As humans, we often we look into mirrors - both literal and figurative - to find a reflection of ourselves. That reflection, however, is typically vastly different from how we are perceived by others: our friends; our families; our enemies. In the same way, we read literary fiction and find a reflection glaring back at us, a reflection that imprints in our psyches the fantasies we long to find as truths in our lives. Yet collectively, our readings of literature produce in each of us vastly different reflections, representative of the vastly different fantasies that are derived from our individual perceptions and interpretations of the world. It is this variance in reflections of the world drawn from reading and writing literature that Varga
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Often times, the human experience cannot be accurately described with the tools provided by language. This is the case particularly in attempting to capture such abstract emotions as trauma and love among others. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is an example where conventional language seems to fail in achieving a certain emotional impact on the reader. Where there are some scenes that are eloquently described, other scenes are almost incoherent. These sections of the novel tend to handle the more difficult and nuanced emotions felt by Denver, Sethe and Beloved. In an attempt to come to terms with the harsh realities of slavery and its impacts on their lives, the narrative loses clarity and at times even coherence in trying to grasp those emotions. Varga Llosa advances this as one of the unique characteristics of literary fiction, arguing that “Events translated into words undergo a profound modification.” Our lives are not constituted by words, but events. In adding words to the events that are experienced, “the novelist therefore changes nature.” This is evident in Beloved with the incorporation of the magical realism of the baby-ghost. Although the novel is mimetic in its nature, the addition of the supernatural presence of the baby-ghost is one element of the changed nature of reality in the novel - one that attempts to make sense of the tragedy of
Often times, the human experience cannot be accurately described with the tools provided by language. This is the case particularly in attempting to capture such abstract emotions as trauma and love among others. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is an example where conventional language seems to fail in achieving a certain emotional impact on the reader. Where there are some scenes that are eloquently described, other scenes are almost incoherent. These sections of the novel tend to handle the more difficult and nuanced emotions felt by Denver, Sethe and Beloved. In an attempt to come to terms with the harsh realities of slavery and its impacts on their lives, the narrative loses clarity and at times even coherence in trying to grasp those emotions. Varga Llosa advances this as one of the unique characteristics of literary fiction, arguing that “Events translated into words undergo a profound modification.” Our lives are not constituted by words, but events. In adding words to the events that are experienced, “the novelist therefore changes nature.” This is evident in Beloved with the incorporation of the magical realism of the baby-ghost. Although the novel is mimetic in its nature, the addition of the supernatural presence of the baby-ghost is one element of the changed nature of reality in the novel - one that attempts to make sense of the tragedy of