How does the mythos description of madness relate to modern mental health diagnoses?
Yeah. I've got to watch Legion all over again.
Legion (2017-2019) was a brilliant, innovative and beautifully artistic take on the superhero genre of movies and TV shows. Those of you who have seen it understand what I mean. It looks like nothing else in the genre. This scene, from the first episode, set the tone for me, and I was immediately all-in. Anybody willing to take a chance like this, anyone with the cojones to do a musical number in a superhero/horror series (and there are real solid horror elements here) - and to LEAD OFF the series with this kind of statement is going to take you on a wild ride.
I also realized that they were doing something very interesting, as they tried very hard to simulate the effect of a mental illness - in David's case it was thought to be schizophrenia - in a realistic and sympathetic way. There are limitations to film as a storytelling medium, of course, but they really pushed the limits as far as they could, and largely succeeded. Mental illness is tremendously difficult to understand for those not suffering from it, and the altered perceptions associated with schizophrenia are particularly hard to portray.
Trying to illustrate or describe the experience of mental illness in fiction is an extremely difficult and risky proposition, as you risk on the one hand traumatizing those who actually suffer from or have loved ones who are suffering from mental illness, if you portray it accurately while on the other hand if it is not portrayed accurately, you risk criticism from those who will say it is an unrealistic view. Madness and insanity in literature, especially the literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, suffers from this problem. Madmen are portrayed as dangerous psychopaths, unpredictable and given to violent outbursts, and unreasonable babbling - think of Renfield in Dracula, or Delapore in "The Rats in the Walls", by Lovecraft. This of course is the most gripping, the most entertaining (in a theatrical sense) form of mental illness, but it is certainly not the most common in the real world.
In weird fiction and the literature of cosmic horror, this madness is explained as the effect upon a person who comes to understand the truth of reality; that the universe is a cold, unfeeling place in which we have no significance, and no hope of anything aside from suffering and oblivion. All human striving is meaningless, a chasing after the wind, and all attempts to find meaning fall into dust when confronted with the reality of the Mythos. Often it is a visual encounter with a creature from beyond that causes the break, seeing something that is impossible to corelate with our limited senses. Occasionally it is merely reading something, gaining some information about what is actually happening outside of our limited field of perception that leads the unfortunate protagonist over the cliff of insanity. However it happens, it is an irreversible change, and once exposed to the Mythos, there is no recovery for the afflicted. The unaware majority, however, naturally view them as insane, since they are obsessed, consumed with a conviction that all is not as it seems, that horrible creatures lurk just out of sight, deep in the forests, or in caverns beneath the hills, or in the depths of space, waiting to reclaim the earth and extinguish humanity.
There are also some, according to the stories, who deal with the revelations of the Mythos by cooperating with the creatures they meet, to help them with whatever inconceivable plots they are hatching. These are the most dangerous of humanity, the traitors who help to bring about the coming conquest in a hope of attaining some blasphemous reward. But who can blame them, in a universe without judgement?
In the end, madness and insanity as it is used in weird fiction has no real connection to actual mental illness, but is more of a description of a potential response to the discovery that the universe is not compliant with what humans call rationality. Madness thus is an involuntary nihilism, a reasonable reaction to the discovery that we are far more ignorant of the threats that lurk at the threshold of our perception, and we have no allies, no friends in the cosmos who will save us from the coming annihilation. In this view there is no significant difference between madness and sanity. The mad merely arrive at the realization sooner than everyone else.
Some will point out that there are actually a large number of people alive on the earth today who see the universe in this way - it is basically materialistic atheism - and they function quite well, with no struggles with madness, let alone senseless babbling. The impact of weird fiction was primarily due to its attack on theism, and with the predominance of atheism in post-modern culture, the fearful nature of these stories has been lost. If nothing else, the threat of being driven mad by learning that the universe is without compassion has been defanged.
But is this really true? It takes faith to believe in a loving creator in spite of the obvious horrors of the material world, but there is also some sort of faith involved in believing it is all meaningless when we hold our newborn child in our arms, or grasp our father's hand as he breathes his last breath. Humans are capable of such godlike heights of beauty and creation, and such demonic depths of destruction and evil. From where do we gain the insight to judge these things? We have evolved to be pattern-finders and we see patterns even in the abstract. Deep in our souls, we long for there to be an order to it all, a meaning to our lives, and so even those of us who have accepted that this is all there is - no heaven above, no hell below - still can be stirred to horror by the overt expression of this sentiment, against our irrational hope that the universe is just.
Perhaps the origin of the madness we see in stories of the Mythos is merely the outworking of this paradox; the afflicted are shown that life is meaningless, in spite of all of the evidence of their experience to the contrary, and they realize that in spite of their prayers and supplications, death awaits us all in the end. Madness is thus the acceptance of this paradox, the hopeless hope, the search for meaning in a sea of meaninglessness, a kind of nihilistic faith. But it would be more fun if they were just superheroes who misunderstood the effect of their superpowers...
While The Yellow Sign is not anticipated to drive anyone mad, it is our sincere hope that it will be an experience that you will remember, and one that may change the way that you think about the universe and your significance in it. Don't miss this opportunity to see the world premier of this original horror play, November 11-13, 2022 at Playhouse in the Park, Murray, KY. Tickets will be on sale soon, so bookmark this site and come back often for more information.
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