Search Results (18)

I argue that the universally accepted assumption that in realist fiction a character narrator’s narration contributes to their characterization needs to be complicated. Working with a conception of narrative as rhetoric that highlights readerly interest in the author’s handling of the mimetic, thematic, and synthetic components of narrative, I suggest that the question about narration as characterization is one about the relation between the mimetic (character as possible person) and synthetic (character as invented construct) components. In addition, understanding the mimetic-synthetic relation requires attention to issues at the macro and micro levels of such narratives. At the macro level, I note the importance of (1) the tacit knowledge, shared by both authors and audiences, of the fictionality of character narration, which means authors write and readers read with an interest in its payoffs; and of (2) the recognition that character narration functions simultaneously along two tracks of communication: that between the character narrator and their narratee, and that between the author and their audience. These macro level matters then provide a frame within which authors and readers understand what happens at the micro level. At that level, I identify seven features of a character’s telling that have the potential to be used for characterization—voice, occasion, un/reliability, authority, self-consciousness, narrative control, and aesthetics. I also note that these features have their counterparts in the author’s telling. Finally, I propose that characterization via narration results from the interaction between the salient features of the character’s telling and their counterparts in the author’s telling. I develop these points through the analysis of four diverse case studies: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” Nadine Gordimer’s “Homage,” and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Full article

This article examines the intersecting forces of gender, class, and education in early twentieth-century Britain through a feminist reading of Pip Williams’ historical novel The Bookbinder of Jericho. Centering on the fictional character Peggy Jones—a working-class young woman employed in the Oxford University Press bindery—the study explores how women’s intellectual ambitions were constrained by economic hardship, institutional gatekeeping, and patriarchal social norms. By integrating close literary analysis with historical research on women bookbinders, educational reform, and the impact of World War I, the paper reveals how the novel functions as both a narrative of personal development and a broader critique of systemic exclusion. Drawing on the genre of the female Bildungsroman, the article argues that Peggy’s journey—from bindery worker to aspiring scholar—mirrors the real struggles of working-class women who sought education and recognition in a male-dominated society. It also highlights the significance of female solidarity, especially among those who served as volunteers, caregivers, and community organizers during wartime. Through the symbolic geography of Oxford and its working-class district of Jericho, the novel foregrounds the spatial and social divides that shaped women’s lives and labor. Ultimately, this study shows how The Bookbinder of Jericho offers not only a fictional portrait of one woman’s aspirations but also a feminist intervention that recovers and reinterprets the overlooked histories of British women workers. The novel becomes a literary space for reclaiming agency, articulating resistance, and criticizing the gendered boundaries of knowledge, work, and belonging. Full article

Structured around pivotal elections in France and the United States, recent novels by François Roux and Michel Houellebecq weave together fictional characters with their historical referents, tracing a history of neoliberal economics and its effects on political processes and personal lives. By directly staging the history of Neoliberalism, both Roux and Houellebecq are able to invoke an experience of sudden awareness in their characters—the dedicated businessman Tanguy can, for example, come to view automation as a “genocide of workers” at a climactic moment. By coupling narrative with historical fact, both authors accomplish the difficult task of producing shock at developments so widespread that they have come to be considered inevitable and immune to the influence of democratic politics. Full article

The third-person omniscient narrator of fiction texts for children holds the ability to access characters’ thoughts, fly where they will within the story, and interact with time and tense. Philip Pullman characterises this kind of narrator as a multiscient sprite, not a human seeing and telling, but something else which possesses unhuman-like qualities. This paper uses an analysis of the narrator’s voice, character, and choices to access two other characters created by the story being told—the narratee and the implied reader, both of whom may well be thought of as child characters produced by the text. A profile of these two products is then presented. Through a close textual analysis, which draws out untagged parts of Northern Light’s narrator’s speech, an examination of the kinds of characters the narratee, and implied reader could be seen to be is gathered. The narrator’s ability to intensely empathise with characters is passed onto the narratee and also normalised by aspects of the story, including the alethiometer, a device from the created world of the story which is imbued with strikingly similar qualities to the narrator. Lyra, the book’s protagonist, and the instrument interact with each other in a manner akin to the narrator and narratee, both having an agency which the implied reader could be bestowed with from reading the text. Full article

This paper analyses Jack Kerouac’s brief but intense conversion to American pseudo-Buddhism and the artistic effect of this biographical development, arguing that his conversion was total from a spiritual point of view and that its almost immediate effect was the production of a literary piece which should be read as a (fictional) pseudo-Buddhist hagiography, or a pseudo-ojoden. The article investigates Jack Kerouac’s life as the life of a modern American Buddha, as a person engaged in a constant quest for spiritual enlightenment, who imbued his work with a spiritual feeling derived from his personal, direct, albeit limited experience with spirituality. His novel, The Dharma Bums, is a (fictional) pseudo-Buddhist hagiography because it is (auto)biographical, and the central characters are portrayed as enlightened, “holy” beings. Full article

Electronic sports show significant user churn caused by a toxic gaming atmosphere, and current GUI-based interventions are insufficient to address the issue. Based on the theoretical framework of Perceiving and Experiencing Fictional Characters, a new hybrid interaction interface and paradigm combined with tangibles is proposed to counter negative mood. To support the frustrated users of Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games, we added AI teammates for better personal performance and social robots for the disclosure of negative mood. We hypothesized that AI teammates’ invisibility and anonymity would mitigate negative emotions; an effect amplified by the presence of social robots. A comparative experiment was conducted with 111 participants. Social robots for emotion-oriented coping improved user mood but AI teammates for problem-oriented coping did so better, although their higher levels of experienced anonymity may not have been preferred. Unexpectedly, conversing with a robot after playing with an AI teammate brought the mood back to that experienced when talking to a robot alone, while increasing the distancing tendencies. With this in mind, AI and social robots can counter the negative atmosphere in MOBA games, positively contributing to game design and empathic human–computer interaction. Full article

Immersive virtual reality applications based on head-mounted displays are gaining momentum among students and educational institutes, but there is a lack of information about the preferences of virtual characters and emotional engagement in these applications. The objectives of this study were to: (i) evaluate participants’ preferences on virtual characters in virtual reality; (ii) measure emotional engagement among the users in terms of Feelings of Being; and (iii) identify relationships between virtual characters and emotional engagement. We conducted a mixed-method user experience evaluation on the HHVR virtual reality application that introduces the premises of a Finnish university and has three virtual characters: a human virtual character based on a real person, a fictional human virtual character, and a cat virtual character. We set up an eSports event where presenters (N = 12, mean age: 31.09) experienced HHVR using a head-mounted display and spectators (N = 38, mean age: 25.95) observed the experiment through large screens. We administered a questionnaire and conducted semi-structured interviews to gain insights into the participants’ preferences on virtual characters and emotional engagement. The results indicated that the virtual character preferences varied between the presenters and spectators; the cat was a highly liked virtual character in both groups, and the realistic human virtual character garnered mixed reactions from the spectators, although she was generally liked by the presenters. Both groups experienced several Feelings of Being, such as engagement, effectiveness, security, trust, enjoyment, and excitement, during the HHVR experience. Moderate and significant correlations were identified between the virtual characters and some of the Feelings of Being, thus indicating that the type of virtual character could impact emotional engagement; however, this requires further exploration. Full article

Spiritual well-being is the fourth dimension of health, as equally important as physical, mental, and social well-being. The shadow of death associated with cancer triggers children to explore their personal values, meanings, and life goals throughout the illness trajectory, enabling them to identify their unique spiritual needs. Chinese children are generally non-religious, unlike Western children, which affects their spiritual needs. To address the literature gaps, we applied a qualitative, descriptive, phenomenological approach for exploring the spiritual needs of Chinese children hospitalized with cancer. Purposive sampling was conducted in two public hospitals with special wards for pediatric oncology patients in Hunan Province, China. Consequently, 22 children, hospitalized with cancer, were recruited and individually interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. We conducted a thematic analysis of the interview transcripts. Four important themes were identified: the need for self-exploration, inner needs, need for a connection with others, and need for a connection with gods, supernatural powers, and fictional characters. We found that culture significantly influenced the spiritual needs of Chinese children with cancer. Hope was a key factor motivating the children to continue cancer treatment. To address their unique spiritual needs, culturally specific interventions should be developed and incorporated into their care to enhance their spiritual well-being. Full article

Both physical and cultural aspects are important for urban areas. In the context of urban space involving cultural resources, the application of augmented reality (AR) could physically integrate cultural resources into the physical facilities of the city. In this paper, the narrative approach is introduced to the construction of an urban cultural scene based on AR technology. Following the collection of historical materials about the Bund in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, this study creates the characters and events in a non-fictional way, organizing a series of narrative elements around themes based on real historical contexts. This is in line with AR, a technology that superimposes virtual information in the real world. As part of this non-fictional narrative design, the author has chosen suitable characters as ‘avatars’ to observe and experience the development of the narrative from a first-person perspective. A participatory viewing can be brought about by adopting a non-fictional approach, rather than a simple information transfer and passive reception. The result is that instead of the traditional guide centric model, a multi-path tour model is created. In conclusion, this paper believes that the use of AR technology can link the narrative to the region more directly and closely. Further, a new cultural scene is created that allows visitors to have an immersive experience. AR technology provides a narrative perspective based on regional knowledge that reinforces and represents the image of the region in a cohesive way. Full article

Climate change is a crucial issue, which is mobilized by activists. However, activists are targeted with negative stereotypes, hindering their influence. Young activists are environmentally conscious, but the stereotypical attributions assigned to them are unknown, with competing predictions in the literature (for being activist vs being young). In two studies, we aimed at experimentally examining the stereotypical dimensions that are ascribed to activists (youth vs adult) based on the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), as well as a morality/trustworthiness dimension. Considering that activists are generally considered as high-competent, but low-warm, while youth are considered the opposite (low-competence and high-warmth), we hypothesized the impacts on morality/trustworthiness. Greta Thunberg and Jane Fonda were the personalities used in Study 1 (N = 276), randomly assigned to participants while keeping the same discourse excerpt. Thunberg was penalized in all stereotypical dimensions. In Study 2 (N = 228), fictional characters (teenager or adult) were used instead. As hypothesized, no differences were found in the warmth or competence dimensions, only in the morality/trustworthiness dimension, penalizing the young activist. These results highlight the importance of studying environmental activists considering different social categories in stereotypical appraisals. They also contribute to a better understanding of general resistance towards activists, as well as the factors that are detrimental to their social influence. Full article

Fictional narratives cannot be considered as mere escapist entertainment, and have a significant social cognition potential. Their study is also important in understanding the mechanisms of behavioral change, as many fictions focus on processes of personal transformation of the main characters. Romantic fictions are of special interest in this regard, as the formation of a new couple entails negotiation and mutual adaptation between partners, with possible transformation of personal attitudes, value orientations, and behaviors: ‘marrying’ a new idea or cause is, tellingly, the strongest possible metaphorical statement of adoption. Korean TV series (K-dramas) are a particularly interesting source of case studies in this regard due to the specific characteristics of their production system. We analyze a K-drama, My Ajussi, where the lead characters go through a complex process of personal change, through the lens of the so-called Tie-Up Theory, which has proven useful in the analysis and interpretation of fictional representations of human mating processes, and show how the context provided by the potential formation of the couple between the two main characters provides us with valuable insights about human behavioral change and for policy design strategies to tackle societal challenges. Full article

This study aims to decompose plot structures of stories in narrative multimedia (i.e., creative works that contain stories and are distributed through multimedia). Since a story is interwoven with main plots and subplots (i.e., primary and ancillary story lines), decomposing a story into multiple story lines enables us to analyze how events in the story are allocated and logically connected. For the decomposition, the existing studies employed character networks (i.e., social networks of characters that appeared in a story) and assumed that characters’ social relationships are consistent in a story line. However, these studies overlooked that social relationships significantly change around major events. To solve this problem, we attempt to use the changes for distinguishing story lines rather than suffer from the changes. We concentrate on the changes in characters’ social relationships being the result of changes in their personalities. Moreover, these changes gradually proceed within a story line. Therefore, we first propose features for measuring changes in personalities of characters: (i) Degrees of characters in character networks, (ii) lengths of dialogues spoken by characters, and (iii) ratios of out-degrees for in-degrees of characters in character networks. We supposed these features reflect importance, inner/outer conflicts, and activeness of characters, respectively. Since characters’ personalities gradually change in a story line, we can suppose that the features also show gradual story developments in a story line. Therefore, we conduct regression for each feature to discover dominant tendencies of the features. By filtering scenes that do not follow the tendencies, we extract a story line that exhibits the most dominant personality changes. We can decompose stories into multiple story lines by iterating the regression and filtering. Besides, personalities of characters change more significantly in major story lines. Based on this assumption, we also propose methods for discriminating main plots. Finally, we evaluated the accuracy of the proposed methods by applying them to the movies, which is one of the most popular narrative multimedia. Full article

Current interest in genealogy and family history has soared, but the research journey may be fraught. Original intentions may be inhibited and inevitably altered as the actual historical details are revealed and documented through recorded evidence. While liberties may be taken with memoir and even autobiography, critical family history requires scrutiny of the lived events uncovered—some of which may be in sharp contrast to family myths passed down through generations. I traveled to three states and conducted archival research in local libraries, court houses, historical county archives, and museums in my search for original sources of authentic information about the names listed on a family tree over centuries. This article reports on how and why research on the genealogy of two families joined by marriage shifted from a straightforward recording of chronological facts to the development of a novel. The case can be made that fiction provides an effective and engaging tool for the elaboration of interconnected lives through the addition of historical context, enriching personal details, and imagined dialogue. Key accuracies needed for a critical family history can be preserved but in a genre that enables characters and their stories to come to life. Full article

This paper sets out to demonstrate the changes that post-Holocaust fiction has been undergoing since around the turn of the new millennium. It analyzes the highly innovative and often provocative approaches to the Holocaust and its memory found in Tova Reich’s novel My Holocaust—a scathing satire on the personal and institutional exploitation of Holocaust commemoration, manifested in the commodification of the historical trauma in what has been termed “Shoah business”. The novel can be seen as a reaction to the increasing appropriation of the Holocaust by popular culture. This paper focuses on Reich’s critical response to the cult of victimhood and the unhealthy competition for Holocaust primacy, corresponding with the growth of a “victim culture”. It also explores other thematic aspects of the author’s satire—the abuse of the term “Holocaust” for personal, political and ideological purposes; attempts to capitalize on the suffering of millions of victims; the trivialization of this tragedy; conflicts between particularists and universalists in their attitude to the Shoah; and criticism of Holocaust-centered Judaism. The purpose of this paper is to show how Tova Reich has enriched post-Holocaust fiction by presenting a comic treatment of false victimary discourse, embodied by a fraudulent survivor and a whole gallery of inauthentic characters. This paper highlights the novel’s originality, which enables it to step outside the frame of traditional Holocaust fiction. Full article

Education, be that on a moral, social or intellectual level, in a formal setting or via lived experience is Bildungsroman’s raison d’être. ‘Moments of crisis’ and the resultant demonstration of the journey towards awareness of personal autonomy, agency, identity and place are discussed via geographical imagination. This article examines ‘fictional’ teachers, the impact of the ‘professional’ on formative development and how the fictional characters of Jane Eyre and Stephen Dedalus fit within and extend the Place Model. Full article