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Title
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‘But fiction does not necessarily mean not true' : perceived (non-)fictionality and narrative engagement
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Author
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Abstract
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| Academics and the general public often find themselves speaking about engagement when discussing narratives. As readers, we talk about being transported to the storyworld, immersed in the narrative and getting lost in the book. Sometimes, our engagement with narratives evokes a childlike wonder. We recognise ourselves in the characters, sympathise with their struggles and experience various emotions alongside them. Moreover, research has shown that these effects are stronger when people read fictional novels as opposed to non-fictional texts. This presents an exciting avenue of research: does the perception of fictionality affect narrative engagement? In other words, if two different readers are given an identical text, but one is told that the text is fictional and the other non-fictional, will that change their responses and affect their narrative engagement? To explore this question of perceived fictionality, I designed an experiment in which actual readers were interviewed to establish whether their perception of a narrative as fictional or non-fictional influenced its reception. To this purpose, Storyworld Possible Selves (SPSs) Theory was used as a framework with James Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces serving as the text material. The experiment involved interviews with twenty-four participants divided into three equal groups, each assigned to one of three conditions: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Control. Before reading excerpts from the book, participants in the Fiction group were told that the text they were given was fiction, the Non-Fiction group was told the text was non-fiction, and the Control group was given no such information. In short, this dissertation focused on people’s responses and perceptions when reading a narrative. The results indicate that the readers in the study who read the provided narrative as fiction displayed the emergence of a larger number of SPSs and, thus, exhibited higher levels of narrative engagement. Furthermore, the results show a strong connection between individuals’ self-concepts – or who they believe to be – and their narrative engagement, suggesting that familiarity with the text’s topic enhances narrative engagement. In summary, the findings suggest that fictionality affects the construction of SPSs to some extent and provides strong support for the enlightening potential of SPSs Theory in studying how fictionality can influence narrative engagement. Additionally, the findings confirm that while perceptions of (non-)fictionality may act as a contributing factor, the reader’s self-concept also plays an essential role in the creation of SPSs and, therefore, in narrative engagement. |
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Language
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English
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Publication
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Antwerp
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University of Antwerp, Faculty of Arts, Department of Literature
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2024
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DOI
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10.63028/10067/2101960151162165141
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Volume/pages
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xv, 251 p.
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Note
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Herman, Luc [Supervisor]
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Martínez, María-Ángeles [Supervisor]
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Anneke M., Sools [Supervisor]
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Full text (open access)
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