Les Possédés de la pleine lune, Aube Tranquille and Le Peuple des terres mêlées

Where Frankétienne makes use of the zombie, both literal and metaphorical, to emphasize the fundamentally dual and often conflicted essence of his characters, Jean-Claude Fignolé and René Philoctète might be said to have embraced schizophrenia as a principal configurative point of departure. Though perhaps less directly issued from Haiti's popular culture, the schizophrenia presented in the Spiralists' works strikes individuals who exist and struggle with/in a contextual space that is decidedly Haitian. At the same time, however, Fignolé and Philoctète explore the potential of the Haitian folkloric universe to provide insight into non-Haitian-specific problematics. Expanding on the model created by Frankétienne's first prose works, Fignolé and Philoctète offer characters whose personal sufferings echo those of the Haitian nation and, to some extent, of the (post)modern world as a whole. Their characters' schizophrenic responses to the tragedies in their lives are portrayed as much more than mere pessimistic neuroses. Rather, their schizoid behaviors very often provide opportunities for self-interrogation and even self-preservation.