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Greek philosophers would argue that a person is best revealed through action—base your understanding off of him by what he does. In their minds, this translates into literary characters as well— make them do to make them real. This compels me to ask: while we are judged by others based solely on our actions, what defines a man as he is in reality, and not as he is through the limited eyes of peer understanding? What is a man really, in reality, and not by human comprehension. What defines him? The answer to this question may be found in our contemporary literature today. In his acceptance speech for the 1950 Nobel Prize for literature, William Faulkner lamented the state of modern literature as being a matter of asking a single, simple question: “when will I be blown up?” This mindset, he believes, demonstrates that we have “forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.” This is where the philosophies do not translate into literature. Literature, despite all its realistic appeal in some senses, is not about the real world. Literature exists to document and express various aspects of human nature and the human condition (mentally, not physically), something that may only be fully examined through thought. We are afforded a unique opportunity by writing: to demonstrate to readers how we as like beings in the cosmic opera have had similar experiences and feelings. To demonstrate how, as was observed in the movie Shadowlands, we may pose the question: “does he see what I’ve seen…does he feel the way I’ve felt.” To know that somewhere in the vast, comprehensive ocean of human history and human experience and human thought, we are not alone. This is something that we writers ought to consider in our stories. We cannot be caught up merely in the actions of a character—here nothing will be learned, in fiction most of all. We must expose the mind of our creations; we must show readers the omnipresent animus behind every action, the motivation behind every desire, the emotional circumstance behind every choice. Our understanding of literary figures cannot be based on action. Along with the action must come all of the interlocking influences, all of the emotional baggage that is the reason for it in the first place. A reader may very well look at an action and say ‘Yes, I’ve done that before.’ But a reader cannot look at it and say ‘I fully understand why he did that—I’ve felt the same way.’ Make the reader recall jealousy with a jealous character, selflessness with a selfless character, and so on. William Faulkner said that the modern writer “writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion.” Nothing is worth gaining, because it holds no revealed significance that it would have to people, because we do not understand the way they are. This goes against the very reason for writing—it can express things that nothing else can: thought and feeling. Check out David's online discussion of this essay, and feel free to post if you like. |
