Psychological fiction
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
In literature, psychological fiction (also psychological realism) is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of the characters. The mode of narration examines the reasons for the behaviors of the character, which propel the plot and explain the story.[1] Psychological realism is achieved with deep explorations and explanations of the mental states of the character's inner person, usually through narrative modes such as stream of consciousness and flashbacks.[2]
Contents
Early examples
<templatestyles src="Template:Quote_box/styles.css" />
The psychological novel has a rich past in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works of Mme de Lafayette, the Abbé Prévost, Samuel Richardson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and many others, but it goes on being disinvented by ideologues and reinvented by their opponents, because the subtleties of psychology defy most ideologies.[3]
The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, written in 11th-century Japan, was considered by Jorge Luis Borges to be a psychological novel.[4] In the west, the origins of the psychological novel can be traced as far back as Giovanni Boccaccio's 1344 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta; that is before the term psychology was coined.
The first rise of the psychological novel as a genre is said[by whom?] to have started with the sentimental novel of which Samuel Richardson's Pamela is a prime example.
In French literature, Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Madame de La Fayette's The Princess of Cleves are considered early precursors of the psychological novel.[5] The modern psychological novel originated, according to The Encyclopedia of the Novel, primarily in the works of Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun – in particular, Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894) and Victoria (1898).[6]
Notable examples
One of the greatest writers of the genre was Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His novels deal strongly with ideas, and characters who embody these ideas, how they play out in real world circumstances, and the value of them, most notably The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.
In the literature of the United States, Henry James, Patrick McGrath, Arthur Miller, and Edith Wharton are considered "major contributor[s] to the practice of psychological realism."[7]
Subgenres
Psychological thriller
<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>
A subgenre of the thriller and psychological novel genres, emphasizing the inner mind and mentality of characters in a creative work. Because of its complexity, the genre often overlaps and/or incorporates elements of mystery, drama, action, slasher, and horror — often psychological horror. It bears similarities to the Gothic and detective fiction genres.[8]
Psychological horror
<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>
A subgenre of the horror and psychological novel genres that relies on the psychological, emotional and mental states of characters to generate horror. On occasions, it overlaps with the psychological thriller subgenre to enhance the story suspensefully.
Psychological drama
<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>
A subgenre of drama films with psychological elements, which focuses upon the emotional, mental, and psychological development of characters in a dramatic work. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Requiem for a Dream (2000), both based on novels, are notable examples of this subgenre.[9]
Psychological science fiction
A genre that considered a dramas or thrillers occurring in a science fiction setting. Often the focus is on the character's inner struggle dealing with the political, technological forces or with any fatales. A Clockwork Orange (1971), The End of Evangelion (1997), Donnie Darko (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Inception (2010) are notable examples of this film genre.[10]
References
- ↑ The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Third Edition (1991) J.A. Cuddon, Ed. p. 709.
- ↑ A Handbook to Literature Fourth Edition (1980), C. Hugh Holman, Ed., pp. 357–358
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Jorge Luis Borges, The Total Library: <templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
[The Tale of Genji, as translated by Arthur Waley,] is written with an almost miraculous naturalness, and what interests us is not the exoticism — the horrible word — but rather the human passions of the novel. Such interest is just: Murasaki's work is what one would quite precisely call a psychological novel. ... I dare to recommend this book to those who read me. The English translation that has inspired this brief insufficient note is called The Tale of Genji.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ N. Baym, et al. Eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Seventh Edition, New York: W.W. Norton Co. 2008, p. 1697
- ↑ Christopher Pittard, Blackwell Reference, Psychological Thrillers, Accessed November 3, 2013, "...characteristics of the genre as “a dissolving sense of reality; reticence in moral pronouncements; obsessive, pathological characters; the narrative privileging of complex, tortured relationships” ( Munt 1994)..."
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Further reading
- George M. Johnson. Dynamic Psychology in Modernist British Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, U.K., 2006.
