Popular Culture Review 30.1
is mentioned toward the end of the story . The news regarding the apparent invasion of mysterious creatures in some villages in Brazil , which corroborate the narrator ’ s tale and hence contribute to the fantastic effect by turning a subjective adventure into an apparently objective reality , is itself more precisely presented than in the previous version , in order to accentuate its realistic dimension : it is no longer a random piece from some anonymous newspaper but a scientific report published in the fictitious albeit prestigious sounding Revue du Monde Scientifique , the name of which is reminiscent of the Revue des Deux Mondes , one of the most respected publications of the time .
The form of the diary allows naturally for a more direct identification with the receiver , as we experience the progression of the action at the same time as the narrator , whose discourse becomes increasingly fragmented , hence strengthening the relationship between form and content . Unlike the letter of the madman in the first version and the exposition of the patient in the second , which are stylistically static , the diary from the third and last version formally documents the increasing fear of the narrator by linguistically reproducing his mental breakdown . This last version also distances the narrative voice from the immediate neighborhood of psychiatrists and lunatic asylums , hence further removing madness as a possible explanation : whereas “ Letter of a Madman ” is addressed to a physician , hence implying that the protagonist has accepted the possibility that he might have gone mad , as suggested by the title itself , and the first version of “ The Horla ” is framed within the walls of a mental institution , the final version only introduces the possibility of madness insofar as the protagonist doubts his own sanity , which paradoxically could be considered as a sign of mental health , for true madness does not doubt itself .
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