Author’s Note: This is a slightly modified version of an essay that I wrote for a college course a couple of years ago. I didn’t feel comfortable sharing it publicly until now. For anyone who wants to view the scenes in this VN that are referenced in this essay, all timestamps that you see in the in-text citations are based on this Let’s Play. I’ve also included some of my instructor’s comments in square brackets. I hope you find this essay interesting and insightful :)
Essay Prompt: Employ Kenneth Burke’s concept of “the occupational psychosis” to analyze the mediating role of the protagonist’s occupational sphere in a short story, novel, or film. Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, for example, is an excellent text for this line of inquiry.
In Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change, he defines “occupational psychosis” as an individual’s “certain specific patterns of thought” molded by their position in the world (38–40); the word “psychosis” here is not used in its psychiatric sense, instead referring to a state of mind (Burke 40). It should also be noted that the meaning of the term “occupation” in Burke’s text is not confined to one’s profession, but also includes the various roles one takes up in their life. He believes that one’s occupational training can result in “trained incapacity” — or as he defines it, “that state of affairs whereby one’s very abilities can function as blindnesses” (Burke 7). It can be understood as a more complex form of a Pavlov experiment in which an animal trained to respond to a specific stimulus in a certain way will always do so regardless of the consequences (Burke 7). In the case of individuals suffering from trained incapacity, the specialized training they receive in their occupational spheres conditions them to make judgements that are often ill-fitted for the situations they are present in (Burke 10). For Burke, the terms “occupational psychosis” and “trained incapacity” are interchangeable (48–49).
Jacopo is the protagonist of the visual novel The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence, a Shakespearean tragic hero brought to ruin by a combination of his own character flaws and his surrounding circumstances. Set in a fictional city in medieval France, the novel documents two different stages of Jacopo’s life in which he was placed in two wildly different occupational spheres: slum-dweller in his younger days and lord as an adult. His inability to reconcile conflicting values he had picked up in each occupation and to see past the occupational psychoses he had developed played a major role in his tragic downfall.
The Ambitious Slum-Dweller
Jacopo’s childhood is a brutal tale of oppression and survival. As a young boy, he was presumably sold off by his parents to slavery and managed to escape from it, eventually ending up in a city slum (Part 6, 1:16:10–1:16:57). In order to survive in the slums, Jacopo had to resort to theft, duplicity, and violence at a young age. He committed his first murder when he was only fourteen in order to protect his best friend, leaving himself mentally shaken (Part 6, 1:17:55–1:20:01). The incident was also a defining moment in his formative years, as it profoundly shaped his worldview as a teenager. In the years since, he had come to believe that without power and status, he could not possess anything, let alone the freedom of “going out into the world” he so coveted (Part 6, 1:20:05–1:20:44). As he oriented himself in the dangerous and poverty-stricken world of the city slums as a young adult, Jacopo internalized the notion that obtaining social status and power was a panacea to most, if not all of his problems. [Interesting. This inducement of a particular orientation certainly harbours Burkean resonances.] Not only did he actively seek physical power by honing his sword skills (Part 8, 11:31–11:42), but he also made preparations for entering the more prestigious classes of society by refining his speech patterns (Part 1, 42:38–43:40). In fact, he had trouble imagining anyone living a fulfilling life at the bottom of the social ladder with no aspiration to climb up, as evidenced by his exchange with the newcomer Ceren (Part 5, 51:16–52:15). Moreover, the city’s ruler, Lord Barnier, was a tyrannical nobleman who mercilessly exploited his subjects, providing Jacopo with a flesh-and-blood target for his desire to overcome his unsatisfactory status quo (Part 1, 10:10–10:20). Throughout most of the story, Jacopo firmly held onto his pursuit of power and class, even when it came at enormous costs. Such a mindset was not only a reflection of his headstrong personality, but also a product of his experience as an abandoned child and disenfranchised slum-dweller. [Burke would refer to this as his attitude.]
On the other hand, the occupational sphere of a young slum boy abandoned by his parents fostered a strong sense of familial and communal responsibility in Jacopo. Despite repressing memories of his biological family, he eventually developed a broader and more flexible definition of family that did not necessarily include blood ties (Part 6, 1:17:04–1:17:35). In the slum community, he took up the roles of both vigilante leader who kept the neighbourhood safe and the guardian of the local brothel that lacked a male manager (Part 4, 14:37–15:03; Part 5, 11:40–11:47). It is fair to say that he compensated for the lack of familial love growing up by caring for those in his community as if they were family; his relationship with the prostitutes at the brothel and his genuine concern for Ceren’s future all point to this (Part 5, 45:44–48:28; Part 7, 7:31). As a young man, his communal duties acted as a counterweight to his aspirations for prestige and freedom, though it was inevitable that the latter would one day override the former (Part 3, 7:44–9:12).
Unfortunately, this override happened much sooner than anyone had expected. An assault on the brothel orchestrated by Lord Barnier left most of the prostitutes under Jacopo’s protection dead or taken captive, with his best friend grief-stricken and the girl he loved presumably dead (Part 7, 48:11–52:26). A physically and emotional scarred Jacopo coped with this reality by placing the blame solely on his own powerlessness as a guardian instead of any external causes (Part 7, 53:06–53:27). It can be argued that his reaction here is closely tied to his personal history of being spurned and oppressed. According to Prilleltensky, victims of oppression sometimes internalize their suffering as personal ineptitude, and as a result, are unaware of the external sociopolitical causes of their suffering (128). [Herein resides the potential for trained incapacity.] Instead of finding fault in the system or the oppressor, Jacopo scorned himself for not possessing enough political power — “real power” in his mind — to protect his community and the important people in his life (Part 7, 54:04–55:00). His self-blame spurred him into action: Seizing the opportunity to forge an aristocratic identity for himself, he used it to lead a violent revolt against Lord Barnier (Part 7, 1:02:36–1:03:26; Part 8, 4:35–5:35). Jacopo’s occupational sphere as an uneducated slum-dweller predetermined his obliviousness towards the deeply-rooted systemic issues of his society. He instead adopted the simplistic view that gaining political clout — no matter the cost — was the only way to empower himself and protect those he cared about. [This plotline is reminiscent of Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.] The powerful yet incredibly unpopular Lord Barnier became the natural stepping stone for his ambitions. From Burke’s perspective, it is natural for Jacopo to seek a cause to the tragedy that befell his community and act upon it, even when he was incapable of seeing the whole picture with his limited worldview (Permanence and Change 14–15). In Jacopo’s mind, his own lack of power was at the root of this tragedy — an example of trained incapacity borne from his particular orientation, blinding him to the limitations of his subsequent actions (Burke, Permanence and Change 16–17). For it is tragically ironic that despite desiring the freedom to escape from his oppressed life in the slums, Jacopo could only conceive of obtaining this freedom by overthrowing his oppressor and becoming one himself.
The Apprentice Lord
Jacopo’s ascension to lordship over his hometown marked his official foray into the occupational sphere of aristocracy; with it came a great amount of disorientation in a world that was completely alien to him. [Interesting. Now the plotline is reminiscent of Stendhal’s The Red and the Black.] Fortunately, Odilon, an experienced advisor to the previous lord, was willing to train Jacopo in the proper ways of leadership as a nobleman (Part 9, 25:09–25:41). A politician hardened by his days of serving the cruel Lord Barnier, he implored Jacopo to abandon the values of the latter’s old life and follow his guidance (Part 9, 26:13–27:43). Although Jacopo doubted Odilon’s intentions, his desire to perform effectively at his new position compelled him to accept the old man’s tutorship (Part 9, 28:40–29:10). He worked tirelessly to reorient himself in his new occupation, not only learning the necessary skills and etiquette, but also adopting Odilon’s cold pragmatism which he deemed necessary to survive in high society (Part 9, 43:59–46:13). While he had achieved his childhood dream of obtaining a higher social standing, his experiences as an upstart aristocrat made him acutely aware of how fragile his newfound privileges were. As such, he decided to hide all of his vulnerabilities from his peers in order to “appear strong” (Part 9, 1:08:38–1:10:06), directly contradicting the life lessons he had tried to instill in others in the past (Part 6, 1:06:55–1:07:14). The only person he did not hide these weaknesses from was Odilon, with whom he had developed a father-son relationship (Part 9, 1:14:18–1:14:48).[1] As a young man deprived of parental love growing up,[2] he naturally gravitated towards the cynical yet kind old man as a father figure. [There is a lot Burke would say about such a line of identification.] His relationship with Odilon was both a blessing and a curse: Odilon gave him the necessary tools to properly orient himself in his new occupational sphere, but at the same time narrowed his perspective on how to govern his land as the old advisor was the only person Jacopo trusted in this sphere. It is fair to say that Odilon unwittingly exacerbated Jacopo’s occupational psychosis as both an aristocrat and a ruler by being his only window into the upper echelons of society.[A1] To make matters worse, his subsequent death closed this window prematurely (Part 10, 19:16–19:46), marking the beginning of Jacopo’s self-destructive spiral into suffering and madness.
Before Odilon’s death, Jacopo had still clung onto the friendships and responsibilities of his old life in the slums, even as they had begun to clash with the values of his new one (Part 9, 51:55–53:07). He was cognizant of his drastically changing worldview after becoming a powerful ruler, growing increasingly doubtful of whether his “quest for power” was really worthwhile (Part 9, 55:26–55:46; 1:01:07–1:02:50). From a Burkean perspective, the young slum-dwelling Jacopo had interpreted the concept of “power” through a terministic screen, leading him to perceive “power” as a free ticket to personal freedom while deflecting its other implications from his view (Burke, Language as Symbolic Action 45–46). As Burke would put it, young Jacopo’s interpretation of the relationship between power and freedom was rooted in the cultural and linguistic framework into which he was born (Permanence and Change 35–36). Yet now that Jacopo was the most powerful figure in his realm, “power” in the form of political and administrative responsibilities had become a shackle for him instead. Jacopo’s strong sense of communal responsibility he had developed as a slum-dweller dictated that he take on all his duties as a proper ruler to insure the prosperity of his city, even if they came at his own expense (Part 9, 53:30–54:51). Eventually, the contrast between his naïve dreams of yesteryear and the harsh realities of aristocratic life led him to become disillusioned with his newfound political power (Part 10, 35:54–36:18). [This begets a problem. How does one overcome such a contradiction?]
The Psychotic Ruler
There is much tragic irony surrounding Odilon’s death. First, it was indirectly caused by Odilon, the old and hardened pragmatist, finally accepting parts of Jacopo’s values as a slum-dweller by showing mercy to Jacopo’s disgruntled friends from the slums (Part 10, 14:36–17:23). As with the assault on the brothel, Jacopo once again attributed the tragedy to his own failure in fulfilling the duties of his occupation (Part 10, 23:03–23:28). So, in another ironic twist, Odilon’s death compelled Jacopo to instead completely embrace the inhumane utilitarianism imparted to him by his now deceased mentor. While the values of his current and former occupational spheres had always been at odds with each other, he was now determined to completely sever himself from his past as a slum-dweller, rationalizing it as a weakness within the framework of his occupational psychosis as an aristocratic ruler (Part 10, 23:43–24:23). As such, he ruthlessly destroyed any remaining bonds he had with the slum community by publicly executing all of his former friends who had revolted against him (Part 10, 25:30–26:28). Furthermore, he compensated for his self-perceived inferiority and incompetence within the aristocratic sphere by carrying out the philosophies he had learned from Odilon to the extreme, and in the process transformed himself into a heartless political machine (Part 10, 34:18–35:28; 36:54–37:13). Odilon had implored Jacopo to view every person, including even Odilon and Jacopo themselves, as a mere pawn in a game of political chess (Part 9, 44:47–45:50), so he cut off all emotional connections to other human beings (Part 10, 34:00–34:13). Now lacking a single companion to confide in, Jacopo began putting up a haughty façade in public in order to hide all of his pain and insecurities (Part 10, 35:30–35:38).[3] After doubling down on his occupational psychosis as the lord, he had now mentally isolated himself from the rest of the world. [This is a very old kind of tale. Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V depict just such an occupational tension in the historical King Henry V (who struggled with this kind of tension).]
Nevertheless, it was impossible for Jacopo to completely bury his past identity and values that he had carried with him for the first twenty or so years of his life. His dehumanizing work and bottled-up emotions took its mental toll on him, and his past would resurface as psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and impaired insight (Kleiger and Khadivi 9). On the one hand, while wide awake, he would often experience vivid visual and auditory information in the absence of external sensory stimuli, i.e., hallucinations (Kleiger and Khadivi 10). These hallucinatory episodes would take the form of the previous lord’s spectre, taunting Jacopo about his insecurities and hypocrisies (Part 10, 29:49–33:31; 53:44–54:42). On the other hand, Jacopo was suffering from impaired insight, being unable to recognize the spectre as a product of his own psychotic mind (Kleiger and Khadivi 13). It was not until towards the end of the story that Jacopo realized the existence of his mental illness (Part 12, 6:11–7:42). [Good explanation. It is interesting that the incapacitation can be so profound that it engenders schizoid psychosis.] These symptoms, along with his haughty mannerisms, were a coping mechanism for the immense mental stress induced by the dissonance between the occupational psychosis of an empathetic and caring slum-dweller and that of a cold and calculating ruler, the former of which he had attempted to forcefully erase from his psyche. For the once compassionate ex-slave who would show sympathy towards other slaves now used his utilitarian philosophy as a ruler to justify sacrificing them by the hundreds (Part 1, 9:10–9:22; Part 10, 31:11–31:21). His psychotic hallucinations can be interpreted as his suppressed conscience protesting this radical shift in mindset and behaviour.[A2]
However, an ironic twist of fate would once again pit Jacopo’s past and present against each other: The “old witch” he had ordered to be captured and sacrificed as part of a project to invigorate the city turned out to be none other than Morgana, the girl he had loved and cared for in his days as a slum-dweller (Part 10, 54:00–54:23; 58:26–59:29). According to Burke, before the advent of science and technology, humans used “magic” as rationalization for utilizing natural forces they could not fully understand (Permanence and Change 44). It is revealed in the sequel The House in Fata Morgana that the purported healing effects of the “witch’s blood” were merely a strong case of the placebo effect (Novectacle, “Salvage” chapter).[4] Despite Jacopo’s higher education as an aristocrat, his occupational psychosis as a member of medieval society led him to believe that Morgana’s blood had real magical powers (Part 12, 13:17–13:41). For Jacopo, this turn of events was the last straw on the proverbial camel’s back. The mental tug-of-war between his values as the lord and those as a young slum-dweller had now reached a breaking point, manifesting in the form of a verbal confrontation between the psychotic Jacopo and a hallucination of his younger self (Part 12, 8:03–9:15). By imprisoning the girl he loved and extracting her blood like cattle, Jacopo had crossed a line: Despite his agonizing attempts at denying both reality and his own feelings, Jacopo could no longer in his mind rationalize his actions as for the greater good, causing his mental health to deteriorate even further (Part 12, 14:25–15:06). After hearing a deranged Morgana speak fondly about their old life in the slums, Jacopo finally realized just how much he had deviated from his original aspirations and how far gone he was mentally (Part 12, 53:39–55:07; 58:38–59:21). The same sense of duty that had compelled him to govern the city despite his anguish and disillusionment led him to the ultimate decision of suicide as a means of protecting the city from the monster within himself (Part 12, 1:01:26–1:01:55). Once he had resigned himself to his fate, the compassionate and caring side of Jacopo resurfaced after years of being repressed by his aristocratic persona, much to the incredulity of those who had only known him as the lord (Part 13, 6:35–7:30). [The leads to questions about why some individuals can effectively recalibrate themselves to their fraught new position in the world. In many cases the incapacitation is too powerful to overcome. But some leaders, like Henry V, learn a great deal from it and evolve accordingly.]
Jacopo’s occupational psychoses can be seen as an extension of a classic rhetorical concept — Kenneth Burke’s parlour metaphor. A newcomer to Burke’s parlour has to orient themselves to the ongoing discussion within it by adopting the language of the discussion (Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form 110–111). Similarly, Jacopo, a parentless slum-dweller who later became a peasant-born lord, needed to adapt to the pre-existing orientations of first the slums and then the ruling class. It was in these disparate environments that he developed two sets of powerful yet often conflicting occupational psychoses that narrowed his perspective on life, tormented his psyche, and led him to commit unspeakable crimes. In a society that trampled over those without power or privilege, Jacopo’s very own identity was gradually eroded away as he climbed its proverbial ladder. [His provisional solution to a potentially intractable problem proves to be too fallibly callous. I wonder if the narrative gestures towards a more cogent solution.] The last nail in the coffin was his solitude: In his final days as the lord, there was not a single soul by his side to offer him an alternative perspective. It is perhaps fitting that in his dying moments, his mind finally freed from the shackles of his occupations and their various psychoses, that Jacopo was finally able to grasp what he truly desired in life (Part 13, 17:09–18:31).
[END]
Notes
[1] Note Jacopo’s facial expressions here. In this scene, Jacopo uses his newly learned Machiavellian principles to deflect his embarrassment of having a heart-to-heart exchange with Odilon; deep down his feelings towards Odilon were mutual.
[2] Everyone in the city slums whom Jacopo considered family were either around his age or younger than him.
[3] Note the marked difference in Jacopo’s default facial expression before (Part 9, 55:04 or 1:25:15) and after (Part 10, 22:12 or 41:39) Odilon’s death.
[4] Screenshot of the lines referenced.
[A1] There’s an important life lesson to be learned here: It’s never a good idea to only seek advice from a single person, no matter how knowledgeable that person is or how much they have your best interests in mind. (In Door 3 of the original game, Jacopo went through something similar with his overreliance on Maria, though the latter obviously did not have his best interests in mind.) In order to become a more well-rounded person, you need to expose yourself to different perspectives from all walks of life.
[A2] My political musings (from a libertarian left perspective) on Jacopo’s fall from grace.
Acknowledgements
This essay was originally inspired by another essay that analyzed Jacopo’s story from a mental health perspective. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the link to that essay. [Edit: Found it with the help of a fellow fan!] I would like to thank the author of that essay for encouraging me to write my own analysis of Jacopo after I reached out to them.
I would also like to thank my instructor for his guidance and insightful comments, as well as the Youtuber Sobata92 for his wonderful LP of this VN.
Finally, I would like to thank Novectacle for creating and the talented staff at MangaGamer for localizing this tragic yet captivating piece of fiction.
This essay would not exist without you all.
Works Cited
Burke, Kenneth. Permanence and Change. 1935. Berkeley: California UP, 1984.
— -. “Terministic Screens.” Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.
— -. The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941.
Kleiger, James H., and Ali Khadivi. Assessing Psychosis. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Novectacle (Keika Hanada et al.). The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence (English version). MangaGamer, 2018. (“Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence playlist” YouTube, uploaded by Sobata92, August 23 2018, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhumgEr0z0tYdRxjVG1yRizgq5nStCLxm.)
— -. The House in Fata Morgana (English version). MangaGamer, 2016.
Prilleltensky, Isaac. “The Role of Power in Wellness, Oppression, and Liberation: The Promise of Psychopolitical Validity.” Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 36, no. 2, Mar. 2008, pp. 116–36. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1002/jcop.20225.
