Un-Characterizing Madness The Semiotic Revolution of Donnie Darko

ehind the catastrophe (Donnie’s escape of death by the falling
engine leads to the events of the story, including his relationship
with Gretchen); this signified, however, results in overwhelming
tragedy: Gretchen’s death directly results from Donnie’s escape.
To find a desirable signified, then, Donnie must ‘tinker’ with the
meaning attached to the crash. In the last shots of the film, the
viewer actually witnesses the same quiet evening as in the film’s
commencement; Kelly, in fact, presents the viewers the exact
shots as before – the signifier is identical. Donnie, though, has
decided that to save Gretchen’s life, he must shift the original
meaning – in this case, he must alter the original series of events
following the first crash. Donnie thus re-signifies the crash.
This shifted sign now causes Donnie’s self-intended death; he
must die to prevent the tragic and undesired conclusion of his
relationship with Gretchen. The same signifier has been supplied
new meaning; the bond of the linguistic sign is once again proven
adaptable, and this adaptability still hovers just above madness.
Earlier, in hearing of Donnie’s plan to travel back in time
and rend the sky to allow for his re-signification, his therapist
solemnly predicts: “if the sky opened up there would be no law.”
And in the semiotic sense, she is right: Donnie’s final act as
bricoleur certainly overcomes the authoritarian law of linguistic
structure. Darko, as a whole, surely calls for this bricolage –
madness even, in the sense of self-created meaning. As a last
reminder, in only the final chorus of the film’s closing song do
the lyrics change from “it’s a very, very mad world, mad world,”
to “it’s a very, very mad world, mad world, enlarging your world,
mad world.” Only with bricolage – and some unnamable shadow
of madness – can the world be made personal, habitable, and, of
course, truly meaningful.
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UN-CHARACTERIZING MADNESS [ 83 ]