Logic, reality and mind style in Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van

Work on mind style (Fowler 1977) has suggested that unusual world views may be indicated in fiction via such elements as deviant grammatical constructions, graphological deviation and the use of certain conceptual metaphors. In this article I suggest that a further way in which a deviant mind style can be indicated is through the abnormal use of inductive logic. I also propose that the sociological notion of paradigms of reality (Harris 1984) may be employed in the analysis of mind style to distinguish between those mind styles which are the result of genuine cognitive impairment and those which are employed simply for tactical reasons.