I shall begin with a question and shall end without answering it. “Whence is personal continuity?” It might be said I am little more than this physical body. When I die and become compost and am eventually recreated perhaps the recreated version of me is the same me by virtue of my being preserved in the mind of God. In contrast, it might be said that I am physical with a sort of soul in which case my personal continuity lies with the soul. Either option, among many others, may offer a degree of solace. However, I find them each to be a bit inadequate regarding personal continuity in narrative (in response it might be said that the narrative is the personal continuity, but this is rather unhelpful when seeking to build personal continuity inside the narrative).
At what point does a reader or hearer meet a person in a narrative? Is it the learning of a name? Is it physical description? Is it the peculiar vernacular in a dialogue? Is it repetitive behaviors? Is it a combination? Perhaps, a reader or hearer never feels that he or she has “met” the person. Then in that case at what point does a reader or hearer feel as though there is someone to continue meeting over the course of the narrative? And if the reader or hearer continues meeting this person, what is “holding” that fictive person together so that it is the same fictive person that a reader or hearer is meeting?
Though it may be said that over the course of a narrative a person/protagonist “evolves” or matures, that hardly solves the problem. That is the problem. Of course, someone like Natasha in War and Peace perhaps matures into a fine young lady far from the terribly immature young girl in the beginning of the story, but it seems as though the Natasha at the end of the story is still the same Natasha from the beginning of the story, however matured she may be by the end. It is the immature Natasha who matured. And yet who or what is maturing? What, in a sense, is preserved? What is the “material” (that which is Sonya) that matures but is still the same “material”? I fear words such as “essence”, yet is that what I am pretending is necessary?
Again, speaking of essence and nature and soul and the like may provide some solace for some folks in some cases, but that sort of talk seems rather unhelpful for maintaining personal continuity in a narrative, especially when endeavoring to write a narrative. I care not if such diction is in vogue or not. What matters here is simply the retention of a person throughout an entire narrative while maintaining a development of the person that coincides with the dénouement of the narrative.
On the other hand, how might there be personal continuity, if the chronology is scrambled? In this case the development of the person does not coincide with the dénouement of the narrative in any straightforward way. If the chronology is scrambled, then it is up to the reader or hearer to piece together jagged fragments. I recently read Absalom, Absalom! and this was the case. I must say piecing together vague and unreliable fragments of Thomas Sutpen did not offer much hope that I would end with a clear portrait of Sutpen. But I suppose that even with an “ordered” chronology I may not end with a clear portrait of this person named Natasha. However, that I am supposing there is a Sutpen to piece together is precisely my problem. No matter if the chronology is scrambled, I am still supposing there is a person to unscramble, and that seems to insinuate that there is some sort of obvious and elusive personal continuity.
Am I merely seeking to discern an arcane shroud that lies behind the name? Is there not a shroud to be discerned? Well, that there is the story would seem to suggest that there is a shroud to be discerned. Of course, there are innumerable variables and philosophies at play in each of these narratives, so I do not mean to suppose that they are basically the same. Furthermore, I do not mean to ignore the various philosophies at play. However, I do wish to begin to discern how personal continuity might be established when writing a narrative. At the end of a story, a writer will surely ask, “Is this protagonist one or twenty persons?”
“Whence is personal continuity?” Perhaps, my question is much ado about nothing or is simply barking up the wrong tree. But even so, Flannery O’Connor still sat down in front of her typewriter for two hours each morning and wrote stories about people who by the end seemed to have become our acquaintances.
Sam, I'm reminded of two different things: 1.) How Plato seemed to solve (though probably he only addressed) the Pre-Socratic problem of stasis vs. flux. The theory of the forms answers the problem simply by changing the question: not overgeneralizing, but saying that certain things are constant (the Form) and everything else is a matter of degree (flux). That said i wonder if the same principle might be applied here. I don't know, but the analogy seemed interesting at least.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing was, of course, what Wittgenstein might say about the continuity of the self. I can't say that i know if he ever does. But in principle it seems that what we are presently cognizant of often determines what we mean by "me" or "I." In other words, the use of "me" is me. Obviously, that sort of position errs on the Pre-Socractic flux side, where the self is never a something. But then again, that would be Witt's point--if he were to make such a point. We're trying to give the object a substance instead of thinking of it ostensively.
I couldn't possibly tell you what to think about it in terms of writing a novel. For my poetry i take Murdoch's approach of appropriating my "empathetic imagination" to think as the individual might think. The trouble, of course, is that i invent their personality(that is, their temperament and mental tools) to match their narratological background--the one Homer or Virgil provide for me.
In response to 1.) yes, that is precisely what's at issue: stasis vs. flux, continuity vs. discontinuity, static vs. dynamic, or however it might be phrased. I think the latter is required for a narrative yet I hope to retain a degree of the former. perhaps, I want my cake and want to eat it too.
ReplyDeleteRegarding 2.) I'm familiar with erring toward flux. This seems to be a trend in existentialist thought as I have understood it. however, I'm rather dissatisfied with that direction because I fear slipping into a crowd people that just so happens to have the same name, which just so happens to be the protagonist. maybe, I should grow up and catch up with a contemporary dynamic "worldview"; it just seems troublesome when sweeping through lanes, forests, cities, and rivers with a single person.