Intelligence as Literary Theme
"Intelligence as a Literary Theme" explores the multifaceted portrayal of intelligence in literature, particularly within the context of American culture. It highlights a distinct trend where characters of varying intellectual abilities—ranging from cunning to mentally deficient—are often central to narratives, reflecting a cultural admiration for practical intelligence over formal education. Classic examples include characters like Brer Rabbit, who outsmarts his adversaries, and Forrest Gump, whose simplicity juxtaposes significant historical moments, showcasing how intelligence can manifest in unexpected ways. The theme also encompasses darker explorations, as seen in works like John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," where the challenges faced by mentally disabled characters illuminate deeper social issues and human experiences. Additionally, literature often employs characters at both ends of the intelligence spectrum—such as in Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon"—to serve as metaphors for broader human conditions and identity struggles. This literary motif not only reflects societal attitudes toward intelligence but also encourages reflection on the complexities of identity and the value of diverse perspectives within the human experience.
Intelligence as Literary Theme
Significance
It is no accident that the philosophic school of pragmatism was developed in the United States. Americans have always prided themselves on having practical ability. It should be no surprise, therefore, that there is a strong trend in North American culture that is anti-intellectual but that does not devalue practical intellectual accomplishment. North America’s cultural heroes may not always be educated or socially polished, but they usually display a genius for something which large numbers of people appreciate. There is tradition in American literature of the character who appears to be slow-witted but who actually is outmaneuvering his or her adversaries. Joel Chandler Harris’ Brer Rabbit outsmarts Brer Fox, and Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer tricks others into painting a fence for him. Cunning has always been part of the identity of Americans.
Cunning seems to be a characteristic not only of the extremely intelligent but also of those who might be regarded as mentally deficient. The fool who is gifted with special insights is an ancient literary character; such fools are also found in American literature, in which the mentally disabled are frequently not without resources. The triumph of the less-than-bright individual is a recurring literary motif. Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump (1992), Ring Lardner’s “Haircut,” and plays such as Tom Griffin’s The Boys Next Door (1988) are examples. Forrest Gump, the title character of Groom’s novel, serves as a mirror of mid-twentieth century America. Born in a small Southern town, he participates in almost everything that has defined American identity since the 1950’s. He plays football, fights in Vietnam, visits John Kennedy at the White House, breaks racial barriers, and operates a highly successful business. He also barely surpasses intellectual dysfunctionality. Gump manages more or less on his own, but the four retarded men of Griffin’s play live in a state-supported residence supervised by a social worker. They only function some of the time, and it seems that their chief purpose in life is to drive their well-meaning social worker supervisor—who stands as a symbol of sensible authority—into intellectual exhaustion.
The difference between Groom’s Gump and Griffin’s boys is that Gump is usually involved in something grand, such as visiting the White House. What happens more often than not is that the grand event is made commonplace by Gump’s refreshing simplicity. For example, he asks the president if he may use the toilet. Conversely, Griffin’s characters stand the universe on its head by making every trivial problem into something momentous. Lucien Smith, for example, has the mind of a five-year-old, but imagines that he is able to read and understand the weighty books he is always lugging about. No amount of patient but increasingly exasperated dissuasion from Jack, the social worker, changes Lucien’s opinion.
Writers are always searching for a device that will shift traditional points of view in order to illuminate. Using the mentally deficient as a means of turning the world upside down is one such device. It is not always used with the zany touches of joy and comedy typical of Groom and Griffin.
John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1935), for example, is dark and morose. Lennie is a man of great physical strength, but he is so mentally deficient that he must be looked after by his friend George. Together they are a fine example of how caring and companionship can overcome many obstacles. They have managed for years as itinerant farmhands, and they dream of owning a ranch of their own. Lennie, who is sexually innocent, is overwhelmed by anxiety when his employer’s wife initiates, then tries to stop, a sexual encounter with him. In a panic, he kills her. Then, on the run with Lennie and facing being a witness to Lennie’s lynching, George has to kill his friend.
That sex and love are great problems for the mentally retarded is not surprising. Sex and love are great problems for everyone. Forrest Gump is redeemed by love: the love of his mother, the love of his African American friend and comrade in arms, and the love of his school sweetheart, who finally leaves him with a child of his own to love. Love and sex are also present in The Boys Next Door and bring a deep poignancy to the play. They bring terrible outcomes in Mary McCarry Morris’ A Dangerous Woman (1991).
Morris begins her novel with a sexual assault on Martha Horgan, the novel’s simple-minded heroine, by a group of high school classmates. The boys stop short of rape, but Martha never fully recovers. The community and her own family blame her for the event. She drops out of school, leaves her rural home, and takes a job in town. She lives in a rented room, lonely and isolated. She is a dedicated worker at the local dry cleaners because she is just bright enough to love her routine job and because she is befriended by Birdy, a fellow worker. Martha, unfortunately, is not bright enough to handle the subtle moral twists required in the everyday affairs of her simple social milieu. She reports a theft perpetrated by Birdy’s lover. Birdy stands by her lover, and Martha loses her job and her friend. Bereft and emotionally devastated, Martha allows herself to be seduced by the cynical Colin Mackey; she mistakes sex for love. The result is disastrous and proves that low intelligence can make people dangerous because they are ill-equipped to distinguish ethical complexities, thus leading themselves and others into danger.
Similar problems are explored in Flowers for Algernon (novella, 1959; novel, 1966) by Daniel Keyes. In the work, Charlie Gordon is thirty-two and has an IQ of seventy. He works in a bakery for eleven dollars a week and “bred.” He attends the local college’s Center for Retarded Adults, where he is being taught to write. He also is a subject at the college psychology laboratory, where he is pitted against Algernon, a very smart mouse who has been taught to run a labyrinth effectively. Algernon is placed in his mouse labyrinth and Charlie in a similar maze built to human scale. Every time they compete, Algernon wins.
Charlie’s life is changed by an operation, similar to one performed on Algernon, that implants some new technology into his brain. As a result, Charlie grows brighter. The novel is presented in the first person, being Charlie’s daily reports, which he does as a school assignment. Readers thus become aware of his growth in intelligence because his spelling, syntax, and logic continually improve. Soon he displays not only high intelligence but advanced intellectual activity. What he at first reports only as simple sensory experience he begins to comment on and uses for complex philosophic observations.
Charlie, having been rescued, rescues Algernon, and takes him to his home. Charlie is therefore in a position to notice that Algernon begins to decline. Charlie, who falls in love with his writing teacher, also begins to degenerate. Slowly, he reverts to his original state. His loss of intelligence is apparent in his reports. In a poignant moment, Charlie realizes that he must reject his new love, because he is becoming unsuitable for her. Having seen Algernon’s degeneration and death, Charlie studies the procedure done on him and realizes that the same fate awaits him.
Keyes’s study of retardation is an allegory of all human life, which begins with the intellectual limitations of infancy, achieves a peak in youth and young adulthood, and suffers a fatal decline. Readers begin with a person of greatly limited intelligence, see him mature to the point of being philosophical, and then see him languish into senility.
A common use of characters of extremely high or extremely low intelligence is as allegories or as metaphors for a more general condition. Flowers for Algernon is an example, as is William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury (1929), the first section of which is told by the “idiot” Benjy. Benjy is a metaphor for the degeneration of the Compson family and similar families throughout the South.
Implications for Identity
It is extremely difficult to define intelligence. It is also difficult to separate intelligence from cultural knowledge, a situation which accounts for the attacks on standardized intelligence tests by those who claim that the tests are culturally biased. Psychologists and sociologists have wrestled with the problem of defining intelligence and its implications for identity. David Hovey Calhoun’s The Intelligence of a People (1973) is a landmark investigation into the issues of group identity and group intelligence. Studying the citizens of New York State between 1750 and 1870, Calhoun assesses their group intellectual level as a function of the ways in which they expressed their cultural identity. He studies their schools, their notions, their approach to learning problems, their expressions of moral conditions in sermons, and their use of shared space in ships and bridges. A more general consideration of group and individual issues of intelligence and identity in America is Jack Fincher’s Human Intelligence (1976). Rebecca Norton, in An Exposure of the Heart (1989), is concerned with the identity of each person she encounters in New York’s Wassack Developmental Center. With carefully drawn detail, she argues for the uniqueness of those whom society is likely to dismiss generally as the retarded.
Bibliography
Butcher, H. J., and D. E. Lomax. Readings in Human Intelligence. New York: Methuen, 1972. Collection of essays on aspects of human intelligence, including problem-solving, mental growth, organizational abilities, IQ, and learning.
Cunningham, Michael. Intelligence: Its Organization and Development. New York: Academic Press, 1996. Review of the principal theories and issues of intelligence.
Furth, Hans G. Piaget and Knowledge. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Good general presentation of the fundamental theories of intelligence as proposed by the very influential Jean Piaget.
Heim, Alice Winnifred. Intelligence and Personality. New York: Penguin Books, 1970. A study of the complex interrelationship between personality traits and intelligence.
Hunt, Joseph McVicker. Intelligence and Experience. New York: Roland Press, 1961. A basic work examining the effect typical life experiences have on intelligence.
Vernon, Philip E. Intelligence and Cultural Environment. New York: Methuen, 1969. A consideration of how the expectations of a culture influence the identity and the intelligence level of individuals within the culture.
Wiseman, Stephen, ed. Intelligence and Ability: Selected Readings. New York: Penguin Books, 1967. Collection of lively essays on the nature of intelligence and its relation to various human capabilities.