Comparison Of Insanity In Native Son And The Turn Of The Screw

Insanity has fascinated humankind for centuries, especially authors. Whereas eighteenth
century rationalists regarded immoderation of the imagination as the cause of madness, nineteenth century romanticists encouraged superfluous creativity. Moving into twentieth century, authors began to explore insanity as a matter of perception. Native Son by Richard Wright, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James all explore insanity over different time periods and locations. Wright illustrates the story of Bigger Thomas in Native Son, a young African-American man living in the ghettos of Chicago in the 1930s. Faulkner uses the tale of As I Lay Dying to introduce the character of Darl, a Mississippi farmer's Son, coping

with the death of his mother in the 1920s. Alternately, the governess in The Turn of the Screw cares for children in an isolated house in 1840s England. In analyzing each of these works through a different lens, it is discovered their insanity may not in truth be insanity. To be insane is to act in way that most people would not. However, these actions do not seem insane to the characters. Bigger wants only to feel control over his own life, so he commits a brutal act of violence. Darl wishes to stop the desecration of his mother's dead body on the eight-day odyssey it has suffered, so he tries to incinerate the coffin. The governess believes she is protecting her charges from malevolent ghosts she assumes haunt the house. The novels Native Son by Richard Wright, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James reveal madness is merely a matter of perception.
In the beginning of the novel Native Son, Bigger’s behavior is violent but not quite irrational, but as the story progresses Bigger commits acts that society deems increasingly irrational, and therefore insane. Bigger’s mother and sister scream as a rat torments their small, cramped apartment. After chasing it around the room, Bigger is able to kill the rat with a frying pan “pound[ing] the rat’s head, crushing it, cursing hysterically” (Wright 7). This violence is completely sane; the infestation needed to be stopped. His family even examines the corpse and speak of it “in tones of awed admiration” (7). However, Bigger’s capacity for extreme, excessive violence is introduced. By allowing Bigger to commit a violent act, Wright presents the idea of sanity and its definition. Sanity is determined by what the majority of people believe to be true.

Due to the necessity of the violence, Bigger is celebrated for destroying the rat. Later, this violence continues, but in a manner that society considers more irrational. For example, Bigger and his friends concoct a plan to rob Blum, a white business owner. When one of the members of their gang, Gus, arrives late, Bigger flies into an uncontrollable rage. He cruelly attacks Gus, even forcing him to lick a knife. Subconsciously, Bigger is acting out of fear. He intentionally wants to ruin the robbery so he will not have to continue. His friends only “reckon that was what [Bigger] wanted” (51) fully after Bigger has attacked Gus. His friends begin to view Bigger as volatile and even insane for his level of violence was unwarranted. Gus even threatens to “fix [Bigger] one of these days” (47). In this situation, there are two different viewpoints one seeing Bigger’s actions as understandable and the other as senseless. Wright presents this idea early in the novel, and it will continually reoccur. These small instances of violence all culminate in the murder of Mary Dalton, the daughter of Bigger’s boss. Mary and her boyfriend are strangely kind to Bigger and Mary becomes very drunk. She is unable to even walk

upstairs, so Bigger is forced to carry her up to her room. There he accidentally kills her in an attempt to stop her mother from discovering him in her room. From Bigger’s point of view, he is not at fault and even does not show any sign of remorse. He could not allow the mother to see him or else he would have been accused of rape and sent to jail or even killed. Although it was murder, Bigger is unable to view himself as insane, all his actions completely justifiable. On the other hand, the white community, after discovering Bigger’s crime sees him only as a violent killer, animalistic even. They assume he raped her even before the trial, newspaper headlines reading “NEGRO RAPIST” (352) and “NEGRO KILLER” (432). Racism was heavily engrained into society in the 1930s. Following Bigger’s brutal murder of a white, rich, member of society, this racism allows for the media bias, and the unfair treatment of Bigger in the courtroom. From most of white society’s perspective he is not human, he is an animal. Like a dog who has bitten their master and must be put down, Bigger is sentenced to the electric chair for his disobedience. However, this is not before a white Communist lawyer who truly understands Bigger’s plight attempts to save Bigger. This lawyer, Max, introduces a different perspective. Although he does not condone Bigger’s action of killing Mary, he sees that Bigger was a victim of his highly racist environment. Max does not see Bigger as sane or insane, but as a person. A person who was forced to violence; a person that can “starve from a lack of self-realization as much as…from a lack of bread…and murder for it too” (506)! These contradictory perspectives enhance Wright’s novel, by making clear one cannot determine insanity. Society moves as a whole to make those decisions. By using insanity as a theme in Native Son, Wright supports the idea of how humankind determines insanity and how it may never truly be able to determine insanity. Biases like racism will always keep people from truly discovering insanity, even subconscious ones. Through the rat scene, the pool table scene, and the murder of Mary Dalton, Richard Wright explores the connection of insanity and violence, and the validity of determining the state of one’s mind.
Whereas Native Son explores the definition of insanity through the perspective of Bigger, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner uses multiple narrators to discover the nature of madness.

Darl, Cash, and Vardaman are all brothers on a family trip to bury their mother. Each has a different perception of Darl’s burning of the barn. This odyssey to bury their mother has left an impact on the entire family. The body decomposes and rots, letting off an awful odor, and ultimately becoming a desecration of their mother. Darl, once calm and reflective, has become disgusted. In order to destroy her body once and for all, he sets the barn where his family is staying ablaze. Darl views his act as heroism. His mother’s body has been defiled, and he is going to stop what he views as madness and cremate her. Darl even ventures so far as to believe he is hearing the voice of his mother through the coffin “calling on [God] to help her…to hide her away from the sight of man” (Faulkner 215). Similarly to Wright, Faulkner uses different perspectives to challenge the idea of insanity. Darl believes burning down the barn is vindicated, he trusts he has his mother’s blessing. After his family has sent him to a mental facility, to keep from being sued, Darl becomes progressively irrational. The family’s verdict that he must be insane, drove him further away. Darl cannot comprehend that what he did was insane, to him his actions were the only plausible course. Cash, on the other hand, offers a more

removed, and therefore, clear outlook. Cash admits he “aint so sho who’s got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint” (233). This statement is the crux of Faulkner’s intended point. Insanity cannot be determined, it is merely the whims of the majority. Cash while contemplating the fate of Darl, presents his understanding of both sides. Cash addresses the view of the farmer and that “setting fire to a man’s barn and endangering his stock and destroying his property” (233) must be in some way insane. Darl destroyed this man’s livelihood, displaying selfishness and a lack of respect for other people and their lives. However, Cash also admits the violation of their mother’s body could be madness. Simply cremating her would solve many of the problems the family had brought upon itself. Cash also mentions the viewpoint of his other brother, Jewel who wants to “catch [Darl] and tie him up” before “[Darl] sets fire to the goddamn team and wagon” (233). Jewel’s anger is reminiscent of white society’s anger at Bigger. They both only view in black and white, right and wrong. Jewel has decided Darl is insane and he therefore must be punished. Cash while understanding Jewel’s anger, also recognizes Jewel is not seeing the situation in all aspects. Faulkner, uses Cash, as voice to display the vagueness of insanity and the inherent inability to completely determine one’s true mental state. Faulkner intends to utilize insanity as a device to force readers to comprehend how an action can never be deemed fully right or wrong. Faulkner also introduces young Vardaman’s perception of the barn fire. Most of society views children as innocent. Vardaman illustrates how a child would interpret this situation. He is unable to understand the complexities of insanity. He is only able to see Darl as his brother, a person he has known his entire life. Vardaman, upon seeing Darl crying atop of his mother’s coffin tries to comfort him. He believes Darl wanted to save his mother from the fire, not that he had intended to have her burn. Vardaman tells Darl “he needn’t cry…Jewel got her out” (225). Although Vardaman saw Darl setting fire to the barn, he cannot fathom as to why, he only knows he cannot tell anyone. When Darl is sent to Jackson to be treated, Vardaman repeats to himself over and over that “Darl he went to Jackson is my brother Darl is my brother” (249). A brother is all Darl will ever be to Vardaman. He is neither sane nor insane, he is simply a brother who had to leave. Faulkner uses the youthful outlook of Vardaman to display an interesting take on the situation. Vardaman is neither approving nor disapproving, he cannot be judgmental. The three perspectives of Darl’s arson all have a different take. Faulkner uses these shifting narrators to enhance the theme of insanity and its quality of incomprehensibility.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, unlike the works by Faulkner and Wright, relies not on the perspective of different characters but the choice of the reader to determine the mental stability of the character, the governess. The two contradictory perspectives are as follows: the governess is insane and is imagining the ghostly reign of terror or the governess is of sound mind and the children are in dire straits. By analyzing three different episodes of supernatural effect, it is possible to discern the purpose of James in his use of insanity. One occurrence of a ghost was when the governess was walking in the garden. She sees an unfamiliar man looking down upon her from the tower. After describing him to the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper instantly recognizes him by her description. If the reader views the governess as completely sane, this would be solidified by Mrs. Grose being able to determine the person from description, when the governess had never seen that man before. However, if the reader accepts the governess as taken by madness, they could assume the governess is delusional and Mrs. Grose is only validifying the description because the governess was close enough. Once again, an author attempts to illustrate how one can never judge insanity. Another occurrence of an apparition occurs when one of the governess’s charges, Flora, seemed to playing with a female ghost. The governess becomes frightened and watches and begins to conclude that the male and the female ghost are there to corrupt the children she oversees. The governess views herself as a hero, “at the helm…in a great drifting ship” (17). The reader could interpret the governess as a heroic figure, one who wants only to keep the children safe from malevolent ghosts. However, a reader from the other point of view would only see the governess as delusional.
Over these three novels, insanity is used as a theme to question the meaning of insanity and its various interpretations. The authors also use different techniques to support this idea. Wright uses Bigger Thomas to explore bias and racism in insanity and the judicial system, while Faulkner utilizes multiple narrators to reveal different perspectives. James, alternately, allows the reader to choose the perspective to which they will read the story in order to contemplate insanity. All these works, intend to support the notion that insanity cannot be decided by a person. Most definitions of insanity are based upon what the majority of people decide. In some works of fiction madness is sensationalized to disguise a lack of art in the story. These works use psychological realism, not intending to dramatize insanity but to argue against the true meaning of madness. These literary works explore insanity, but this is operating under the assumption madness actually exists. Insanity could in fact be merely a function of society intended to isolate and punish people who have different perceptions of reality.