On how literature works

Let me describe an experiment that may shed some light on how literature affects us. It was done by Éva Babits (on us the students) back in high school. (You may want to try the experiment yourself--look out for the spoiler alert below!)

The experiment itself started with listening to the following tale: There was a GIRL in love with a BOY. The GIRL visited the BOY every day and as she had to cross a river, she paid a fare to the BOATMAN to carry her across the water. One day, however, she ran out of money. She begged the BOATMAN to help her get to her love, but the BOATMAN refused to do so for free. So she went to a BANKER to get a small loan, but the BANKER made it clear that the only way she was getting the money is by sleeping with him. In her despair, she visited the SAGE and asked him what to do. The SAGE replied: "Do as you like." In the end, the GIRL agreed to sleep with the banker, got the money and managed to visit her true love. When the BOY, however, heard what she had done, broke up with her saying that he wanted nothing to do with a girl who'd lost her dignity.

The task was to put the characters (GIRL, BOY, BOATMAN, BANKER, SAGE) in order of sympathy. (If you want to do the experiment yourself, do this now.)

The next step was to create a list of the following concepts ordering them by importance: WISDOM, LOVE, WEALTH, SENSUALITY, MORALITY. (Do so before reading further if you'd like to try the experiment.)

Spoiler alert

Hopefully, those participating in the experiment (maybe including you) did not notice the correspondence between the concepts and the characters. While the story, naturally, is not a perfect analogy, it can be argued that the characters are mainly motivated by the following impulses: the GIRL by LOVE, the BOY by MORALITY, the BOATMAN by WEALTH, the BANKER by SENSUALITY, and the SAGE by WISDOM.

None of the approximately 30 participants in the experiment (all aged about 17) had lists of characters and concepts identical according to the above correspondences. Moreover, certain patterns of differences emerged for most students. The most prevalent was that the BOATMAN was sympathetic to most (probably because he acted consistently and faithfully to his own nature and interests), whereas WEALTH was generally banished to the bottom of the list of concepts.

The difference between the two lists, according to Babits (very likely drawing on a number of theories from the field of psychology), was caused by having two distinct value systems. One, the verbal one, dictates our verbal statements and is influenced by verbal (conceptual) phrases like the one suggesting that happiness or love cannot be bought for money. The other, the "practical" value system helps us to decide what to actually do. It is rarely influenced by conceptual teachings; rather, it is constructed based on experience. Ms. Babits suggested that it is according to the verbal value system that one ranks concepts, while it is based on the practical value system that one determines the amount of sympathy the characters deserve. In many cases, and--according to Babits--especially in young people, these two value systems may differ considerably, as has been clearly shown by the results of the experiment.

As an aside, let me add that the supposed workings of the verbal value system may mirror the idea of threefold mimesis by Paul Ricoeur. According to Ricoeur, the creation of a literary work of art, which is mimesis (imitation) 2, is preceded by mimesis 1, which may be described as a pre-mediation of reality via language. In other words, writing operates in an already symbolic field, as it is based on language rather than reality. The verbal value system, similarly, is created by verbal messages and creates verbal messages. It perpetuates itself in language, and, as the results of the experience suggest, it may have little to do with experiences originating from outside language or decisions reached in a sub- pre- post- or extra-language realm.

My idea was to reverse, in a sense, the above experiment, and suggest that if a work of art (this simple tale) is capable of interacting with the practical value system ("measuring" it) by creating an alternative reality via identification with characters in which we make decisions as in an extra-language, that is, real situation, then a work of art may have the capability of using this alternative reality to provide experience which would, then, enrich or alter the practical value system. I tend to believe that this is the ultimate aim of literature and art in general: to provide experience about life-like situations but in a safe way so that the reading (listening, etc.) subject would not be physically involved, injured or harmed.

The situations depicted in a work of art, naturally, need not be life-like to achieve that effect. But it has been suggested many times that the emotional changes we experience while participating (reading, etc.) in art somehow "prepares us" for, ahem, "life."

This suggestion may also shed some light on why it has been claimed so many times that literary works do not "speak." Northrop Frye, in his "Polemical Introduction" goes as far as stating that "all the arts are dumb." Why? Because they--literature, in specific--do not function or "speak" as everyday texts. In fact, they do not speak at all in language, that mediated symbolic order, but, rather, they create something which falls outside it: real experience.