Social Minds in Drama. Golnaz Shams

(mentioned before⁴¹), what he finds fault with is the confusion, in some narratives, between the perspective rendered by the character and the narrator. At the same time, Palmer argues that the current debates about and around focalisation are mainly focused on perception and leave out very important factors such as cognition and emotion in the construction of the fictional consciousness. Because of these two shortcomings, Palmer does not rely heavily on the concept of focalisation but handpicks its major argument as a complementary paradigm to the other paradigms he uses for the construction of the fictional mind.

      Drawing on these paradigms and disciplines Palmer provides his picture of a reconstruction of fictional minds. He finds a balance between different views and discourses in the cognitive sciences in order to achieve a more thorough theory of the representation of consciousness in narratives. One of these achievements consists of finding a balance between intentional acting and a more private thought or interior thinking that goes on in the mind. Palmer’s ideas come close to, and are influenced by, Lubomir Doležel’s ideas, but Palmer contends that even Doležel does not see thought and action as being equally important. It is true that Doležel acknowledges a relationship between the two concepts and he states: “[a];ll mental faculties, from sensory perception to emotionality to thinking to remembering and imagination, operate between the poles of intentional acting and spontaneous generation” (1998: 73); yet, Palmer believes that Doležel favours the former pole. Palmer bids for a more balanced approach where the (fictional) mind could be analysed not only through fantasies, free associative thinking, stream of consciousness and interior monologue, but also through an extension towards the other pole, as suggested by Doležel. Here the mental states would be presented in a more functional way where they fulfil information-processing and goal-orienting functions. According to Palmer, once we combine the states of mind and their functions, we are able to have a much better understanding of the whole fictional mind.

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      This turn towards a more functional role of consciousness would also undo the restriction so many theories instigate by insisting on a language-based thought concept. Though verbal thought is important and does play a role in the representation of fictional minds, there is by no means any theory of construction thereof in any approach available. There is a great portion of the fictional mind that is based on the non-verbal version of thought. Needless to say one should not dismiss the role of language altogether. Despite the fact that cognitive science seems primarily to be occupied by scripts, frames, blends and concepts where at first glance language does not seem to have a central role, it is just one of the cognitive tools among others that help shape the fictional mind. The discussion of non-verbal consciousness is one of the most important issues of debate within cognitive studies. Fludernik in her Fictions of Language (1993) opens up the discussion to allow a schematic representation of language that incorporates thought as well. With such a cognitive viewpoint, like the one she suggests, one could analyse the speech and thought processes of characters in fiction by means of language and linguistic devices. This cognitive framework facilitates a much broader access to the consciousness of fictional characters than the older theories since:

      [w];hat is important is the gist of the reported utterance in compressed and idiomatic form. In literature, however, expressive devices, particularly because of their predominant deployment for the representation of consciousness, trigger a reading of point of view and character’s voice, which in turn produces the illusion of immediacy of presentation, of a quasi-literal transcription of consciousness. (Fludernik 1993: 429)

Two of the closest related terms in this category, as mentioned before, are experientiality and qualia. Considering that Palmer’s main issue is the function of the fictional mind in the storyworld, the way the mind/consciousness experiences its world and “what-it’s like” quality becomes very important. Inadvertently, in a cognitive approach where the mind and consciousness of the characters move to the centre of attention, plot is no longer what makes a narrative narrative, but it is instead the evocation of an experiencing human or human-like consciousness that fulfils this role (Fludernik 1996: 12). The narrative centres on the impact the events have on a fictional mind and how that mind experiences the storyworld and the dynamics with other fictional minds within that storyworld.⁴²

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      Similarly, qualia, with the attention to the mind’s experience of concepts in terms of raw feeling, suggest a “what it’s like” quality of a certain concept being presented (Herman 2009: 143–4). With the focus on qualia, the attention of narrative again moves away from a traditional plot-centred approach and a more character-based approach becomes possible since the attention shifts to the nature of consciousness and how it feels like for characters to engage in a particular experience. This includes inner thought or monologue as well as more non-verbal-based feelings and thought.

Non-verbal thought incorporates the dispositions, the beliefs and the attitudes of the characters in a narrative. This type of approach succeeds in including dispositions and emotions as constituents of consciousness, concepts that traditionally were neglected in most of the studies of the mind. When we talk about disposition while analysing a narrative world, we are often dealing with the mind of characters in that storyworld and how they react to specific situations and events. As far as emotions are concerned, Palmer believes that they are more linked with cognition than one would grant them. In a storyworld, emotions are usually more closely linked to the thoughts of the characters and are shown either by means of thought report or as an overt depiction of the state of the emotion itself. Palmer deals with all types of emotions as one single category and refrains from dividing them into the popular primary/secondary division as proposed by Damasio.⁴³ He does take into account the duration of emotions. There are short-term emotions that happen at a moment of time, there are medium-term emotions that Palmer calls moods and there are long-term emotions that come closer in nature to dispositions (Palmer 2004: 114). This is why it sometimes is difficult to determine the boundary between one and the other; but, in Palmer’s analysis he tries to deal with all of these categories as a general state of mind constituting a “whole fictional mind” and demonstrates how both emotions and dispositions are ways to show the social and public nature of thought and consciousness.

Besides emotions and dispositions, actions also play a very important role in Palmer’s approach. He argues that actions bring about a change in a character’s environment and/or beliefs. Nevertheless, the concept of action and thought are inseparable in his analysis. There exists a mental network behind action which is enmeshed with it. This mental network is made up of memories, motivations ←48 | 49→and intentions that are all connected to the consciousness of the characters. Palmer argues that there is no binary opposition between thought and action, but that they are two poles of a scale and neither can exist without the other. This concept of the thought-action continuum will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Five.⁴⁴ Thus when we are talking about the fictional mind, we are not only talking about what a character is thinking, but also what she is saying and doing. Consequently, whenever we have the description of a joint action, we are dealing with the interaction of various mental networks of more than one character.

      All of these concepts and tools facilitate an approach towards the mind that can be more public, social and external. Palmer believes that not enough attention has been paid to this public and social dimension of consciousness within narrative studies. The focus is most often on the private and internal aspect of the mind. With this new point of view, a different access to the social mind is made possible. Palmer adopts an externalist view towards the construction of fictional minds since he believes that most