Cognitive Studies through Literary Analysis: featuring The Dead by James Joyce by Kaitlyn Koby

Part Two:  Cognitive Studies as a Literary Approach

            The journey of interpretation is the never-ending scavenge for meaning.  This meaning can be attributed to the author’s intentions, the reader’s needs, the underlying message of the symbols, or the resulting combination of a multitude of definitions applied to each word in the work.  Cognitive psychology attempts to combine these into one interpretive method that is based on the author’s and the readers’ mind processes.  These mind processes are the methods of understanding, which include the interpretation of unspoken communication, the use of context, and the capacity of the mind for breaking down the combination and trails of ideas represented in the works.  Can we know the author’s intentions? Despite the criticism disputes, do all readers interpret the same way (to some degree)?  Science is systematic, literature has been known as an unquantifiable genre, but through cognitive science, we get the best of both worlds, and understand a new level of what can be learned about a work.
           This interpretive method varies from more conventional approaches in that it is interpreting unspoken language, as well as focusing on the traits attributed to the characters.  In order to reach the unspoken language and thoughts of the characters, however, we look to the text.  What did the Founding Fathers intend in the writing of the Constitution?  What would they have intended with the presentation of new situations (Simon, 1)? How can we know except through the dissection of the words written in the Constitution? The cognitive approach looks at the cultural situations of the writers to find what would have guided them to use specific words.  “We may draw on biographical material but also on information about the culture in which the writing took place and the particular social stratum and role in that culture the writer inhabited” (Simon, 3).  In this, often cultural context is used, involving the New Historicism method of interpretation.  Yet, just as interpretation never finds one correct answer, so is cognitive psychology a field that still faces development.  We have not reached the point where every human is merely a computer program that will do whatever the brain programs them to do.  Thus, there is no paper trail that will direct us right up to the exact reasoning behind word choice, facial expression, or exact emotion being portrayed.  As a growing field, cognitive psychology proves to have limits, and, as the cognitive approach to literature is merely a growing blossom on the stalk of cognitive psychology, we are at a limit that our interpretations will by inconclusive.  In this, it is much like Deconstructionism, which leads us to many meanings.  The beauty of the cognitive approach, however, is that it is based in science, which is a field aimed for right answers.  In this, answers can be found.
           So what do we know?  As described by Lisa Zunshine in her publications, humans have developed an ability to interpret one another’s thoughts based on the reading of body language and word choice.  “Mind-reading is a term used by cognitive psychologists to describe our ability to explain people’s behavior in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires…” (Zunshine, Narrative, 271).  If this is true outside the books, why can it not also be true inside them?  This happens every time the narrator/author tells us that “Joe felt…” or “Marsha was thinking…”  How does the narrator know?  Who is this narrator that can read the minds of characters? According to cognitive psychologists, we all have this ability, the ability that “enables us to narrow the range of interpretations of people’s behavior down to their mental states” which we call “theory of mind” (Zunshine, Narration, 271).  We are able to read the descriptions of a character’s expressions and understand what they are thinking.  We are able to look at the word choice of the author and determine his or her intentions.  We are able to put ourselves into the minds of the characters and determine their motives as the story unfolds.  This brings us to a new level of understanding with the characters, a beneficial aspect of the cognitive approach.  We understand why we understand the characters a particular way.  The fact that Joe keeps trying to kiss Marsha signals to the reader that he is determined in his lust towards her.  But how do we know this?  Our previous experiences with humans have taught us how to interpret the actions of others, and as we read, the characters are established as real humans (Simon, 4).
           Then why the disagreement in understanding? For even though establishing the existence of theory of mind, we are still limited to knowing its capacities.  Each of us has experienced different interactions with people, which can trigger different interpretations of a situation presented by the author.  In this, the cognitive approach is limited, but in many aspects, the commonality between human interactions presents a common interpretation.   When questioning the motives of the character or the intentions of the author, we can rely upon our own understanding of situations and differences between our understandings to determine the reasoning behind our assumptions.  As in science, literary interpretation requires evidence, and instead of searching for it, we can look within ourselves, within the author’s biography, or within the description of the character to explain.  The restriction to this method is the reliability of each of these.  The author puts “embedded intentionality” into his works, guiding the reader towards a specific interpretation (Zunshine, 281).  We cannot fully know the author except through what he or she wants us to know.  The further we go, the more unreliable the text becomes.  The narrator is unknown in most cases, confusing the reader from knowing if the author or narrator is speaking.  Sometimes the narrator is written in the first-person, presumed to be a character from the text.  Other times, the speaker is a third-person onlooker that seems to know the thoughts and feelings of every character. Are the characters speaking in these moments or is the author explaining his interpretation of the character’s feelings or is the narrator biased into portraying the characters a particular way?  This confusion in speaker creates a huge obstacle for the cognitive interpreter.  And yet, it provides new insight for the reader to see the story in many different ways.  From whose perspective are we reading and how reliable is his or her perspective?  These are questions to be asked by a cognitive reader, but only to be answered within the restraints of our experiences.
           One of the biggest complaints about taking a scientific approach to literature is the removal of the wonder and awe that comes with determinacy.  But Herbert Simon, scientist, psychologist and professor, presents some insight: “a snowflake is still wonderful, perhaps more wonderful, after we have discovered the fractal origins of its design. Meanings are still wonderful after we have traced out the cognitive processes that underlie them. Science adds to the wonders of appearance the wonders of explanation. It follows the path from wonder to resonance, and then back to a deeper wonder” (Simon, 5).  By understanding the magic that the author possesses to articulate the thoughts and motives of a character for the reader is astounding.  That the reader can interpret the intentions of the author and the characters effortlessly is a new dynamic of communication to be analyzed.  Cognitive approaches to literature are doing just that, but until the field is developed a little more, we remain questioning the ability to find determinate answers to these new questions.

Part One:  Literary Analysis of The Dead

            Science is systematic, cause and effect, trial and error until a reason can be proven.  The love for literature has come from the inability to quantify it, but what if this whole time we have been using systematic interpretive methods by applying causes to effects, committing trial and error, trying to prove reasoning, until we can make sense of a work?  It is inherent that we have been evolutionarily trained to perceive the world with a constant desire for understanding, and it is this need for understanding that we apply both to literature and science.  But just what are we trying to understand?  And what are we unconsciously figuring out?  The following essay will take us through The Dead by James Joyce as we present the questions asked for the understanding of literature by applying science as a means of answering these questions.
           As discussed in Part Two, cognitive psychology focuses on the methods of understanding the text, which include “the interpretation of unspoken communication, the use of context, and the capacity of the mind for breaking down the combination and trails of ideas represented in the works.”  A large part of interpretation that occurs without our conscious realizing, is the assumptions made using unspoken communication, commonly, body language.  A large part of understanding Gabriel’s character is his inability to perform this mind-reading, referred to as Theory of Mind.  His conversation with Miss Ivors during the dancing scene is represented as a “cross-examination” (Joyce, 32).  As readers, we read the descriptions of Gabriel’s dialogue as a representation of his frustration and annoyance with Miss Ivors.  He “said shortly”, “retorted”, “did not answer for his retort had heated him”, “avoided her eyes” (Joyce, 32).  These representations describe Gabriel’s perspective of the situation and we can see this by his actions.  The author provides the character’s behavior as a way of guiding the reader to understand them a certain way.  “If this is done skillfully, one may expect readers to respond as they would to the corresponding situations in real life,” (Simon, 4).  By seeking these mental states of the characters, we feel as if we know them enough to understand their motives.  Thus, we are able to understand Gabriel’s distaste with Miss Ivors and his annoyance with the situation, but also his inability to read the motives of others.
           It is the same understanding that we use on people in our everyday experiences that the characters use in communicating with one another.  Gabriel’s inability to read Miss Ivors causes his annoyance.  His inability to read Gretta’s body language causes his awkwardness in the hotel room.  But the reader is only able to consider the situation to be awkward according to his or her assumed abilities to read Gretta.  For, as we read, we “just know that there must be mental states behind the emotionally opaque body language of the protagonists” (Zunshine, Narrative, 281) and our perception of Gretta’s body language reveals her sadness when she cries and her nostalgia when she tells the story of Michael Fury (as the author intended).  On page 50, Gretta is described as having “coulour on her cheeks and that her eyes were shining”, which typically signifies that the person has been crying.  However, the narrator tells us that “a sudden tide of joy went leaping out of [Gabriel’s] heart” (Joyce, 50).  Either he does not understand his wife’s body language indicates her sadness, or Gabriel is overjoyed at her sadness.  The readers’ theory of mind enables our understanding of Gabriel’s lack there of. 
           Context is used as a tool that connects the dots between what was said by the author before and after the text that is being interpreted.  The meaning of the text is then found through our use of memory and recognition of the particular situations that particular words are found.  “By attributing consistency of meaning to [words] over intervals of time, we can use context to help us narrow the ambiguity of meanings” (Simon, 4).  Herbert Simon provides the example of the word “ball” (Simon, 3).  When talking about dancing and the royal parties, etc., if the word “ball” is mentioned, one would think “ball:  a large formal gathering for social dancing” (Merriam-Webster).  When discussing the football team’s impressive play at the game last night, if the word “ball” is mentioned, one would not imagine a large formal gathering being thrown into the end zone, but instead, a pigskin toy.  In The Dead, when Miss Ivors is described after Gabriel’s encounter with her, it is said that she was “staring at him with her rabbit’s eyes” (Joyce, 33).  Now, as a reader, we are accustomed to reading with the knowledge that the author will use metaphorical descriptions and that the narrator is merely referring to her eyes as being like a rabbit’s (Zunshine, Narrative, 271).  But by reading cognitively, we understand that we have been trained to see the word used in this manner, as opposed to wondering where Miss Ivors’ pet rabbit suddenly came from and why it was never mentioned previous.  However, it also raises the question as to why Joyce used the word “rabbit” to describe the eyes of Miss Ivors.  Or was Joyce the one describing Miss Ivors at this moment?
           Another cognitive question is in reference to the speaker in a text.  Is the author describing the eyes of Miss Ivors?  Or is the narrator revealing Gabriel’s perception of Miss Ivors’ eyes?  Blakey Vermeule, as associate professor of English at Stanford attributes the term “free indirect style” to the confusion of mingling the character’s voice with the narrator’s (Cohen, 3).  We are able to understand that multiple degrees of mental communication are occurring and we subconsciously sort out when a sentence is attributed to one speaker or another.  When investigating how we attribute the voice to one or another speaker, however, we run into complications, and this is where cognitive psychology steps in.  Throughout The Dead, we have been following Gabriel’s experiences and are informed of his thoughts and emotions as the night progresses, but we are not hearing all of this directly from Gabriel. The ambiguity of narration makes it difficult to understand the story, for we are now presented with many different sources of information about what is happening in the work.  If read from Gabriel’s third-person narration of himself, we understand him as a character more fully.  By calling Miss Ivors’ eyes rabbit-like, he likely is describing the empty darkness found when staring into a rabbit’s dumb, expectant eyes.  His distaste of Miss Ivors is more evident in his description of her.  Or, if reading from the narration of an unbiased narrator, the author, perhaps, then the rabbit eyes are innocent, wide-eyed in expectancy, beautiful and pure.  Miss Ivors asked a seemingly innocent question and is awaiting an answer; she is not an ignorant and weak creature.  The cognitive approach reveals different interpretations to be discovered.
           The potential changing in narration can be a vital point to be determined when looking at instances such as the last page of The Dead.  Up to this point, it seems as if we are reading a third-person account by Gabriel himself, as we have knowledge of his knowledge and feel as if we understand his motives (as they have been told to us by the narrator).  Yet the end of the story presents a change in tone.  A great interpretive question wonders if Gabriel is alive or dead by the end.  By concentrating on the change in narration, it can be determined that Gabriel passes away in the last moments of the story.  The page begins by describing Gabriel as “Gabriel”, specifically, referring to the physical aspect of his eyes.  It transfers to referring to him as “he”, then becoming “his soul” (Joyce, 59).  His identity fading, his soul swooning, these are highly aware descriptions that do not fully fit Gabriel’s character up to this point.  Previously, he is disconnected from the other characters, including his own self-awareness, which supports the confusion between narrator and character.  It needs to be clear who is talking when and cognitive approach merely begs this question from us, especially at this point in the story.  By assuming the transference of narration from Gabriel to Joyce, the reader may conclude that Gabriel is lost.  Yet, by concluding that the story has always been told from the perspective of a narrator, the state of Gabriel’s conscious is unknown except by what the speaker is willing to share.  Thus, by relying upon the change in pronouns and the description of Gabriel’s soul, my cognitive conclusion is that Gabriel has passed away from the living.
           Ambiguity brings life to the work (Simon, 5). This ambiguity is found by using a cognitive approach, and the life provided can be attributed to the degree of reliability found in the speaker.  We are reading a tale written by an author, told by a narrator, through the lens of a character’s perspective of the actions and body language of the other characters.  Gabriel is a filter skews the reliability of the descriptions and that guides our interpretations of the other characters and the situations described by him. While the narrator is able to present this bias by the character in a third-person manner, allowing us to step out of Gabriel’s mind, we are still restricted to his representation of the story.  Aside from that, the reader is also restricted to his or her interpretations of Gabriel’s interpretations, for we have our own experiences that bias our understanding of what is happening in the book.  Lisa Zunshine refers to this as “metarepresentation”, the method through which we learn about the story through the eyes of others (Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction, 47).  We are able to understand the content while keeping track of the source of this information and the influence this source can have on the story’s representation.  In reference to another description of Miss Ivors, she is described to “not feel in the least hungry and she had already overstayed her time” (Joyce, 37).  As this is not a direct quote by Miss Ivors, the speaker could be representing her words in summary, or Gabriel is sharing his opinion on the amount of time spent by Miss Ivors, or it is an excuse the speaker has come with as he watches Miss Ivors leaving.  This ambiguity changes how the reader sees Miss Ivors, as well as the amount of bias the reader finds the narrator using.  We are reading the representations of everyone from multiple levels, which help us to understand why we interpret the text a particular way, but we are left with little room to understanding the “facts” of the plot.
           The cognitive approach asks the questions, proving our abilities to mind-read, but also presents the restrictions that this ability presents.  We can see Gabriel’s inability to use his mind-reading abilities, by using our own mind-reading abilities.  By reading The Dead from this perspective, we are better able to understand Gabriel’s character, without fully knowing what really happened during or after “Misses Morkan’s annual dance”.

--Kaitlyn Koby

Works Cited

Cohen, Patricia. "Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know." New York Times [New York City] 01 APRIL 2010, n.pag. Online. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

Joyce, James. "The Dead." Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Daniel R. Schwarz. Boston: Bedford Books, 1994. Print.

Simon, Herbert. "Literary Criticism: A Cognitive Approach."SEHR: Bridging the Gap. 4.1 (1995): n. page. Online. <http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-1/text/simon1.html>.

Zunshine, Lisa. Narrative: Theory of Mind and Experimental Representations of Fictional Consciousness. 3. 11. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2003. 270-291. Print.

Zunshine, Lisa. Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2006. Print.