source-tracking ability. The final part of the article points to prospects of further cognitive-narratological study of anomalous narratives.