Mind Presentation in Ian McEwan's Fiction

I have been asked whether fictional minds form part of the story level (the content plane, the narrated, the »what,« the fabula) or the discourse level (the expression plane, the narrating, the »how,« the sjuzhet). The answer involves two separate but related issues: One is the story-level issue of the nature of the fictional minds constructed by the texts, the what that is the content of those minds; the other is the discourse-level issue of the techniques used to represent consciousness in narrative, how minds are presented in the discourse. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that it is difficult in practice to maintain a distinction between the two. I focus primarily on the first issue, the what, but it is impossible to talk about the what without detailed consideration of the how. To describe the contents of fictional minds is to focus on how those minds are presented in the text. Also, the techniques that are used for fictional mind presentations will determine, to a certain extent, what thoughts are described. (»Social Minds« 205)

Therefore, narrative reader experiences fictional minds through following both narrative content and its techniques. Moreover, in CN any undertaken narrative analysis is based on the representational or mimetic concept of character since from mimetic perspective, as Uri Margolin put, a character is treated »as a human or human-like entity« (»Character« 53).[19] Following that, narrative reader is able to experience narrative using her/his own universal knowledge structures (schemas, scripts, and frames). As a result, within the theoretical paradigms of cognitive approach, a »character is seen as a mental model of a storyworld participant, constructed by the reader incrementally in the course of reading (text comprehension) on the basis of constant interplay between specific textual data and general knowledge structures stored in the reader's long-term memory.« The constructed mental model, however, is based on nothing other than the textual or semiotic data or clues which orient the reader's mental map of a character as a »conceptual unit« (Margolin, »Character« 54). As Margolin continues, having gathered the scattered but related properties of a character within the text following a »bottom-up or data-driven processing, [. . .] they often activate a knowledge structure stored in long-term memory under which these properties can be subsumed and integrated into a character model« (»Character« 54–5). Further, the constructed knowledge structure which triggers a unique character category in reader's mind can be, other than the literary models, based on actual-world models. In that case, the readers, following a top down model besides the bottom up one,[20] experience the text with an already established mental model or categorization. As a result, according to Margolin, they »fill in or complete their mental model of the individual, formulate expectations about further textual information about it, and explain previous information« (»Character« 55). Nevertheless, the reader's mental model of a character does not stay fixed throughout his/her narrative experiencing. It is exposed to refreshment or reconstruction and disruption or change. That is mainly because they ascribe different properties to a particular character based on both the explicit textual data and their own inferences as well.

Therefore, the reader[21] is considered as the main part of narrative understanding or experiencing in cognitive approaches to narrative. This is a result of the fact, that encountering the fictional minds, they use their default experiences. They also use their ability of constructing theories of mind, as they do in their actual relationships, in order to gain access to the manner of fictional characters' mental functioning. At the same time, they experience the ways fictional characters make theories of minds about the other characters. In the same way, reader is central to Herman's and Palmer's cognitive approaches to narrative. They attempt to show how readers utilise their everyday cognitive frames, which have default values too, and scripts or their world knowledge and models in order to interpret the fictional minds or, in the opinion of Palmer, »to fill gaps in storyworlds« (»The Lydgate« 154).[22] Although Herman's area of concern is much broader than that of Palmer's, their approaches highlight some of those universal frames. Herman's theory is in agreement with Palmer's statement that »fictional beings are necessarily incomplete, frames, scripts, and preference rules are required to supply the defaults that fill the gaps in the storyworld and provide the presuppositions that enable the reader to construct continually conscious minds from the text« (Fictional 176). Therefore, these are the central questions to both Herman and Palmer: how readers accept storyworlds as plausible possible worlds with possible beings, how they make sense of stories and how they utilise their cognitive potentialities in order to access the plausible characters' minds are central.

Palmer pursues a parallel approach[23] to the fictional minds. Calling this approach »criss-crossing of the field [. . .] an interdisciplinary project« (Fictional 3–4), he argues that the same techniques people apply in order to understand other people's minds are automatically applied when they, as readers, try to understand the fictional minds through attributing mental states to them. In Herman's words:

Palmer (2004) also draws on elements of the early work on knowledge representations, studying how readers' world-knowledge allows them to make sense of a variety of techniques for representing fictional characters' minds. Palmer explores how readers construct inferences about fictional minds by using various textual indicators, including thought reports, speech representations, and ascriptions of behaviors that span the continuum linking mental with physical actions. (»Cognitive« 34)

Moreover, having called his approach to the fictional minds »external,« Palmer elsewhere uses the term social mind to »describe those aspects of the whole mind that are revealed through the externalist perspective« (Social 39)[24]. His concept of social mind in fiction, nevertheless, is within the context of »the cognitive turn in humanities, or, more specifically, what has come to be known as cognitive approach to literature« (Palmer, Social 198). Moreover, he chimes on the »traditional narratological approach to the representation of fictional character,« which, according to him, is »internalist one that stresses those aspects that are inner, passive, introspective, and individual« (Social 39). Thus, according to Palmer, in the previous narratological approaches to the fictional characters, either »the social nature of fictional thought has been neglected« or »little narratological work has been done on social minds in the novel« (Social 39–40, 45). Thus, exploration of such aspect of fictional character should be included in the narratological approaches because an externalist perspective »stresses the public, social, concrete, and located aspects of mental life in the novel« (Palmer, 2010a: 40). Accordingly, when referring to the intermental and intramental thoughts,[25] which are the important parts of Palmer's social mind theory, a complementary approach is thought to be an appropriate narratological approach to the fictional minds. It should combine internalist perspective with the externalist one. Considering the two perspectives on mind—INTERNALIST PERSPECTIVE and EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE [capitals are Palmer's]—Palmer suggests that:

A good deal of the significance of the thought that occurs in novels is lost if only the internalist perspective is employed. Both perspectives are required, because a major preoccupation of novels is precisely this balance between public and private thought, intermental and intramental functioning, and social and individual minds. Within this balance, I will be emphasizing social minds because of their past neglect. (Social 42)

Therefore, from Palmer's perspective both internalist and externalist perspectives are required for the proper analysis of the fictional minds' mental functioning as it is followed in this study too.[26]

A character's mind is modelled based on some sources. His/her inner speeches can delineate his/her mental life including feelings, beliefs, intentions and internal perceptions regarding the other characters' thoughts and actions. Similarly, the way a character appears in the minds of the other characters or is thought by them, his/her place in the community, his/her actions etc. can define and clarify the manner of his/her mental functioning. Moreover, drawing on the textual cues and the real world experiences, the reader attributes mental states to characters. Palmer examines this issue under attribution theory[27] or »the study of how attributions of states of mind are made« (»Attribution« 293). These attributions are possible because of the existence of »theory of mind« in human beings. According to Palmer, it is »used by philosophers and psychologists to describe our awareness of the existence of other minds, our knowledge of how to interpret other people's thought processes, our mind-reading abilities in the real world.« For this reason, Palmer argues that:

Readers of novels have to use their theory of mind in order to try to follow the workings of characters' minds. Otherwise, they will lose the plot. The only wayin which the reader can understand the plot of a novel is by trying to follow the workings of characters' minds and thereby by attributing states of minds to them. This mind reading involves trying to follow characters' attempts to read other characters' minds. (»Attribution« 293)

The central characters' attributions of states of mind to each other in AM, AT and CB appear to be inaccurate and unsuccessful. Such false attributions, as a result, lead the bond between Clive and Vernon as well as Edward and Florence to total breakdown or annihilation.

Palmer's theory regarding the function of reader in narrative experiencing derives partly from the traditional reader response theory. Recognizing the »intense power of reader response to fictional minds,« he alludes to the »sheer scale of the input required from readers in constructing minds from novels« (Fictional 4, 3). This means that he believes in the »creative nature of the reading process.« According to him, the textual signs are loaded with real human imagination or they are coloured with real life knowledge and experiences. A »text is simply [considered] the scaffolding on which you build the vivid psychological processes that stay with you for so long afterward« (Palmer, Fictional 4). Palmer's preference of the study of character to the study of narrative plot, action or event, which is the main concern in classical narratology, according to Stockwell, suggests that »narrative should be regarded as being driven not by event but by person.« Thus, pursuing his central concern in his studies on social and fictional minds, as Stockwell put, »Palmer's approach rests on the evident truism that narratives are about relationships between people« (288). Therefore, the primary concern of the critic/reader in CN appears to be a thorough analysis of the relationship between fictional characters' thoughts and their actions or the effect of their own or the other characters' actions on their thoughts.

Accordingly, either from Herman's perspective or from Palmer's—which are congruent with the general inclination of the postclassical or contextual approaches to narrative—a reader experiences narrative by the help of his/her every day, non-literary or anthropomorphic experiences. In this way, he/she unfolds the possible meanings of a narrative or communicates with it. Therefore, the narrative readers' main responsibility is not the discovery of the narrative grammar through a systematic approach to narrative text, as the structuralist narratologists supposed it should be.[28] Rather, their primary function is to participate in the construction and realization of the narrative meaning using their own real world knowledge and experiences mostly in the forms of scripts and frames they use in everyday communications. The focus of narrative analysis, therefore, changes from text to its receiver who, referring to his/her own anthropomorphic characteristics, constructs the narrative meaning depending on the semiotic features of the narrative text itself. This postclassical understanding of narrative analysis is at the heart of the new definitions of fictional character, fictional minds, narrative and narrativity or the constituent elements that make a narrative narrative. In the following part, therefore, first Palmer's terminologies regarding the construction, presentation, workings and comprehension or experiencing of fictional minds are analysed. Then, the concept of narrativity and the role of reader in accepting a narrative as narrative as well as its basic elements are discussed.

2.2 Alan Palmer's Approach to Fictional Minds

Palmer in Fictional Minds (2004), chapters six »The Fictional Mind« and seven »The Fictional Mind in Action,« gives the outline of his »newly expanded, postclassical narratology of the fictional mind« approach which relates »some cognitive science notions to the specific area of reader comprehension of fictional minds« (17, 175). The previous approaches, according to Palmer, have ignored the central role of the workings of characters' minds while they should be the primary concern of any theoretical analysis of fiction. Palmer builds his approach to fictional minds on five main previous concepts within narrative theory—Story Analysis, Possible Worlds Theory, Characterization, Focalization and Cognitive Science and Frames. However, he finds their attention to fictional minds, which »adjuncts to those other fields,« insufficient. Ignoring the workings of characters' minds, they were primarily concerned with »the analysis of spoken speech in the case of the speech categories; various aspects of discourse analysis in the case of focalization; intertextuality in the case of characterization; classical structuralism in the case of story analysis; and modal logic in the case of possible-worlds theory« (Palmer, Fictional 2). Palmer, however, turns to account some of the fundamentals of these approaches in order to propose a new subject area within narrative theory. In that case and in order to handle his interdisciplinary project, he makes use of what he calls »the parallel discourses[29] on real minds« (»The Lydgate« 152). His approach to fictional minds, therefore, includes some of the notions of reader response theory, some of the disciplines related to real minds, (folk) psychology, philosophy of mind, psycholinguistics, cognitive science etc. The questions in his theory address subjects: How fictional characters' minds operate in the chosen narratives? How narrative provides reader with the necessary interpretational tools? How a reader understands them? By what means? Palmer's theory deals with the textural features and textures that provide cues for the readers in order to analyse the presentation of the characters' minds as they are presented by the narrators as well as are judged, thought, perceived etc. by the characters themselves and by the other characters within the storyworld. His theory, furthermore, underscores the role of the readers'