TYPES OF NOVEL - PSYCHOLOGICAL
Psychological novel signifies a type of novel in which the plot is centrally preoccupied with delineating the workings of the psyche of the characters that make up the plot. Developed in the early years of the 20th century, the novelists Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce are widely identified as bringing this variety of fiction into vogue. Notable works in this genre include Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf and Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce.
1.
For the proponents of
psychological novels, the most pristine form of reality is not what one
observes externally, but the impulses that animate the conscious mind of an
individual. Consequently, their plots rather than focusing on depicting events
or incidents that take place in the material world, concentrate on
foregrounding the various contents of the psyche of the characters involved. This
is to say, it is not what the characters do, their actions, but their mental
processes that constitutes the staple of a psychological novel.
2.
To fulfil their objective of
representing reality in its allegedly purest form, psychological novelists took
their basic cue for depicting psychic reality from the concept propounded by
the American psychologist William James termed stream of consciousness. According
to this theory, the conscious mind of a human subject is perceived as
essentially a fluid domain in which various impulses such as ideas, thoughts,
memories and feelings, exist in a constant state of flux, ebbing and flowing
like in a stream. Thus, the mental processes represented in the plot of a
psychological novel, far from exemplifying an organized sequence, typify a
random phenomenon of free association lacking any apparent sense of pattern or
logic. Through deliberately undermining facets such as coherence and wholeness
in their composition, the psychological novelist were successfully able to call
into question indeed do away with any palpable impression of authorial presence
from the narrative scheme.
3.
It is notable that unlike in
other novelistic types, story takes a backseat in a psychological novel. Indeed
for all practical purposes, it could be even suggested that story is
essentially nonexistent in this form of fiction. The basic motto of a psychological
novel is simply that it is ultimately obtaining a fuller understanding of one’s
own self that genuinely matters, and not what happens in the material world. So
rather than dialogues between characters, it is monologue, specifically
interior monologue, exemplified by the thought processes characterizing the
psyche that takes precedence.
4.
Montage which is basically a
cinematic technique in which various images are successively represented at
random, is often utilized by psychological novelists in order to capture the
constantly shifting terrain of the conscious mind. The use of this technique
underscores what may be rightfully dubbed yet another innovative feature found
in this form of fiction namely visual representation. To explain, unlike traditional
novels in which the plot is essentially told or recounted, in a psychological
novel it is instead shown or telecasted. It is not so much narration or
descriptions that occupies the plot but representations of images.
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