Literature as Cultural Therapy: Representing Bipolar Disorder and its Socio-Cultural Acceptance in Contemporary Indian English Fiction

Abstract

What can a novel do that a psychiatric case report can’t? It is the implicit question that underlies the present study, looking at the representation of the condition of bipolar disorder in two contemporary Indian English fictions. Both Life is What You Make It (2011) by Preeti Shenoy and Em and the Hoom (2012) by Jerry Pinto are in vastly different places on the literary map, but both are dealing with the same problematic terrain, that of living with and being shaped by a phenomenon that medicine could define, label and compartmentalize, but not exactly fit into. What these novels offer, what is argued here is ‘cultural therapy’ that is, a psychological reality that is marginalized in the broader sphere can be translated in these novels into a real representation which can be discussed by mainstream society and eventually accepted.

The study is based on an interdisciplinary approach of psychoanalytic theory, the critique of the psychiatric institution, which was developed by Foucault, the theory of stigma by Goffman, the narrative ethics developed by Nussbaum and the trauma theory developed by Caruth. Comparing two authors to extract the key elements of formal structure and revealed thought reveals that Shenoy adopts a linear first-person bildungsroman approach to draw the reader into direct identificatory engagement with the main character. In contrast, Pinto presents the mediated fragmented recollection that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to fully know another person's internal reality. All these three texts individually and collectively question clinical reductionism, lay bare the gendered aspects of mental illness in Indian society and illustrate how the narrative medium is itself a way of making psychological points.