“I wait gloomily. Long ago I leared to be wary of Kate’s revelations. These exalted moments, when she is absolutely certain what course to take for the rest of her life, are often followed by spells of the blackest depression.”
A room in the New Orleans Presbytére Museum’s Mardi Gras exhibit featuring costumes from past Mardi Gras celebrations that Krewe members wore.
The museum was the epitome of duality. On the top floor of the New Orleans Presbytére Museum was the Mardi Gras exhibit. The floor held bright colors, light New Orleans jazz music playing in the background, and a playful atmosphere that was reinforced by the fun, light-hearted material being presented on this festive celebration. Going through this exhibit, I felt myself smiling, imagining what it would be like to attend one of these fantastical parades. However, the downstairs section of the museum was a wholly different experience. This floor featured the Hurricane Katrina exhibit, a bleak and sobering display that called viewers to step into the shoes of New Orleanians who lived through this horrific natural disaster. Placards speaking on the death count, the governmental failure to coordinate and rescue those trapped in the storm, the progression of flooding that occurred as the levees broke, and the personal experiences of those stuck in the city, all contributed to a dark and depressing atmosphere. While the sudden transition in the museum from a lighthearted, playful Mardi Gras atmosphere to a dark, grim Hurrican Katrina ambiance was a shock to the system, it was helpful in that it got me thinking about duality. I started contemplating the duality not only present in New Orleans but also in the literary characters we were reading about in our bookpacking novels.
A display in the Presbytére’s Katrina exhibit.
There is a duality present in various characters we have read about in our bookpacking books. The first example is Buddy Bolden from Michael Ondaatje’s “Coming Through Slaughter”, who is a lively, highly sociable person who has everyone around him gravitating towards him in social settings, but at times he falls prey to jealousy, sadness, and even insanity. Another great example is Jack “Binx” Bolling from Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer”, a man that constantly contemplates lofty philosophical questions regarding spirituality, gender relations, and personal values, but leads a rather dull, unimaginative life as a stockbroker. However, the greatest duality present in certain characters in our books, and a duality that I have come to be highly fascinated by, is in fact psychological. There are two characters we have read about who have severe bipolar disorder, a condition defined by psychological duality.
In a psychological sense, bipolar disorder is fundamentally the duality of emotional states. Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder in which those afflicted swing between periods of manic, uncontrollable happiness, excitement, and high motivation, and periods of crippling depression, hopelessness, and a lack of motivation to live life. Fundamentally, those affected by bipolar disorder make massive leaps on a frequent basis from one end of the spectrum of emotions to the other, a jump that is often jarring and can have significant negative consequences for affected individuals.
Two characters from our bookpacking novels experience typical signs of bipolar disorder - though before continuing on I will say that these characters are never labeled by the book as having bipolar disorder so my diagnosis is based solely off contextual literary evidence. These bipolar characters are Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” and Kate Cutrer of “The Moviegoer”.
Examining these two bipolar characters, they both act in eerily similar ways that would suggest they both suffer from serious bipolar disorder. In Edna’s case, she is shown to swing between moments of immense happiness, motivation, and inspiration, and moments where she is depressed and doesn’t feel like doing anything, feeling like life is pointless. The best example of this is Edna’s behavior when in “The Awakening” she returns to New Orleans (for a summary of “The Awakening” refer to my first blog post). At times, Edna has high motivation and excitement to do anything and everything she wants to do, such as buying a new house - which she dubs the “Pidgeon house” - or working on the art she is so passionate about. At other times, Edna falls into a deep depression, longing endlessly to be reunited with her love, Robert Lebrun, and despising her life to the point that she ends up killing herself by drowning. Another aspect of Bipolar disorder is that when bipolar individuals are in states of depression they are more likely to make poor decisions, and Edna’s extramarital affairs with both Robert and Alcée Arobin could be seen as poor choices she wouldn’t have made in a more mentally healthy state.
Looking at Kate Cutrer from “The Moviegoer”, just like Edna, Kate swings between manic episodes of extreme happiness and excitement and moments of deep depression in which her family has to care for her to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. For those not familiar with the book, “The Moviegoer” is a story that follows the life of Jack “Binx” Bolling, a New Orleans stockbroker and Korean War veteran. What makes this book so interesting is Binx himself, as while he is a self-perceived enlightened thinker who often ponders upon a range of philosophical topics, his real life is much tamer and unimaginative, with him being simply a businessman who enjoys two things: makjing money and going on dates with girls, such as Kate. Kate is shown in the book experiencing moments of ecstasy and excitement where she feels like she has figured out her life and her purpose, quickly running to Binx - the person she feels most comfortable with - during these times and telling him of her revelations, as well as how she is going to profoundly change her life to follow her new goals. On the other hand, Kate goes through moments of deep depression and where she holds low motivation to live. During these times, she refuses to attend important events, disappears without telling anyone, and even at one point attempts suicide. Even though in the book it is stated Kate is working with a therapist and taking medication, considering the story takes place in the mid-20th century when there wasn’t much awareness of bipolar disorder, it is unlikely she was receiving the proper care necessary to deal with her overwhelming condition.
Tesla and Twitter President Elon Musk. Musk and his large following is a real-life case study on how audiences can find bipolar individuals and their actions enticing and riveting.
Now the question is, why do these two prominent New Orleanian books both feature bipolar characters? The first and more obvious answer to this is that bipolar characters are enticing characters to follow and ones that readers are drawn to pay attention to. Bipolar characters are often depicted acting sporadically and haphazardly in a way that is highly intriguing and creates exciting literary situations. Even outside of literature, it can be seen that people are drawn to bipolar individuals. Take, for example, Tesla founder Elon Musk. Must not only holds a large audience of followers who are addicted to him and everything he does and says, but he has also captivated the news media, which now constantly discusses him and his actions. This captivation with Musk is due to the eccentric, ridiculous things he says and does, outlandish actions that are likely undertaken during manic episodes Musk experiences as a bipolar individual. Simply put, bipolar characters are captivating to audiences, and authors are quick to include them in their stories in order to draw readers in.
However, the less obvious reason for the inclusion of bipolar characters in New Orleanian stories is that the psychological duality of the characters reflects the duality of the city in which these stories are set. New Orleans is a city defined by duality. There is much suffering that this city has experienced, but there is also much hope, happiness, and fun that the city partakes in. Thinking back to my experience at the Presbytére Museum, on the one hand, New Orleans has to constantly face devastating natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina that frequently bash the Gulf Coast, but on the other hand, the Crescent City holds fun-filled, cheery festivities such as Mardi Gras and second lines. The city has dealt with the horrors of slavery, racism, racially-motivated police violence, and discrimination, but it also partakes in amazing jazz performances, comedy shows and plays along Canal Street, and even drunken celebrations on Bourbon Street. The Big Easy holds such a duality in that it goes through immense moments of pain and hardship that are juxtaposed with moments of joy and excitement. Given the duality of New Orleans, bipolar characters - who hold psychological duality - in New Orleanian stories don’t feel out of place but rather inextricably linked to the setting in which their story takes place. Bipolar characters are fitting additions to New Orleanian stories, which explains why both “The Awakening” and “The Moviegoer” feature a bipolar character.
While these contemplations on the duality of New Orleans and the literary characters we are reading about started in the Presbytére Museum, these thoughts have continued to jostle around in my brain as my New Orleans journey has gone on. These ideas came up when I went to see a live recording of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me at the Saenger Theater on Canal Street. During the show, I sat among a crowd of laughing, joyful audience members, but then, after leaving the theater, I walked along streets lined with beleaguered homeless people settling down for the night. These thoughts also came up when strolling through the picturesque French Quarter, with streets lined with smiling tourists and locals alike, and then making my way into the Treme to view houses still yet to be fully repaired after the damage that Hurrican Ida inflicted. These contemplations came up looking at Google Maps in our seminar, noticing how both the Garden District and the Lower Ninth Ward seemed from the Satellite View to have an abundance of green vegetation incorporated into their suburban neighborhoods; then realizing that with the former area, the heightened presence of vegetation was due to an abundance of money to fund elaborate landscaping, and with the latter sector of the city, vegetation had overgrown the abandoned houses that had been destroyed and flooded in Hurricane Katrina. The setting that a book is written and takes place in certainly affects the story. What I have found while bookpacking and contemplating is that the duality of New Orleans has heavily affected the New Orleanian books we are reading to the point where if these stories were to take place in any other city, the narrative and its characters would feel totally and completely out of place.
