A Cognitive Pragmatic Approach
Celebrating International Women's Day 2024
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
Literary Critic and Art Critic
Margaret Atwood, in her novella The Penelopiad, formed her narrative discourse on the connection between the identities of Penelope, Odysseus, and Helen, through long-term memory and possible interpretations of childhood narratives linked to the possible traumas or invoking the narrative identity, according to Paul Ricoeur’s term in reading the becoming of Helen, Odysseus, and Penelope as well. We may find the discourse establishing the overlap between the abundance of the mental images of the potential suitors in Penelope's speech in the past before Odysseus's return and the abundance of Helen's recalling from the cosmic space, as well as the difference between Helen and Penelope in the component that related to creative originality that establishes a new abundance in the spectra of maids and the representational images of Odysseus in the current space of the communication attitude.
There is a deep semantic relationship in the implications of the discourse between Penelope's dreams and nightmares and the creative horror generated by the pursuit of the ghosts of the maids who were killed by Odysseus and Telemachus after Odysseus's return from the wanderings.
I see that this experimental new hauntology of the multiple mental representations of Odysseus is an open literary pursuit that suggests the rise of anima energy within the maids in the immediate pictorial space and suggests modifying the stable story endings according to a deep meta-cognitive learning process based on building other control strategies or building a new narrative world or experimental spatial space which extending beyond the temporary stable space or Penelope's ancient house; This new space contains the return of the experimental feminine spectrum and the return of Odysseus's mental representations in open spectral abundance without a definitive final trial; Therefore, we find Odysseus's mental representations appearing in contemporary historical reality, then dying, and being spectrally restored in the feminine imaginary world of the maids once again.
Additionally, we see that Margaret Atwood's experimental discourse about the spectra of maids in The Odyssey is also related to the narrative identity and mental representation related to the character of the maid, Offred in her previous novel The Handmaid's Tale (1), that the themes of absurd punishment, disappearance, and always pending and postponed existential spatial questions recur in her consciousness and subconsciousness.
If we re-read the context pragmatically and perceptually, we will notice that Margaret Atwood’s narrator has set the story in a space beyond the narrative function of the return of the hero, that is, a complex experiential spatial space that combines the trace of long-term memory signs, modernity, and the cosmic or dreamy space. That is, it carries contemporary contextual references beyond modernity and postmodernism; Such as the juxtaposition of temporalities in Gothic consciousness and specters, the continuing rise of spatial perceptual sensitivity, the meditations of consciousness and Lucid Dreaming, and the construction of blending spaces related to the mental images of the artistic personality.
Also. If we read the cognitive contextual indicators that are important in the communication situation according to Sperber and Wilson’s theory of relevance; We will find that the communication situation is the other, immediate, experiential cosmic world that includes the past and some modern signs at the same time. The character of Helen will represent the opening of Penelope's other nightmares and the opening of a new circular experimental journey that transcends the central place. As for Penelope, the discourse expands on the inferences related to her other representative role as a nightmare observer, a dream observer, or Lucid Dreaming. She observes the process of becoming in a dynamic place connected to the idea of authenticity without an inevitable connection to the past, but rather to the process of becoming the spectra of maids, and the repetition of the journey and its nightmares that include tones of terror, abundance, and joy together.
Consequently, there is an experimentation brought about by Margaret Atwood's discourse in the structures of personal and spatial references. We find the maids gaining the rise of the anima that produces fantasies and specters, and we find Odysseus within recurring and new circular functions within Penelope's nightmares, or we find him appearing like an actor in a contemporary experimental play that combines death and life without an end. As for the spatial field, it looks like graphics because it combines a Gothic, cosmic, and Greek atmosphere. It is Gothic because it is filled with specters and the memory of the first panic. It is similar to the Greek atmosphere because it reminds me of the play Eumenides by Aeschylus, which included the ghost of Clymnestra, the atmosphere of ancient trials, and the idea of punishment that falls into the collective memory and the collective unconscious. It is universal because it is invisible, but it is recalled in the contemplations of consciousness.
Also, the discourse includes an implicit directive speech act that we conclude by questioning Odysseus’s immediate fate in the process of the narrative. It requires a set of interpretive possibilities, such as the dynamic play of literary spectra, compatibility with the post-modern and post-modern atmosphere in the temporal graphic, and the transition of the spectrum of Odysseus between the serines in Penelope’s nightmares, the modern space, and the contemplative or meta-cognitive spaces inherent in the narrator’s speech.
I would like to recall here some of the nightmares reported by Margaret Atwood's narrator through Penelope to read them cognitively according to the model of the global neural workspace. Among these nightmares is that Penelope sees the Cyclops devouring Odysseus's head, or that Odysseus is heading towards the Sirens and they are about to tear him apart with their claws while they sing like the maids sing, or that he loves a woman like Helen whose smile is evil (2). We will notice that the maids dream of a peaceful reality while the chorus echoes the virginity of the moment of terror and hanging.
Such nightmares are connected in a semantic context that suggests the importance of the productivity of the immediate female consciousness of representational horror and the representational abundance of spectra within a meta-cognitive context that observes images resembling those of Lucid Dreaming beyond the narration.
we can read the results of the global neural workspace in Atwood's novella, according to the terms and the efforts of Stanislas Dehaene, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Lionel Naccache, and we notice that it formed, according to the semantics of the discourse, from a visual and auditory internal representational vision that is renewed from the journey of Odysseus in an open context, and the evaluation tends to raise the reinterpretation of the scene by the indicator of the maids, the indicator of the rise of the anima or female imagination, and the abundance of mental spectra and representations. As for the past, it is integrated into creative modification processes through working memory, which reshapes the signs of long-term memory. As for the structure of presence, it ranges between the atmosphere of creativity, spectra, justice, and transcending the stability of the story in the past, while conscious processors within the global neural workspace tend toward the spectral renewal of the archetypes, especially in the position of the creative observer, and the aesthetic response tends toward producing representational abundance and an abundance of possible interpretations.
Additionally, we can read the meta-cognitive aspect according to the meta-cognitive architecture in the efforts and terms of Alexei V. Samsonovich and Kenneth A. De Jong. According to the mental states, I control, I now, and I next. Therefore, the mental state I control suggests building a narrative strategy based on merging spaces, times, and cognitive blending signs for the characters to transcend the boundaries of the story in the past, and to give the model the dynamism of the observer, the dreamer, and the meditator, which is Penelope or the narrator here. As for me now, my observation of images changes due to the abundance of representations, specters, and expected scenarios that relate to ancient horror, the joy of imagination, and open endings. As for the future, it relates to the renewal of the model in other contemplative and cultural contexts.
Finally, I find that this critical study of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelope novel is appropriate for International Women’s Day in 2024 and an opportunity to restore experimentation in contemporary narrative discourse.
Notes:
(1) Read, Margret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, McClelland & Stewart, Canada 1985, p. 32, 33.
(2) Read, Margret Atwood, The Penelopiad, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, MELBOURNE, 2005, p.69.
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
