Myriads Of Me: Tellur's Journal

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4.3.09

Stigmata... (Część II)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

The Postmodern Protagonist's Inner Space Against the Backdrop of an Outer World in David Foster Wallace's My Appearance and Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

While it could be argued that most narratives within literature are about restoring order, in postmodernism homeostasis is restored not by altering the exterior world, but by modifying the protagonists' psyche, often by the peculiar means of drugs (either illegal or prescribed) or psychoanalysis. Anxiety produced by the exterior world is countered by the protagonist's modification of their inner space. Through a catalog of adjectives, the narrator of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (3SPE) provides an account of Barney Mayerson's anxiety at the very beginning of the novel:

His head unnaturally aching, Barney Mayerson woke to find himself in an unfamiliar bedroom in an unfamiliar conapt building. Beside him, the cover up to her bare, smooth shoulders, an unfamiliar girl slept on (...) (7)

Interestingly enough, the first familiar thing in the novel turns out to be a familiar suitcase, that of psychiatrist Dr. Smile (8).

Apart from a private psychoanalytical suitcase, Barney Mayerson and the other protagonists from 3SPE also resort to drugs as a means of dealing with their anxieties. This is also true of Edilyn from Wallace's My Appearance (MA), who takes the anti-depressant Xanax on a daily, if not hourly basis. In both texts drugs are depicted (advertised) as something common and mundane, although neither text provides a clear answer as to whether drugs reduce nervous mental states ─ or produce them. W. Szyda notices this ambiguous function of drugs in 3SPE, claiming that:

Despite Dick's clear fascination with drugs, he never restricts himself to naive idealism. Although he indeed depicts the therapeutic features of drugs as a means of maintaining mental hygiene (...) he also shows the profound areas of destruction caused by the addiction. (9)

In MA, the unsettling omnipresence of drugs is described in one of the Letterman features:

He and the staff quickly presented a list of ten medications, both over-the-counter and 'scrip, that resembled well-known candies in a way Letterman claimed was insidious. (10)

Dick himself takes this similarity to the extreme by overtly naming one of the drugs in 3SPE "Can-D". Another drug is openly advertised in a similar fashion to consumer goods with the slogan: Be choosy. Chew Chew-Z (11). The author is conscious of the postmodern game on the level of meanings. He believes that:

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. (12)

In MA, the destructive influence of Xanax on the psyche is implied in the scene in the taxi cab, when Edilyn's husband in a spell of paranoia question's the driver's good intentions:

"He can't hear us," I said.
"...if this were somehow taped and played back on the air while you looked on in horror?" (13)

While in Wallace's narrative drugs affect the protagonist's mental state and cognitive awareness, Dick goes to the extreme of allowing for drugs to change the ontological status of the world itself. Because in his narrative the protagonist's inner space is projected upon the exterior world, the subjective mental states induced by the drugs become objectified and undergo reification. Indeed, M. Jędrzejczak confirms that:

the world of narcotic visions is not at all illusionary and unreal in comparison to the so-called reality. (...) Hallucination as a part of the psyche is equivalent to the protagonists' landscape and their normal interactions. (14)

(7) Dick, Ph. K., The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, New York, 1991, p. 4.
(8) Dick, p. 4.
(9) Translated for the needs of this essay from Szyda, W., "Narkotyczne ekstrapolacje", Czas Fantastyki nr 4 (17) 2008, Warszawa, 2008, p. 17: A zatem nie kryjąc fascynacji "dragami", nie popada Dick w naiwny idealizm. Wskazując na terapeutyczne właściwości narkotyków jako środków psychicznej higieny (...) odsłania jednocześnie obszary głębokiego spustoszenia, jakie powoduje nałóg.
(10) Wallace, D. F., "My Appearance", Girl With Curious Hair, 1989, p. 186.
(11) Dick, p. 50.
(12) Dick Ph. K., "How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later", I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, 1978 (http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm)
(13) Wallace, p. 180.
(14) Translated for the needs of this essay from Jędrzejczak, p. 53: Świat wizji narkotycznych w niczym nie jest pozorny i nie prawdziwy w stosunku do tzw. realności. (...) Halucynacja jako przynależna do obszaru psychiki jest równoważna z krajobrazem wokół postaci oraz ich zwykłymi interakcjami.

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