Psychology of the Novel

This essay constantly brings a question to mind: Have you ever thought about how life would be without an imagination and feelings? The effect of words is so great that it causes one to develop emotions and images in our mind. I agree that this essay states that “through the connotations and colorations of the words” emotions and imagination are stirred. My essay on We that I recently turned in is precisely about this and goes into depth about how each word signifies a color and each color has its own emotion. It is the context that the word is used in that creates either a positive or a negative connation. For example, the color pink represents romance and desires yet in We the color pink is used to represent pink coupons. The pink coupons have a negative connotation because they are given out to the humanized machines when they can have sex. The purpose of these coupons is to restrict sex.

The next point that this essay focuses on is “willing suspension of disbelief” meaning whether our mind can accept the idea the author is proposing to the reader. Many fiction books consist of ideas that could not be possible in the real world yet it can be in the world the author is creating. “Willing suspension of disbelief” is a state of mind that every author wants to create in its reader. In We, Zamyatin proposes the idea of the future. It raises a question to the reader: Is this our future? Could Obama become the Benefactor and wipe out imagination and dreaming and such? Could technology develop to such an extent where it overcomes nature? Without an imagination and feelings we would be like the humanized machines in the One State. An imagination is unique in every human and cannot be controlled hence, it is banned in both of the environments in We and 1984.

After reading this essay, I have realized how difficult it is to write a captivating story. One must think of the relationships between characters, the style of writing, the structure, the conflict, the situations of suspense, the theme and so much more. A novel has a “gamelike nature”. The author has to build an idea within the story interesting enough to keep the reader playing the game. The reader’s mind is a game and the words are like passwords that allows the excitement and tension to build as you go further into the labyrinth that our brain is structured to be. Therefore this requires the author to constantly be thinking of the reader and what they want the reader to feel. What a reader thinks and believes is a communication with oneself. However what a reader feels is a communication between the author and the reader. Every point addresses feeling.

I cannot even process the idea of living a life without an imagination and emotions. We would not even be humans and this raises yet again the question of what my previous blog revolved around: What is a human?