A Truth Not Perfectly Visible: Cognition and Culture In
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A TRUTH NOT PERFECTLY VISIBLE: COGNITION AND CULTURE IN THE BORDERLINE NARRATIVE by PATRICK THOMAS MCCORD Under the Direction of Drs. Joel Black and Nelson Hilton ABSTRACT A Truth Not Perfectly Visible: Cognition and Culture in the Borderline Narrative brings contemporary cognitive psychological theory together with film and literary narratology and cultural studies to describe an emerging genre, the Borderline narrative. Section One lays out a description or Primary Theory of narrative cognition. As a basic cognitive function, all persons in all cultures imagine themselves as the main characters in the story of their lives. All stories have similar features and all interpreters of stories use similar stategies. By defining these features and these strategies, we can expand existing narratology to a fuller understanding of narrative logic which is the way the mind makes choices and judgements based on narrative (not strictly logical) associations. One way narratives work is in the way a specific a culture constructs its narrative logic. In the creation of stories, a culture is narratizing its social order and social change, and when interpretations describe this process, I call it Secondary Theory. The Borderline Narrative, of which Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) is a prototypical example, currently narratizes the change in American culture from an Eurocentric masculinist culture to a multi-culture. Section Two uses the tools set out in Section One to generate an evolved Primary Theory of narrative genres based on cognitive schema theory. My case studies then illustrate Secondary Theory uses of Primary Theory tools. By comparing James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans to Michael Mann’s 1991 film adaptation, I demonstrate how the text contains a version of history reflective of the producing culture, not to the historical circumstance of the story-world. I then consider the way existing cultural narratives and their narrative logics shaped the reception of Roland Joffe`‘s 1996 adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. INDEX WORDS: Cognitive theory, Cultural studies, Genre, Multicultural, Western, The Scarlet Letter, Do the Right Thing, Last of the Mohicans, History, Reception, Narratology, Identity, Structure, Reader response. A TRUTH NOT PERFECTLY VISIBLE: CULTURE AND COGNITION IN THE BORDERLINE NARRATIVE by PATRICK THOMAS MCCORD B.A. Antioch University, 1991 M.A. California State University, Northridge, 1993 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2002 © 2002 Patrick Thomas McCord All Rights Reserved A TRUTH NOT PERFECTLY VISIBLE: CULTURE AND COGNITION IN THE BORDERLINE NARRATIVE by PATRICK THOMAS MCCORD Approved: Major Professors: Joel Black Nelson Hilton Committee: Michael Moran Hugh Ruppersburg Elizabeth Kraft Richard Neupert Electronic Version Approved: Gordhan L. Patel Dean of the Graduate School University of Georgia August 2002 iv Dedication I would like to dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my father, who was tough, fair, and generous, and to my mother: without her support and encouragement this project would never have been realized. Her liveliness, her depth, and her curiosity have been a constant source of inspiration. v Acknowledgments I would like to thank Joel Black for having the intellectual grace and imagination to take on the dissertation directorship late in the game. His active support and insightful, positive readings acted as a tonic for the project. This work is built on the foundation provided by David Bordwell, George Lakoff, Norman Holland, Julien Jaynes, and Roland Barthes, thinkers of astonishing learning and imagination whose writings never failed to inspire me. More than any other single experiential source, informal conversations with other graduate students were absolutely necessary to the development of my ideas. In particular I want to thank Clai Rice, whose adversarial style of conversing forced me to reconsider my own dogmas. My other interlocutors included Lisa Kozlowski (who also made me take a vacation, thanks again), Tim Engles, who sharpened my understanding of cultural issues, Bill Cole, whose passion was infective, Mary Carney, who gave patient support during every setback, and Dave Janssen, whose fraternity pulled me back from the brink more than once. Several professors encouraged me to creatively extend my own ideas before the dissertation was an idea. My sincere gratitude to my wonderful teachers: at California State University, Northridge, where Jack Solomon introduced me to Theory both Big and small; he was a conscientious mentor and good friend; also, to Pat Murray and to Barbara Kroll who taught me composition theory; both CSUN courses of study catalyzed my cognitive understandings; thanks to Ed Frankel for teaching me semiotics at Antioch vi College; here at Georgia, my gratitude to Hugh Kenner who read my first noodlings with cognitive methods and heartily rewarded them, to Nelson Hilton who really cracked the psychoanalytic whip, and to Bill Free who was retired and not on my committee, but who was curious enough to read an early dissertation draft after my previous major professor had resigned, and who then warmly encouraged me; indeed, Bill quickly grasped the scope and value of the project. I also want to thank Trisha Lootens, who employed me as her research assistant and who has been my friend through difficult times and whose class in Victorian Poetry was a blast from beginning to end. As Heads of Freshman Composition, Bill Provost and Christy Desmet, gave me the opportunity to develop approaches to composition that engaged my cinematic and cognitive interests and who got my back when it needed getting. Finally, although I never had a class with Charles Lower, I worked as his research assistant, we struck a good rapport, and he recruited me to assist in teaching his Beowulf to Milton survey. In the course of our relationship, I leaned to love texts that I never would otherwise have read, but more than this, Chuck fully understood his role and his responsibilities as a professor to graduate students, and he scrupulously addressed how to instruct undergraduates, how to write and give tests, and the importance of real conversation — not prepackaged hectoring or reading from old notes — in the classroom. He took an active interest in me after the death of my dad when no other professor seemed particularly interested, and he is my prototype schema for great professor. A dissertation isn’t so much a project as it is a lifestyle choice. My friends in Athens and from previous lifetimes have been a source of great strength and encouragement throughout this ordeal, but particularly when I was misdiagnosed with vii amyotropic lateral sclerosis; thanks to Adam Davies (The Frog King, Riverhead Press), Woman in Black Jane Leonard, Jeff Charney (who had prescient advice on committee behavior), Tom Frick, Richard Lehfeldt (who amazingly offered to proof this dissertation, bless him), and the generous dudes, Chad McCabe, Rickie Gans, John Johnson, Dave Greene, Dennis Foon, and the Hon. Michael Lee Parsons (who is going to help me move outta here). Special mention to Mike Hendrick, whose ability to tell the truth and shame the devil never failed to make me feel better. And I would never have gotten started on this path if not for my college friends and mentors, Barry Garelick and David Olson, who taught me how to read and how to think about image. I want to thank the committee members, Mike Moran, Elizabeth Kraft, Hugh Ruppersburg, Richard Neupert, and for an invigorating few months, Andrew Cole, all of who are boldly going outside their immediate areas of expertise into disputed academic territory, lured by hybrid ideas. Finally, I want to acknowledge my dogs, Jack and Cassie. I never owned dogs before entering grad school, and they have been with me the whole way. In our time together, they have taught me about patience, honesty, forgiveness, enthusiasm, and unconditional love, and still I am their student. viii Table of Contents Page Acknowledgments .......................................................v Chapter 1 Introduction: Culture, Cognition, Meanings ..........................1 Section One— 2 The Right Thing? Cognitive Tools and The Borderline Narrative ....32 Section Two— 3 Schema, Genre, the Borderline ...............................134 4 Instructions Included: Mohicans Schematize History..............159 5 Reception at the Borderline: The New Puritans and Interpreting The Scarlet Letter .............................................213 6 Conclusion: Hybridities ........................................261 Endnotes .............................................................268 Bibliography .........................................................289 1 Chapter 1: Introduction: Culture, Cognition, Meanings As a man is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers. —William Blake Man is mind, and the situation of man as man is a mental situation. —Karl Jaspers Borderlines This dissertation addresses two basic constructs of human logic, borders and narratives. Indeed, if there is a simple truth I hope to make visible, it is that we know the borders that define ourselves and our cultures and even our artifacts primarily by the cognitive operations of narrative logic — which is an innate faculty, but it not always perfectly “logical.” Most of the concepts we have and many of our governing values, both personal and