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February 26, 2007
come together
"A careful examination of the nature of realistic fiction as modern criticism is coming to conceive it will show that in certain cases it is proper to treat literary characters as real people and that only by doing so can we fully appreciate the distinctive achievement of the genre."
My question is what cases are we allowed to view literary characters as real people?
Paris recognized that a psychological approach to the characters and the implied author are not going to be useful in every piece of literature.
However, everytime i read a story i imagine them as if they were real.
In the essay The Uses of Psychology, Paris made it clear that mimetic characterization gives us a full grasp of experience of the fictional character and that this characterization depends on the continual resistance to the patterns by which the atuhor tried to shape. He also believes that the minds of the implied authors and the minds of the leading character that can be studied in realistic novels.
However, Paris is telling us that by getting inside the mind of the character we can learn more rather than just looking at the style and text. He believes that the character should create itself. and with the character's mindset, we will be presented with new idea. Taking the character as a real person will allow the reader to fully appreciate the work.
Posted by Denamarie at February 26, 2007 12:46 PM
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Comments
I actually think Paris is suggesting a bit more than just getting into the mind of a character. I think Paris wants literary criticism applying mimetics to actually evaluate the psychology of the characters to establish the legitimacy of their actions. I'm not so sure that literary critics are equipped to handle this.
Posted by: Dave Moio at February 28, 2007 8:42 PM
I sometimes find doing an psychological analysis on a fictional character crazy.
Why?
The term FICTIONAL.
But I think there is a method to Paris's madness. He believes that novels really make the dash towards realism. Look at Black Hawk Down, a book based on a real event. The author had interview the soldiers that was in Somalia and somewhat knew the thoughts that went though their head. So in a way, it is possible to know the feelings of a fictional character.
Posted by: Kevin "Kelo The Great" Hinton at March 1, 2007 12:06 AM