Peculiarities of deviant personality's representation in D. Keyes's artistic world (based on the novels “Flowers for Algernon”, “The fifth Sally”, “The minds of Billy Milligan”)

Daniel Keyes’s novels “Flowers for Algernon” (1959), “The Fifth Sally» (1980), “The Minds of Billy Milligan” (1981) are at the intersection of fiction and psychology. Over time they only acquire meanings due to the growing interest in the psychology of behavior of deviant individuals with serious psychological illnesses. The purpose of this study is to analyze such aspects of the artistic world of Daniel Keyes as the author’s definitions of deviations and the additional meanings generated by them. In the course of the work it turned out that the author classifies the types of deviations inherent for the characters (oligophrenia, the multiple personality syndrome) as exceptional qualities far from being negative ones. However, he characterizes the state of the characters and their perception by other people as something fantastic, illusory, similar to a theatrical action which is unnatural for society and, as a result, is rejected by them. By describing the moments of deep self-reflection of the characters Keyes reports on the randomness, duality of their perception of the world around them as well as on the peculiarities of the work of their senses. The general properties revealed in the course of the work prove the innovation of Daniel Keyes’ depiction of rare psychological deviations as well as the accurate transmission of the symptoms of diseases using artistic means. In addition, the analysis of the works and features of individuals with deviations made it possible to determine the author’s attitude towards “special” people as well as to identify the key idea that connects all the three novels under consideration.