How Is Fictional World Constructed?
I have once written a post about Literature (not) Corresponding to Reality. There I mentioned one extremely difficult (at least for me) issue about the correlation between fictional and real in the literary work of art. I was not able to explain this problem properly in that text, because my goal was different then, but I want to do it now. Moreover, this topic is worth being devoted a separate post. Let’s try to figure out how is fiction text created in terms of its plausibility.
Conventions of art
The first thing important to know before talking about plausibility of fiction is that any art is a separate communication system and in order to understand it one needs to be familiar with its language. Systems which are used in different fields of art impose content restrictions on the works of art. People accept these restrictions as something given and they acquire the appearance of «natural» unconditional norms.
That is why we do not pay attention to the conventionality of the artistic space for example when we see a ramp in the theater or a frame of a painting. In the same way we do not find it strange that actors in the theatre are in some cases not «allowed» to hear or see something that happens on the stage (for example, replicas spoken «to the side» for the public) and the difference of the real-time and stage-time also does not disturb us [Lotman: 23].
All this means that in order to understand any type of art it is crucial to be familiar with its conventions. Violations in the comprehension lead to different ways of misunderstanding.
Either a work of art is identified with real life, or, in contrast, a work of art seems to be — or is intentionally depicted — as «strange» to absurdity. Examples of the first type of misapprehension of the convention can be the reader’s attempts to «enter» the text of a work of art and change it forcefully. Such, for instance, is the episode of portrait’s murder in «Dorian Gray’s Portrait» by O. Wilde. Example of type two is Tolstoy’s criticism of Shakespeare and theatre in the whole [Lotman: 23].
Mimesis in fiction
Now we will switch to a very important category of literary studies called mimesis. This term was suggested by Aristotle in his «Poetics» and it is actually a very complicated concept (which Aristotle himself does not explicate anywhere in his work though…), but simply explaining it means imitation. Mimesis is a common feature of different arts to which poetry also belongs [Halliwell: 70].
Imitation is inherent to people since childhood, we actually acquire knowledge through imitation, through mimesis, that is why this concept is crucial for understanding the nature of fiction text. Telling stories is also a type of mimesis. Antoine Compagnon* states, that storytelling is our way of living in this world, our way of experiencing the life around us. We do not have any other access to the outside world expect telling stories. Storytelling is a way of practical cognition of world, a form of synthesis, transformation of temporary experience. It shapes the amorphous sequence of events, creates temporality from time [Compagnon: 153–154].
*Antoine Compagnon (born in 1950) — a French literary scholar, member of the Académie Française. He studies literary theory using structuralist approach.
All this means that mimesis is the act of understanding the world. When we imitate the world around us in any way, we do not just copy it, but creatively process it. Mimesis is a creative imitating, but not a cast from reality. It creates meaningful totalities from scattered events.
The aim of mimesis in the work of art is not to create an illusion of the real world, but to create an illusion of truthfulness of discourse about the real world [Compagnon: 153].
Creation of a plausible narrative
Finally, let’s get to the exact techniques which make fiction text seem plausible for the readers. A plausible narrative is a narrative in which the events relate as examples or individual cases to a set of maxims which are believed to be true by the audience to which the narrative is addressed [Genette: 304].
So how can such narrative be created?
G. Genette* states that narration in any literary work of art is generally arbitrary, because the narrator at each moment of the plot chooses any continuation of the episode which will then remain in the text. The author wants the heroes to end up in this or that state, and due to this at certain points of time characters act in one way, but not in another. Some episodes exist in order to prepare other episodes. But what reader may perceive like a mechanical determinism was not one for the author. By writing «The Marquis in despair…» the author is less likely to write «…asked for a bottle of champagne», than to continue «…took a gun and shot herself».
*Gerard Genette (1930–2018) — a French literary theorist close to the structuralist movement. He is known for his studies of narrative which are collected in his work «Figures I — III».
But that is not how it really works. In reality when writing the word «Marquis…» the author knows already whether he will end the episode with a party or with a suicide and he chooses the middle of the sentence depending on the end of the story. In order to make all these actions seem plausible for the reader the author imagines a motivation for all the things the characters do. And it is motivation which makes fictional world seem plausible and alike to the real world.
Motivation naturalizes fiction, makes it seem real for us, concealing that it is actually fiction and hiding the fact that it is a fake world.
When we change the relation “means — purpose” into relation “cause — effect” in a fiction text, we make an artificial ratio a natural one, thereby creating the illusion of reality [Genette: 316–321].
Compagnon explains the principles of construction of fictional world on the example of Balzac’s novel «Father Gorio». Reference works in fiction worlds, states Compagnon, insofar as they remain plausible, compossible with the real world. It means, that if father Gorio for example starts drawing square circles, reference will disappear, we will not perceive the fiction world of Balzac’s novel as compossible with the reality.
Literature all the time mixes the real world with the fictional one. It all the time deals with the real people and events (in «Father Gorio» for example French revolution is described very clearly) and fictional character is an individual that might have existed in a different situation. And the reader is placed inside this fictional world and throughout the «game» perceives fictional world as real, until the character begins to «draw square circles», to quote Compagnon, terminating the reader’s contract, the proverbial «voluntary rejection of mistrust» (remember we said earlier that each type of art has its conventions which we as readers agree to comply with when engaging with the work of art? That’s it). [Compagnon: 159–160].
That is how a fiction world becomes an allegory of the real world.
I am not sure that I am now done with this very interesting issue, but at least I got closer to understanding the questions of mimesis and motivation. Thrilled to read what you think about all this in the comments!
P.
Literature:
- Compagnon A. Demon of Theory. Moscow, 2001. 336 p.
- Genette G. The Figures. Moscow, 1998. 944 p.
- Halliwell S. The Poetics of Aristotle. North Carolina, 1987. 212 p.
- Lotman Y. M. About Art. Saint-Petersburg, 1998. 704 p.
If you enjoyed this post, you can look through some of my other texts:
