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Capturing Capgras: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers.(Critical essay): An article from: Style
This digital document is an article from Style, published by Northern Illinois University on September 22, 2009. The length of the article is 10763 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the This essay deals with focalization and narration as the two central means used in Richard Powers's novel The Echo Maker to capture the 'deranged' mind of Mark Schluter, the central character who suffers from Capgras and paranoia. The cognitive neurologist, Dr Weber, regards his science as a form of storytelling, but as a narrator he refuses to enter the minds of his characters (i.e., patients). This turns him into an unreliable narrator and makes it impossible for his patients to become the tellers of their own life stories. They are separated from their own history, which is exactly what happens in Capgras. This condition is all about the gap between seeing (a loved one) and feeling (nothing for that person). As a focalizing subject, Mark is unable to find the right balance between, on the one hand, an exaggerated form of empathy and mindreading (paranoia) and, on the other, a total lack of empathy (Capgras). To some extent, all characters have problems with empathy and mindreading. The novel turns Capgras into a 'contagious' disease and a symptom of our present day condition. To illustrate the interaction between focalization and narration this essay concludes with an analysis of Mark's initial, hallucinatory experiences, .just after his fatal accident. In the beginning he identifies himself with the cranes, birds that represent history and continuity. Then he tries to free himself from that identification and gain a separate identity. But in so doing, he dissociates himself from his past, which is retold and rewritten so drastically that it can no longer be felt and relived.
Citation Details
Capturing The Echo Maker by Richard Powers.(Critical essay)
Luc Herman
Style (Magazine/Journal)
September 22, 2009
Northern Illinois University
43 3 407(23)
Article Critical essay
Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
From the This essay deals with focalization and narration as the two central means used in Richard Powers's novel The Echo Maker to capture the 'deranged' mind of Mark Schluter, the central character who suffers from Capgras and paranoia. The cognitive neurologist, Dr Weber, regards his science as a form of storytelling, but as a narrator he refuses to enter the minds of his characters (i.e., patients). This turns him into an unreliable narrator and makes it impossible for his patients to become the tellers of their own life stories. They are separated from their own history, which is exactly what happens in Capgras. This condition is all about the gap between seeing (a loved one) and feeling (nothing for that person). As a focalizing subject, Mark is unable to find the right balance between, on the one hand, an exaggerated form of empathy and mindreading (paranoia) and, on the other, a total lack of empathy (Capgras). To some extent, all characters have problems with empathy and mindreading. The novel turns Capgras into a 'contagious' disease and a symptom of our present day condition. To illustrate the interaction between focalization and narration this essay concludes with an analysis of Mark's initial, hallucinatory experiences, .just after his fatal accident. In the beginning he identifies himself with the cranes, birds that represent history and continuity. Then he tries to free himself from that identification and gain a separate identity. But in so doing, he dissociates himself from his past, which is retold and rewritten so drastically that it can no longer be felt and relived.
Citation Details
Capturing The Echo Maker by Richard Powers.(Critical essay)
Luc Herman
Style (Magazine/Journal)
September 22, 2009
Northern Illinois University
43 3 407(23)
Article Critical essay
Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
36 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 22, 2009
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