Note: If you wish to receive, via e-mail, (1) my weekly newsletter or (2) daily copies of these posts, notify me at [email protected] and indicate which you would like. I promise not to share your e-mail address with anyone. To unsubscribe, send me a follow-up email.
Thursday
Friend and former colleague Lois Stover alerted me to this Smithsonian article about the psychological impact of different literary elements. According to Angus Fletcher, who is a “professor of story science” at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, fictional techniques like plot twists, secret disclosures, and empathy generators can
alleviate grief, improve your problem-solving skills, dispense the anti-depressant effects of LSD, boost your creativity, provide therapy for trauma (including both kinds of PTSD), spark joy, dole out a better energy kick than caffeine, lower your odds of dying alone, and (as impossible as it sounds) increase the chance that your dreams will come true. They can even make you a more loving spouse and generous friend.
Fletcher sets forth his ideas in Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature, which I have yet to read. I’m intrigued by his characterization of story elements as “inventions” and report here on the effect he believes they have.
I first like what he says about Aristo how he discusses Aristotle. In Poetics, the Greek philosopher proposed that literature was
many inventions, each constructed from an innovative use of story. Story includes the countless varieties of plot and character—and it also includes the equally various narrators that give each literary work its distinct style or voice. Those story elements, Aristotle hypothesized, could plug into our imagination, our emotions, and other parts of our psyche, troubleshooting and even improving our mental function.
In my own work with Aristotle, I look into how he saw tragedy as a way to train Greek youth in citizenship responsibilities. For his part, Fletcher singles out Aristotle’s focus on the Plot Twist, which he says can have potent psychological effects:
Who hasn’t felt a burst of wonder—or as Aristotle called it, thaumazein—when a story pivots unexpectedly? And as modern research has revealed, that wonder can be more than a heart-exciting sensation. It can stimulate what psychologists term a self-transcendent experience (or what “father of American psychology” William James more vividly termed a “spiritual” experience), increasing our overall sense of life purpose.
The other literary inventions that Fletcher mentions in his Smithsonian article are:
–The Hurt Delay
A work foreshadowing hurt to come (as in Oedipus) can “stimulate catharsis, alleviating the symptoms of post-traumatic fear.” Fletcher says he has witnessed the effect upon war veterans:
[B]y stimulating an ironic experience of foreknowledge in our brain’s perspective-taking network, the Hurt Delay can increase our self-efficacy, a kind of mental strength that makes us better able to recover from experiences of trauma.
–the Tale Told from Our Future
We are well familiar with this technique, which as Fletcher notes is the foundation of the modern thriller (think of those stories that open with a flash forward). Fletcher says that this “can have a potent neural effect: by activating the brain’s primal information-gathering network, it boosts curiosity, immediately elevating your levels of enthusiasm and energy.”
–the Secret Discloser
The “narrative revelation of an intimate character detail,” Fletcher says,
activates dopamine neurons in the brain to convey the hedonic benefits of loving and being loved, boosting your positive affect and making you more cheerful and generally glad to be alive.
He mentions Charlotte Bronte so perhaps he has in mind Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe both coming to acknowledge their love for the male protagonists (Rochester and Paul Emanuel).
–the Serenity Elevator
The storytelling element, Fletcher says, involves “a turning around of satire’s tools (including insinuation, parody and irony) so that instead of laughing at someone else, you smile at yourself.” (He cites Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as an example.) The Serenity Elevator “can have analgesic effects—and more importantly, …it can convey your brain into the serene state of feeling like it’s floating above mortal cares.”
–the Empathy Generator
This insight that we are given into “a character’s private feeling of self-critique,” Fletcher says, “stimulates empathy in our brain’s perspective-taking network,” helping nurture kindness towards others. (He gives the example of Jo March’s having regrets over accidentally burning Meg’s hair.) Fletcher traces this fictional element back to the Book of Job, which he “may have reflected the poet’s effort to promote peace in the wake of the Judah-Babylonian-Persian wars.”
–the Almighty Heart
Omniscient narration is “a story told by someone with a human heart and a god’s all-seeing eye.” Fletcher credits Homer with its invention and mentions as a more recent example the opening lines of Tale of Two Cities, which I wrote about on Tuesday (including “it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”). He observes,
The invention works by tricking your brain into feeling like you’re chanting along with a greater human voice. And that feeling—which is also triggered by war songs and battle marches—activates the brain’s pituitary gland, stimulating an endocrine response that’s linked to psychological bravery. So, even in the winter of despair, you feel a fortifying spring of hope.
–the Anarchy Rhymer
This is “a rule-breaking element inside a larger formal structure.” To my mind, Fletcher doesn’t describe it very well, but it seems to be what all great authors do. (To do otherwise is to be formulaic and predictable.) According to Fletcher, the Anarchic Rymer activates a brain region known as the Default Mode Network, which is the region of the brain that is most active during REM sleep, daydreaming, and reading stories. The result of encountering the Rhymer is increased creativity.
I see that Sewanee’s library has a copy of the book so I’ll be checking it out and reporting on more of what Fletcher has to say.
