Stylistic Fracture and Mental Distress: A Cognitive-Linguistic Analysis of Schizophrenic Narration in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Bell Jar
Manahil Salman Owaid Almnhlawey
1
(
Department of English, Isf. C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
)
Parivash Esmaeili
2
(
English Department, Na. C., Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
)
Zainab Kadim Igaab Igaab
3
(
Department of English/ College of Education for Humanities/ University of Thi-Qar/ Ministry of Higher Education/ Iraq
)
Bahram Hadian
4
(
Department of English, Isf. C., Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
)
Keywords: cognitive stylistics, foregrounding, schizophrenia, depression, narrative cognition, attention windowing, stylistic analysis,
Abstract :
This study examines how linguistic style in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath enacts psychological disturbance through formal textual mechanisms. Drawing on Foregrounding Theory, cognitive narratology, and clinical psycholinguistics, it investigates how stylistic deviations—such as metaphor saturation, syntactic fragmentation, referential ambiguity, and narrative disjunction—function as mimetic simulations of schizophrenia and depression. Through a mixed-methods approach that integrates close literary analysis with corpus-based annotation tools, the research analyzes selected passages for psycholinguistic markers associated with mental illness, including deictic confusion, lexical minimalism, and temporal distortion. Chief Bromden’s hallucinatory narration and Esther Greenwood’s affectively flattened voice are shown to linguistically instantiate psychosis and depressive cognition, respectively. The study contributes to interdisciplinary understandings of literature as a diagnostic interface, demonstrating that literary texts do not merely represent mental illness but cognitively perform it. Ultimately, this research offers a novel framework for analyzing narrative pathology, expanding the analytical reach of cognitive stylistics and underscoring literature’s potential to model and communicate disordered mental states.
Andreasen, N. C. (2011). A journey into chaos: Creativity and the unconscious. Mens Sana Monographs, 9(1), 42–53. https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-1229.77431PubMed Central
Bendix, J., Demjén, Z., & Semino, E. (2021). Linguistic markers of schizophrenia in narrative texts: A corpus-based study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 50(3), 567–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-021-09763-2
Bortolussi, M., & Dixon, P. (2014). Psychonarratology: Foundations for the empirical study of literary response. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511481255ResearchGate
Bortolussi, M., & Dixon, P. (2020). Cognitive mechanisms of reading: A computational approach. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108770421
Burke, M. (2016). The Routledge handbook of stylistics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315696256
Carminati, M. N., Stabler, J., & Semino, E. (2014). Stylistic variation and the cognitive effects of foregrounding. Language and Literature, 23(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947013510644
Carston, R., & Wearing, C. (2015). Metaphor, hyperbole and simile: A pragmatic approach. Language and Cognition, 7(2), 241–273. https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2014.21
• Demjén, Z. (2020). Applying linguistic methods to the study of mental health. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 40, 38–58. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190519000191
Demjén, Z., & Semino, E. (2017). Using metaphor in healthcare: Physical health. In E. Semino & Z. Demjén (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of metaphor and language (pp. 385–399). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315672953Taylor & Francis Online+4Taylor & Francis Online+4Taylor & Francis+4
Fernyhough, C. (2016). The voices within: The history and science of how we talk to ourselves. Basic Books.
Ford, J. M., & Mathalon, D. H. (2020). Anticipating the future: Automatic prediction failures in schizophrenia. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 148, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.11.001
Gavins, J., & Lahey, E. (2021). World building in discourse. Bloomsbury Academic.
Hinzen, W. (2019). The linguistics of schizophrenia: Thought disturbance as language pathology across positive symptoms. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 528. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00528
Hinzen, W., & Rosselló, J. (2015). The linguistics of schizophrenia: Thought disturbance as language pathology across positive symptoms. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 971. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00971
Holmes, W., Bialik, M., & Fadel, C. (2021). Artificial intelligence in education: Promises and implications for teaching and learning. Center for Curriculum Redesign.
Jacobs, A. M. (2015). Towards a neurocognitive poetics model of literary reading. In R. M. Willems (Ed.), Towards a cognitive neuroscience of natural language use (pp. 135–159). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107323666.008
Koopman, E. M. (2015). Empathic reactions after reading: The role of genre, personal factors and affective responses. Poetics, 50, 62–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2015.02.008
Lahey, E. (2020). Stylistics and the teaching of literature. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45639-9
McCarthy-Jones, S., Smailes, D., Corvin, A., Gill, M., Morris, D. W., Dinan, T. G., & Murphy, K. C. (2017). Occurrence and co-occurrence of hallucinations by modality in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Psychiatry Research, 252, 154–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2017.01.102Leeds Trinity University Research Portal
O’Donnell, M. (2012). UAM CorpusTool 3.3 [Computer software].
Palmer, A. (2004). Fictional minds. Narrative, 12(4), 428–436. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2004.0030
Rude, S., Gortner, E. M., & Pennebaker, J. (2010). Language use of depressed and depression-vulnerable college students. Cognition & Emotion, 18(8), 1121–1133. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930441000030Taylor & Francis Online
Sanford, A. J., & Emmott, C. (2012). Mind, brain and narrative. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511996483
Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511614400
Semino, E., Demjén, Z., Hardie, A., Payne, S., & Rayson, P. (2018). Metaphor, cancer and the end of life: A corpus-based study. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315623023Taylor & Francis Online
Semino, E., Demjén, Z., & Demmen, J. (2022). An integrated approach to metaphor and framing in cognition, discourse, and practice, with an application to metaphors for cancer. Applied Linguistics, 43(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab009UCL Discovery
Stephens, G., & Tonks, J. (2021). Sensory processing and metaphor use in schizophrenia: A review. Psychiatry Research, 295, 113595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113595
Stockwell, P. (2020). Cognitive poetics: An introduction (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315708454
Zahn, R., Lythe, K. E., Gethin, J. A., Green, S., Deakin, J. F. W., Young, A. H., & Moll, J. (2015). The role of self-blame and worthlessness in the psychopathology of major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 186, 337–341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.08.001PubMed Central+2King's College London+2PubMed+2
Zunshine, L. (2006). Why we read fiction: Theory of mind and the novel. Ohio State University Press.