Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

158Demonic Texts and Textual Demonscoming futile. The role of different signs and omens is so central in The Exorcistthat the whole work can be interpreted in those terms. Noël Carroll,in his The Philosophy of Horror, takes The Exorcist as his paradigmatic exampleof the “complex discovery plot”: the classic structure underlying manynarratives of horror (including Dracula, Jaws, Carrie, The Omen etc.). Inthis structure the opponent, such as a monster, or evil power, is assumed tobe separate from the protagonists of the story. The plot divides into fourphases or functions: onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation. Theonset of horror gives the first signs of evil presence to the audience. In thephase of discovery the presence of the monster is revealed to someone in thestory, but it yet has to be proved to yet another, initially sceptical party beforethe actual resistance can begin. This is what is accomplished during theconfirmation phase, and the confrontation acts out the actual fight againstthe opponent figure. 48 Carroll situates the confirmation in The Exorcist in“The Abyss”; if the Prologue and the Epilogue are merged to the first andthe last chapter, respectively, the remaining four parts of The Exorcist couldwell have functioned as the direct inspiration to Carroll’s theory, so nicelythey fit this model. The religious engagement with the opponent cannotstart before the authority figure has been convinced – even if the medical authorityin the second part had already ended up recommending the ritual ofexorcism. As Carroll writes, “an extended drama of proof preoccupies thetext.” 49Karras, the psychiatrist, is concerned with the integrity of psyche – hisgoal is to study the demonic personality as an expression of Regan’s psychicconflicts and find ways back to unity. Karras, the priest, is concerned withRegan’s soul, the immortal nucleus of her self – his goal is to face the enemyand to expel it from the body it has misappropriated. On the surface, itseems that Regan is the one with problems and the one who has an elementof her mind dissociated from its whole. Karras, however, is an equally dividedpersonality, and because he is acting as the protagonist and the exorcisingsubject (Regan as his restrained object) his dilemmas of integrity andrejection, faith and knowledge relate in important ways to the centralthemes and structures of the work. 50The “drama of proof” is not confined to the third part of the novel.From the beginning, the reader is offered signs and omens that could suggestthe presence and influence of supernatural evil. At the same time, thereader is also given contrary clues that suggest a “natural” explanation.These opposing elements in the text position reader into the divided and48 Carroll 1990, 99-103.49 Ibid., 105.50Blatty: “My typist had been working on the novel. She didn’t offer any editorialcomment, so halfway through I asked for her reaction. She said, ‘They’re after him.’ Isaid, ‘Who?’ She said, ‘You know, them. They’re after Father Karras.’ Well, she picked upon what half the readers do not – that it is Karras, not the little girl. Karras was going tobe lost forever or he was going to be saved. This is his crucible.” (Travers - Reiff 1974,15.)