The Representation of Memory and Thinking in The Unfortunates by B. S. Johnson
The Representation of Memory and Thinking in The Unfortunates by B. S. Johnson

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse the representation of the processes of recalling and thinking in The Unfortunates by the British novelist B. S. Johnson. This autobiographical novel published in the form of unbound sheets in a box was written after the death of the author’s (and the narrator’s) friend, and it records the influence of the traumatic event on cognitive processes. The paper examines how the narrator attempts to understand the past and his present state. It analyses the literary representation of flashbulb memories, schemas and controlling mental processes. It shows how the usage of the stream of consciousness technique and other literary devices serve this purpose, referring to the literary analyses of K. Stamirowska and J. Coe. An overview of memory metaphors offered by H. L. Roediger is summarised and related to B. S. Johnson’s novel whose book-in-a-box form is viewed as a material metaphor of the mind, in this way testifying to the unity between content and form. Besides the paper relates the literary work to G. Lakoff and M. Johnson’s notion of the conceptual metaphor as based on experience as well as to liberature – the literary genre defined by K. Bazarnik and Z. Fajfer.

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