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Mental Illness and Its Relationship to the Unreliable Narrator in a Work of Creative Fiction

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Mental Illness and Its Relationship to the Unreliable Narrator in a Work of Creative Fiction University of Texas at El Paso ScholarWorks@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2019-01-01 Mental Illness and its Relationship to the Unreliable Narrator in a Work of Creative Fiction Shereen Siewert University of Texas at El Paso Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Siewert, Shereen, "Mental Illness and its Relationship to the Unreliable Narrator in a Work of Creative Fiction" (2019). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 2901. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/2901 This is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR IN A WORK OF CREATIVE FICTION SHEREEN PATRICIA SIEWERT Master’s Program in Creative Writing APPROVED: _________________________________________________ Jose De Pierola, Ph.D., Chair _________________________________________ Lex Williford, M.F.A. _________________________________________ Marion Rohrleitner, Ph.D _________________________________________ Stephen L. Crites, Jr., Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © 2019 by Shereen P. Siewert Dec. 7, 2019 This work is dedicated to my father, who always believed. MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR IN A WORK OF CREATIVE FICTION by SHEREEN PATRICIA SIEWERT, B.A. THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Department of Creative Writing THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO December 2019 Acknowledgments I would like to express my deep gratitude to the professors in the Creative Writing Program, each of whom taught me something new and unique to use in my writing. I am most grateful to Dr. Jose De Pierola, who served as my thesis advisor and offered his time, knowledge, and advice so graciously over the past year. I would also like to thank Dr. Daniel Chacon, whose classes had an enormous influence on my writing. Special thanks to Lex Williford and Dr. Marion Rohrleitner, who served on my thesis committee, and to the entire faculty of the University of Texas-El Paso Creative Writing Department. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments...............................................................................................................................v Table of Contents...............................................................................................................................vi Preface.................................................................................................................................................1 References........................................................................................................................................ 17 The Double Blind ............................................................................................................................ 18 Preface: Simon ................................................................................................................................. 19 Chapter One: Phoebe ....................................................................................................................... 23 Chapter Two: Simon ........................................................................................................................ 38 Chapter Three: Phoebe ..................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter Four: Simon .........................................................................................................................48 Chapter Five: Phoebe ........................................................................................................................ 51 Chapter Six: Phoebe ......................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter Seven: Catherine ................................................................................................................. 72 Chapter Eight: Phoebe ...................................................................................................................... 75 Chapter Nine: Phoebe........................................................................................................................ 85 Chapter Ten: Phoebe......................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter Eleven: Phoebe.................................................................................................................. 102 Chapter Twelve: Frank ....................................................................................................................106 Chapter Thirteen: Phoebe................................................................................................................ 109 Chapter Fourteen: Simon.................................................................................................................113 Chapter Fifteen: Catherine.............................................................................................................. 115 Chapter Sixteen: Phoebe .................................................................................................................117 vi Epilogue...........................................................................................................................................127 Vitae.................................................................................................................................................129 vii Preface More than five years ago, I enrolled at UTEP the ultimate goal of writing a novel. I enrolled at a time when I had just begun a new beat in my newspaper job, covering crime and public safety issues in our region. The first major trial I covered involved a young man who was on trial for murdering his father. The young man, who was schizophrenic, told the judge during a preliminary hearing that he heard voices that told him that his father was evil and must be killed. He was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, what is known in the legal world as NGI, and was ordered into the mental health system. Later, the victim’s brother approached me to write a story about the NGI defense, which led me to do significant research on schizophrenia and the role of mental illness in the justice system. In this project, I sought to tell a story that led to a better understanding of mental illness, the fragility of memory, and the devastating impact that schizophrenia has on those who suffer, and the people around them. In writing fiction, I have found that staying as close to the truth as possible allows for the most credible storytelling. Here, I have put together a narrative that relies in part on research and knowledge of the legal and mental health system. I am naturally drawn to novels that use unreliable narrative techniques, particularly with a mental illness component. My research and love of reading, coupled with the many lessons I learned throughout my time at UTEP, are all reflected in this manuscript. I use flashbacks, Chinese boxes, and specific language in this narrative, a story that rings true because of its origin, something all stories must have. Stories, I would argue, do not simply appear in the imagination without basis. Mario Vargas Llosa said: “ all stories are rooted in the lives of those who write them, experience is the source from which fiction flows. There is always a starting point in a story that comes from the experience of the writer. I’d venture to claim that there are no exceptions to this rule and 1 that, as a result, scientifically pure invention does not exist in literature. All fiction are structures of fantasy and stimulate his imagination, leading him to create a world so rich and various that sometimes it is almost impossible ( and sometimes just plain impossible) to recognize in it the autobiographical material that was its genesis and that is, in a way, the secret heart of all fiction, as well as its obverse and antithesis” ( 15-16). Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality in an abnormal fashion. Hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking significantly impairs daily functioning and can be extremely debilitating. Until just a few years ago, doctors placed patients with schizophrenia into five distinct categories: catatonic, disorganized, paranoid, residual and undifferentiated. But those categories have largely been dismissed in recent years in favor of a spectrum of schizophrenia, which has allowed for greater diagnostic freedom among those in the psychiatric medical community. ("NIMH » Schizophrenia") In my novel, the main character suffers from hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorders characteristic of schizophrenia. She began exhibiting symptoms in her teenage years, but it wasn’t until a violent event triggered a psychotic break. Consequently, she lost touch with reality altogether. Like the defendant in the case I covered earlier, Phoebe, the main character, committed a crime and was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. The NGI defense is rare; rarer still is the successful NGI defense, in
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