People
Foster calls the
characters in the novel as actors and are usually human beings, hence in this
aspect of novel Foster has called them as “People”. Novelists might introduce
animals as in fables or symbolic of human qualities. Nonetheless, characters
are either human themselves or representation of human beings. Since novelist
himself is a human, in contrast to other arts, there is an affinity between him
and his subject matter. Through word masses, novelists gives them existence,
gender, voice and action. These “word masses” became living beings that is
‘characters’. These characters may be created in delirious excitement: still
their nature is what-he thinks of him and the others-human actions and
psychology.
Foster gives notion of
real people (Homosapiens) and people
in fiction(Homo fictus) in the novel
and finds differences between a memoir and novel. If a character in a novel is
exactly same as of some historical figure or legend, it is memoir and memoir is
a history based on evidence and novel is based on evidence – real life
experience and ‘-x’ the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist
which unifies the effect of evidence to transformation of being a fiction.
Historian deals with actions and judge humans through their actions- something
apparent or on the surface- dialogues and gestures while a novelist explores
the hidden life of a character in his work. Furthermore, Foster talks about
French critic, Alan who examines human sides in terms of history and fiction.
History with its emphasis
on external causes is dominated by fatality whereas there is no fatality in novel;
everything is from the human nature.
All that is observable
to man, his actions and experience deduced from his actions fall into domain of
history. But his romantic side, passions, dreams, emotions and expression of
feelings are functions of novel. To deduce from this, history is based on facts
and figure. Novel has element of imagination, exploration of human nature and
psychology. History is dominated by the external causes while novel is
dominated by everything is found in human nature. Novelist explores both inner
and outer life of his characters unlike real life people.
Foster then discusses
the five main facts of the human life: birth, food, sleep, love and death comparing
them to the homofictus in the novel.
Death and birth are
“experiences and not experiences”. We are not conscious of how we are born
unless we are told and we are not alive to tell what happens after the death.
These two elements are “darkness”. We
are told about them from outer cause but not from first point of view.
Novelists keep the balance between real life experience of birth and death in
his fiction. He can talk about birth, but not from first narrations.
A novelist can talk about character’s birth
and anticipate darkness; death as he is inside and outside the mind of his
characters and he knows all. Foster then talks about the Food that stands from
unconscious to his conscious- like the difference between known and forgotten,
novelist talks about its both necessity and aesthetic value.
Sleep is another basic
desire of human life, where person enters the world of little known- dreams and
oblivion. In novel, novelist can talk about character’s dreams but not the
experience around him, when character’s unconscious and through his narrations
tells that how sleep tastes like food.
Sex and Love is equated
with passions and in that comes the feelings of affection and friendship,
patriotism and mysticism. But according to Foster, sex isn’t underlying rest of
different forms of love, though it can lead to physical intimacy. Foster calls
love complicated as it is “give and take” bargaining. It is selfish and
altruistic.
Similarly in novel, no
new set of facts are introduced above birth or novelist peeking into the mind
of new born baby. Death is treated differently in novel, a character’s moves
from known to darkness- as its bases solely on imagination so he does not try
to bring to life, a life that is beyond his imagination.
Food in novel is
treated as social gathering but characters seldom require it. Psychologically
and daily life depiction of food longing is seldom shared.
Dreams are rather
projected logical or in the dream, there is prophecy. Novels introduce dreams
for reason in a plot. It is an amalgam of real life, past and future but not
the conscious experience of sleeping.
Love is also treated as
something different from daily life. Characters are hyper sensitive and the
emotions arise from within novelist’s own sub conscious that is not secretly
aware of the intensity of passion. Besides, love is considered as congenial
because it ends the book usually at union of lovers or marriage.
Foster discusses Defoe’s’
character “Moll Flanders” that her character is the center of the novel and
what separates her character from us is that inner life is visible. A character
in novel is visible when novelist knows everything about it. Though many of the
facts may not be explained but it is still explicable.
Important difference
between real life people and people in novel is that in reality we cannot
understand and know each other fully as foster says intimacy is only a
makeshift, perfect knowledge is illusion.
We never show our personal persona to anyone but in the novel the
emotions and thoughts of people are mostly evident. That is why fiction seems
truer than history because history is based on evidence but novel is beyond
evidence because as people we share experiences with people in novel. But yet
the inner life of people in novel is visible and our inner life is hidden.
In the start the views
of E.M Foster about history and novel and their differences are mentioned, at
that time the genre of Historical fiction did exist but it was common in
dramas.In contemporary novels Historical Fiction is very important genre in
which historical events are narrated and the novelist than molds these events
according to his will to suit his story. If we take the example of novels of
Dan Brown, we come across a lot of historical figures and events along with
those events we see the element of fiction as well. So the trend has been
changed. For example The Da Vinci Code written by Dan Brown contains many
historical facts that can fall prey to intense criticism but he claims that
these characters are fictional so that no one can challenge him.
Wolf hall written in
2009 by Hillary mantel is based on the events that occurred during the reign of
Henry VIII (1509-1547) and presents the life of Thomas Cromwell who was the
Tudor statesman. This novel falls under Historical Fiction in which historical
figures are described and the story is somehow manipulated and created so we
can say that fiction and history are merged in the present era.
No comments:
Post a Comment