“Virtual Fictional/Factual Positioning”: Mediating dialogical concepts in psychological and literary studies

The close affinity between psychological and literary studies

One of the central commonalities between psychological studies and literature is the evaluation of human experiences and seeking a better understanding of an individual’s mental life. The relationship between the two disciplines seems to be key to a common perception of human experience (Macías & Núñez, 2011). Vygotsky, in The Psychology of Art (1925/1971), unites art, particularly literature, and psychology in a new interdisciplinary approach and brings forth the “theory of catharsis”—a metamorphosis of feelings. Vygotsky (1925/1971) believed art was cathartic, and he perceived art to be a most powerful means to discharge negative feelings, “a catharsis of the aesthetic response is the transformation of affects, the explosive response which culminates in the discharge of emotions” (p. 215). Far from Aristotelian perceptions and Freudian psychology, in Vygotsky’s (1925/1971) view, catharsis is more than liberation from overwhelming affective attractions and the transformation of unpleasant and painful effects into their opposites, “It is rather the resolution of a certain, merely personal conflict, the revelation of a higher, more general, human truth in the phenomenon of life” (p. ix).

To highlight the affinity between the two disciplines, Moghaddam (2004) also states that literature serves as a basis for psychological “data” and “theory,” “if the literature of different cultures is a source of psychological data, then it could serve as an invaluable asset to help psychologists explore universals in behaviour across cultures, as well as across historical eras” (p. 506). Moghaddam also believes that psychology is a concrete methodology to find more appropriate insights into literary studies; he emphasizes that both disciplines work as complementary agents as literature emphasizes “general trends” and psychology deals with “particular cases.” In fact, contemporary narrative theories of the self make considerable use of the study of literature (Carlson, 1988; Valsiner, 2009).

Mills (2006) was interested in realism; he argued for the benefits of looking into literary works written in the realist tradition, noting that they can enhance our understanding of psychological processes. To pull psychological studies and literature together, he mentions that psychologists can benefit from reading the works of great realist novelists, given the extensive information and accurate insights such works contain. Attempting to find a linkage between theories of the self and fiction, Mills (2010) proposed the concept of the “edited other” which, in his definition, bridges the gap between insights into the nature of the self presented by narrative and dialogical theories of the self on the one hand, and realist fiction on the other. He discusses Mario Vargas Llosa’s The War of the End of the World (1981/2008), which can be compared to an evidently factual version of Euclides da Cunha’s “Rebellion in the Backlands.”

Mills concludes that Vargas Llosa skilfully uses fictional personages to visualize this historical event, and in this way interrelates the past with the present and makes the contemporary reader communicate imaginatively with past events. In literate societies, novels mostly illustrate part of the context of real life, and thus a context within which selves shape their being. Accordingly, in the introduction to Bakhtin’s Dialogic Imagination (1981), Holquist confirms that, in novels, readers hear, in their imagination, speech emanating from bodies created by the novelist’s imagination, and in this way novels are a fertile field for the analysis of dialogical theories of personality (p. xxviii). In other words, novels can portray the novelists’ mind and personality as embodied in their characters’ speech and actions.

The model of the self bearing dialogical qualities has influenced several psychological and even social and cultural theories (Raggatt, 2010). By investigating the dialogical possibilities of the self and making comparisons between the three historical models of the self—traditional, modern, and postmodern—Hermans and colleagues (Hermans, 2001a; Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Hermans et al., 1992) introduce a fourth model, a dialogical one. The dialogical self works metaphorically as a society, with oppositions, conflicts, negotiations, cooperation, and coalitions between various internal and external positions in the landscape of the mind. In the next part of our discussion, we explicate the recent trends and critiques of DST and pore over the influence of Bakhtin’s thoughts on psychological studies, which are closely related to the content of this paper. Consequently, this argument will reflect the need for the emergence of new models in the interdisciplinary domains of psychological and literary studies.

Recent trends in DST and Bakhtin’s influence on psychological studies

DST has become influential in contemporary psychology, thanks in large measure to the efforts of Hubert Hermans and his colleagues (Hermans, 2002a; Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Hermans-Konopka, 2010). This theory originates from two contributions to psychological studies, by William James (1890) and G. H. Mead (1934), and the dialogical view of language as theorized by Mikhail Bakhtin (1929/1984; 1986/1993).

The scope of application of DST ranges across the social sciences (McIlveen & Patton, 2007), through psychotherapy (Lysaker & Lysaker, 2006), developmental studies (Fogel, de Koeyer, Bellagamba, & Bell, 2002) and studies of personality (Ellis & Stam, 2010), to Internet dealings (Dillon, 2012), educational fields (Ligorio & Pugliese, 2004), cultural studies (O’Sullivan-Lago & de Abreu, 2010), critical theory (Blackman, 2005), ethnography (Bell & Das, 2011), and research on witchcraft (Gieser, 2004). DST has even been conjointly practised to interpret neural functioning in the pre-frontal lobes of the brain (Lewis, 2002). As a consequence, both the sophistication and the depth of analysis are intensifying and elaborations on the dialogical self are becoming increasingly common (Stam, 2010).

After major developments in recent years, scholars have evolved new trends and conceptions under the influence of DST. The authors of “As many selves as interpersonal relations” (Stemplewska-Żakowicz, Walecka, & Gabińska, 2006), for instance, attempted to sketch out an experiential study to validate one of the main premises of DST, that is, that every I-position generates its own “Me” who acts as the “hero” of a distinct life story. In line with Hermans’ theory, the results of this study found that every position narrates a distinct life story which is dissimilar in its “content” and “formal characteristics.”

Moreover, Kluger, Nir, and Kluger (2008) exhibit a noticeable development and propound the construction of a “bi-plot” of essential elements of internal/external positions for better investigation of the client’s self-repertoire. Hermans’ bi-plot (2001b) is presented in order to justify the method appropriately. The findings of this study confirm that “need theories” and “value theories” offer feasible scope for a more fitting study of visual patterns of the dialogical self. Additionally, John Rowan (2010) conveys some expansion in his own thinking, in that he replaces the idea of “subpersonalities” by the concept of “I-positions,” as proposed by Hermans (2003). Drawing upon the notion of a dialogical self, Rowan illustrates the use of personification in therapy along with a vision of an integrative outlook on psychotherapy.

In another study, Ribeiro and Gonçalves (2011) trace the ways in which the surfacing of “innovative moments” (IMs), defined as “exceptions to a person’s dominant self-narrative,” (p. 281) helps the appearance of a new self-narrative. They ascertain that IMs challenge the self’s present condition of understanding and experiencing, consequently resulting in uncertainty. The article advocates a unique solution for the dialogical self to protect it from the “experience of uncertainty”—“the mutual in-feeding process” between “innovative voices” (articulated in IMs) and governing ones (embodied in the “problematic self-narrative”).

Gonçalves and Salgado (2001) pursue a critique of the Personal Position Repertoire (PPR; Hermans, 2001b). They first acknowledge the significant contribution of Hermans’ theory, and then reflect on a few problematic controversies in relation to this method. Gonçalves and Salgado’s paper discusses the idea of “prominence,” the probable “reification of positions,” and the question of the “power differential” relation between clients and psychologist. Moreover, the critical relationship between therapist and client as the author of his/her life narrative is monitored. These critics eventually report that it seems the trouble arises when a psychologist attributes to the client a certain type of affective profile, including a list of positions and valuations, and this may restrict clients in their formation of meaning. In other words, the psychologist may impose his/her power on the client.

Yet, to our knowledge, power/dominance are concrete affairs that occur in real life and in live interactive sessions between psychologist and client, while in literary analysis, relying on textual analysis, they cannot be problematic. What is important in literary studies, in relation to the new model we are presenting, is the narrative of the characters during the course of a story, and in this sense no prior fixed positions are imposed on the characters. As will be elaborated later in the discussion, based on Bakhtin’s (1929/1984, 1990) premises, which form the ground for our new model, it is assumed that, in polyphonic novels, the author will not impose the final word on his/her hero. Thus, the hero is free to shape and develop his narrative and, therefore, his own character (Bakhtin, 1990). In this way, aesthetic activity is perceived as a challenging activity between the “creating author,” “the created hero,” and “the receiving audience” in their rigorous efforts at creating meaning.

In the same way, in developmental psychology and with special relation to the self’s position in social circumstances, Bamberg and Zielke (2007) subscribe to the idea raised by Gonçalves and Salgado (2001) and declare that it is not necessary to attach a priori positions to the self. Instead, they assert that “situated, actual conversations” can form the positions, with each voice embodied in these positions, and ultimately we can call this self dialogical and polyphonous, in contrast to a person’s interiority. In other words, they suggest taking positioning out of the mind and accepting it as occurring, in the first place, in “concrete situations” that are “historically and socioculturally embedded” (e.g., in actual everyday exchanges).

Importantly, we note the potential of the productive interaction between psychoanalyst and client to sharpen our understanding of the creative artistic relationship between literary authors and their characters in terms of actualizing new I-positions and dealing with existing ones. Hence, in support of Bamberg and Zielke’s (2007) proposition, we do not consider any prior I-positions for the selves of the characters in our discussion. Thereafter, and since in text-based analysis critics are presented with the entire narrative context at one session, the issue of power relations is taken for granted.

Peter Raggatt (2007) claims that it is reasonable for DST to be extended into various fields; however, a problem arises in that each comes up with its own understanding of the theory, which eventually results in general incoherence in this kind of study of the self. Within such a discussion, Raggatt developed an organizing framework and uses positioning theory to shed light on the understanding and application of DST and to publicize his new method, the Personality Web Protocol (PWP; 2002). He analyses the life of Barry Humphries—an Australian actor and comic satirist—in terms of his heterogeneous positioning that can heighten our awareness of further application of this theory as a feasible approach for literary purposes. This method concentrates on a limited number of “meta-ordinate” or “dominant I-positions,” compared to Hermans’ method, hence it has proved to be a practical psychological method in studies of the dialogical self.

What is remarkable in most of the adaptations to and further developments of DST is the active presentation of Bakhtin’s dialogism. The philosophical qualities of the postmodernist atmosphere, with its emphasis on “discursivity,” “the militant de-authoring of meaning,” and “the debunking of master narratives,” are mostly associated with Bakhtin’s concepts of “dialogicity,” “polyphony,” “heteroglossia,” and “the carnivalesque” (Holquist, 2002). This tradition lies at the core of DST, in the sense of believing that different I-positions work in dialogical interaction within the self.

Developmental and narrative psychologists have made extensive use of Bakhtin’s theories to highlight the role of self narratives in authoring one’s life (Burkitt, 2010; Salgado & Clegg, 2011). This image conveys the individual as the “actor/hero” and shows their relationship to the events being narrated by him/her. Lakshmi Bandlamudi (1999), in an attempt to analyse the development of the subject and its mutual relationship with a significant other, draws on Bakhtin’s chronotopic motifs and the hero’s (self’s) spatio-temporal relationship with developmental theories and concludes that dialogical theories of the self can be very inspiring regarding the ways “cultural spaces” and “historical times” can influence development of the subject.

James Cresswell (2011) echoes that Bakhtinian dialogism provides us with the opportunity to conceptualize the self as both stable and irreducibly social and communal. In another study, Cresswell and Baerveldt (2011) explicate the question of how we can understand socially constituted selfhood through “expressive realism,” which elaborates the ways in which “sociality” is directly interrelated to the “embodied experience.” They comment on how Hermans’ DST neglects such embodied experience. Cresswell and Baerveldt (2011) point out that Hermans does not address the notion of “social corporeality” and its relation to “dialogue”; instead, he develops a notion of corporeality, in terms of “positioning,” which leads to the metaphorical positioning of a population of characters in the psyche as a “society of mind.” In this kind of perception, when Hermans refers to “dialogue” he means a general “inter-subjective exchange” among various real or imagined interlocutors.

Cresswell and Baerveldt (2011) claim that “Bakhtin sees the self as social insofar as our most primary embodied experience is social, where Hermans anchors the sociality of self in inter-subjective exchange” (p. 263). Bakhtin was concerned with how the arts, or literary forms in general and the novel genre in particular, can express human life; for this reason he admired Dostoevsky’s novel because of its “realism” (1929/1984). Cresswell and Baerveldt (2011), furthermore, state that Bakhtin’s ideas are remarkably precious for psychologists, especially when he talks about Dostoevsky’s realism which, in Bakhtin’s words, has “artistic visualization” (Bakhtin, 1929/1984, pp. 60–62).

Along with this broad purview of the aforementioned studies, and particularly those directly concerned with Bakhtin’s theories and DST, in the following discussion we can now expound on an exploration of literary studies with an emphasis on the role of the dialogical self as defined in Hermans’ psychological theories. In this way, we spell out the affordances of DST as a psychological theory for literary studies.

Barbara Rojek (2009), in an outstanding study, contemplates the works of Antonio Tabucchi, in light of the idea of the dialogical self. She examines the characters’ identity development through the motif of a journey and mentions the main character’s attempt to speak of his doubts and ideas to the image of his beloved woman; and in imagining her probable reactions, that clearly coincides with an impression of the dialogical self (p. 92). The findings of Rojek’s article deliver a general, yet encouraging, outlook for the examination of literary characters from a dialogical-self perspective.

In another literary analysis, Ştefania Tarbu (2006) pores over Cărtărescu’s Nostalgia and Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland from two perspectives in Bakhtin’s dialogical tradition: the ethical unfinalizing one and aesthetic finalizing activity. She pronounces that the dialogical self is a self that goes beyond postmodernism and post-postmodernism in its continuous give and take with what traditions might assume. Even though the focus of this article seems very promising, very little is cited in terms of the discussion of a new approach to and application of the theory. Tarbu would be more compelling if she offered more convincing exemplifications from the texts under discussion.

In a fascinating study, van Halen and Janssen (2004) bring together the classic work of Divina Commedia by Dante and use of the Internet by visitors to a Dutch hip-hop site and discuss self-construction in relation to the dialogical theory of self and space. This examination is of exceptional value since it highlights a very relevant overview of the study of various I-positions of literary characters. Dante “stages” his own “self” as the “protagonist” of his own “story” but is simultaneously the narrator. This design synthesizes this work of art as an unending dialogue which, without doubt, advances our insights into the dynamic workings of I-positions in the landscape of the mind. A number of moral examples, “Vergilius,” “Statius,” “Beatrice,” and “Saint Bernardus,” that Dante valued in his real life, accompany him on this captivating journey. Functioning as his ideal alter egos, they guide him on his way and adopt individual dialogical I-positions.

Ebtihal Elshaikh (2011), in the same breath, compares two poems, Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and Guwaida’s “A star looking for an orbit,” by employing a dialogical conception of the self and shows how the reader encounters a multi-layered identity. Guwaida, using the oriental myth of Sinbad, illustrates the psychological conflict that tears the present Egyptian self apart. Various I-positions in Guwaida exemplify the complexity of establishing a dialogue in the realms of the poet’s self: the external realm representing the harsh postmodern reality, and the internal realm maintaining the adventurous romantic self. Although this study benefits from the concept of the dialogical self to lay down its comparative outlook on the social and personal presentation of the characters, it does not engage with the worthwhile methodological potential of DST.

Despite there being few adaptations in literary studies, Hermans’ DST has proved to be a convenient method for literary scholars and proffers conceptual affordances for the study of literary characters. Even more exclusively, this perspective facilitates the understanding and evaluation of inner dialogues and helps define existential perplexity. Reading polyphonous voices inside the society of the mind contributes remarkably to the construction of a broader and more elaborated sense of identity.

“Virtual Fictional/Factual Positioning”: The dynamics of the author/hero relation in Auster’s Man in the Dark

“Virtual Fictional/Factual Positioning” (VFP) is suggested as a way to achieve a rapprochement between the two disciplines of literature and psychology for the study of literary characters. VFP specifically addresses the author’s virtual fictional and factual positioning in relation to his/her literary work and his/her hero on the one hand, and his/her real/actual life on the other. The same process is noticeable in the dialogical workings of the author and his/her heroine; yet, since we are dealing with the hero theme in our selected novel by Auster, we tend to draw on the masculine aspect of the author-protagonist relationship.

Bakhtin (1990) emphasizes that the author cannot finalize the word and growth of the hero; in the same way, he also insists that the hero cannot develop independently of the author and his/her surroundings: “The artist’s struggle to achieve a determinate and stable image of the hero is to a considerable extent a struggle with himself” (p. 6). According to Bakhtin (1986/1993), the “I” occupies a unique position in the world, which can transcend its selfhood without losing its subjectivity (p. 40). This idea of displacement is made manifest as Bakhtin theorizes the dynamics between literary author and hero. There is an inherent discrepancy between the levels occupied by these two personae—the “inside” of the hero and the “outside” of the author: the author is in possession of a surplus of evaluative consciousness or vision. Bakhtin considers the creative act to be a free act, and proposes that the freedom it enjoys is the freedom to be other. As the author becomes other to him/herself, he/she is able not only to talk about the hero but to speak with the hero, so that he/she can see and discover what the hero experiences.

The hero’s living subjective unity, in this sense, lies in a discourse which he can call his own, free from the discourse and ideology of the author (Bakhtin, 1990, pp. 102–103). In order to bring his/her hero to life, the author must offer the innermost part of his/her life to the hero. But the moment the hero becomes alive, he, just like a living individual, enters into the process of relating himself to himself and should be perceived as an independent entity; he becomes unfinalized, just like any other being whose story goes on and on.

To evaluate the hero’s narrative and his relation to the literary author, we make use of Hermans’ Personal Position Repertoire (PPR). This framework provides promising insights for the evaluation of the organization and the reorganization of various positions in the selves of literary authors and their created heroes. PPR is not solely designed for the purpose of psychological studies (Hermans, 2001b, p. 324); we utilize it for our new perspective in the qualitative analysis of literary characters’ self narratives. Valuations, as units of meaning and their associated affective profiles based on Hermans’ model of the valuation system (2002b), are traced in the self narrative of the author, which can reflect a particular set of feelings.

The dialogical self, according to Hermans, functions metaphorically as a “mini-society,” with diverse numbers of internal and external positions which are in negotiation, and often conflict, with one another. Among these positions, meta-position and promoter positions play considerable roles in VFP. According to DST, a meta-position is described as a directing figure in the self-repertoire that can enhance the relationship and workings of various I-positions. It helps in the formation of a dialogical space (in its contact with internal/external positions) and provides a better overview of the self’s decision-making processes (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010, pp. 146–148). Promoter positions, just like significant others, work as “innovative” and “integrative forces”; they go beyond the spur of the moment and facilitate development of the self (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010, p. 228).

In a short treatise, Hermans-Konopka, Voogt, and Hermans (2012) reflect on the artistic vision of the dialogical self and the role of “the artist” as a promoter position, since this enriches the self and allows a broader range of possibilities for the self. In this way they promote the development of this position in daily life experiences, that is, in the relation of every individual with their surroundings. This framework serves as the theoretical ground for our model in terms of approaching the artistic relation between author and hero in literary works.

VFP affords intra-textual qualitative research and addresses the active dialogical collaboration and participation of the author’s internal and external positions with regard to his/her hero in literary texts. The dialogical relation between “I-as-author/novelist” and “I-as-the-hero-of-my-story,” amongst other positions in the course of the novel, is central to this approach. The author, in his/her fictional relation, first initiates an imaginary attempt to create a bond with his/her hero, then positions him/herself in his/her factual positionings, in his/her own real life, and develops new valuations.

The horizontal and vertical movements of the author within his/her own self-space enable him/her to enter into a continuous dialogical relationship with his/her own self and the external world and, on another level, his/her fictional world. In this dialogical world view, the author pictures the world through the eyes of his/her hero and thus creates a “field of vision,” which is an arena for the competition of various viewpoints. While the self as a motivated storyteller narrates his/her life story, this relation between author and hero is highly significant in terms of the development and creation of the self.

The author’s relation to his/her hero subject as one of his/her internal positions in the fictional world is considered an emotional/valuational and virtual/dialogical relationship. They participate in the process of meaning-making, and with their affective valuational responses which can be assessed by Hermans’ valuation theory (1999, 2002b), each forms his/her own subjectivity. In this regard the author plays the role of an active agent who dialogically enhances the self-activity of the hero as his/her subject. This process accords with Bakhtin’s (1990) description of the relationship between self and other and the confrontation of two consciousnesses (p. 86). The “I” of the author as an internal position engages dialogically with the “I” of the hero as another internal one, and both are in active dialogical coalition.

Meanwhile, significant others also contribute to this dialogical give and take. It should be highlighted that the concept of an “I-position” not only describes the possibilities of the internal domain of the self, but also refers to the external positions as components of the self relating to the outside world; in this design, the other is pictured as another “I.” Bakhtin (1929/1984) confirms this idea, stating that: “For the author the hero is not ‘he’ and not ‘I’ but a full-valued ‘thou’ that is another full-fledged ‘I’” (p. 63).

Within such an ideology, the other is perceived not just as an exterior alien on the object level, but as a part of myself or “mine” on the subject level. This is how the author approaches the “man in man” (Bakhtin, 1929/1984, p. 58), within him/herself and within the hero, thus bringing an integral view to both; by virtue of being wholly present, each enters the novel in a responsive dialogical manner. Effectively, the author becomes other to him/herself and assumes the discourse of another; and here lies the transformation of the author as man into the author as creator, which is considered the main act of coalition in VFP.

In Bakhtin’s original conception, the hero is not an isolated entity in terms of “I” and “you,” but a valid and autonomous social being who can perform roles in relation to his author, though Hermans’ DST values the dialogical relation mainly as an intra-psychic relation in the self’s “society of the mind.” VFP, wittingly, transforms the authentic dialogue between author and hero in Bakhtin’s aesthetic theory into a fruitful dialogic interplay between the author’s I-positions in the society of literary context.

Figure 1 illustrates the VFP model, where mapping various internal and external positions, both of the author and his/her hero and the dialogical space in which they collaborate, shape the basis for literary analysis. Valuations as an active process of giving positive or negative value or meaning to the events in the author’s life and their eventual affective connotations are discussed in relation to the significant role of the promoter and meta-positions. The “core act of coalition” in VFP occurs in the intrinsic and simultaneously inclusive relatedness of the author and his/her hero’s self’s domains, as illustrated at the bottom of this system.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

“Virtual Fictional/Factual Positioning”: The dynamics of author/hero relation.

In his/her self’s domain as a caring womb, the author, “I-as-artist/novelist,” becomes other to him/herself, “I-as-the-hero-of-my-story,” and creates and gives shape and meaning to the hero-embryo. Hence, the hero’s self is not positioned in the centre of the author’s domain and tends to move to the edges in order to burst out as an independent valid self-space. This inclination is revealed in the hero’s autonomous ideological discourse with his/her author and is illustrated in the figure by the shaded area in the “field of vision,” which enables both the hero and his/her author to have the possibility of overviewing each other’s self-domain.

VFP becomes more tangible when we look at the literary self’s response to the external environment and experience of uncertainty. Particular valuations through the eyes of the self and its contextualized constructions of reality affect the organization and reorganization of the self’s repertoire, both internally and externally. Interestingly, we can follow this trend in the metafictional world of the postmodern novelist Paul Auster (1947–). What follows, in the remaining discussion, is a brief account of a novel reading of Auster’s Man in the Dark (2008/2009). We note that VFP is not restricted to postmodern fiction and that application of this theory is available for the analysis of fictional self-narratives in general. VFP does not necessarily need a fictional author and is applicable to the dialogical relation between actual author figures and novelists and the heroes and heroines created in their literary narratives.

Auster blends stories with stories, lives with lives, and reality with fiction, and finally presents a full sense of the self trapped in a net of uncertainties. His characters undergo more than mere vicissitudes—fate captures and transforms them from one existence into another, obliterating their former selves. With each identity comes a new name, a new life, and a new “I-position.” The aforementioned features make Auster’s fiction, particularly his Man in the Dark (2008/2009), a prime candidate to demonstrate the application of VFP.

The protagonists in most of Auster’s novels are themselves writers or novelists who are engaged in creating their own heroes, in the course of the novel, in the stories within stories. To give more depth to our literary analysis and limit the discussion to intra-textual analysis we move one layer inside Auster’s metafictional narration in Man in the Dark (2008/2009) and discuss the relation between the main character of his novel as protagonist/author and his hero in the story within the story, instead of Auster himself and his protagonist. The question is whether the protagonist/author’s self in Auster’s novel comprises polyphonized dialogical voices or is merely a cacophony of various thoughts with fewer logical and no dialogical qualities.

The novel relates the story of August Brill, a 72-year-old recently widowed author who lives with his divorced daughter, Miriam, and his depressed granddaughter, Katya, who blames herself for her boyfriend, Titus’s, horrific terrorist murder in Iraq. Brill, lying awake, succumbs to insomnia by ruminating on life, love, and his status as a physically debilitated former art critic and retired book reviewer who depicts an illusionary America at war with itself. He creates a fictional character, Owen Brick, who is mistakenly transported to another time in America, during the civil war, and is forced to eradicate the cause of the war and return each state to the union; and by doing so, he brings an end to his own disposition. Brick has to assassinate the mind that created this dreadful parallel reality: the storyteller August Brill. The storyline swings between killer and insomniac, fictional character and his maker, two men who seem to have much in common. Before the hero-versus-author conflict reaches its height, Brill starts telling the more straightforward story of his own life and contemplates past failures throughout a long night. He shares more stories from his past with his granddaughter, who also suffers from insomnia.

In order to find meaning in his supposedly meaningless life, the protagonist/ author in the chosen novel is in an active dialogical relationship with his own self, remembering, lamenting over, and articulating his past life. Moving back and forth between the “I-as-writer” position, which tells a parallel story with an identical hero in a similar state of loss and uncertainty, and his real and actual internal and external present life positions, this protagonist demonstrates various possible webs of dialogical worlds. In this sense, the worlds of fiction and reality blur, and from a Bakhtinian perception life becomes art and art becomes life. This opens up two routes of investigation to deal with the author’s self repertoire: factual positioning and fictional positioning. In the former, we cluster the positions based on the real and actual life narrative of the author himself, and in the latter we relate those positions associated to his story, his hero, and his fictional world.

A careful textual examination of various internal/external I-positions according to the PPR method (Hermans, 2001b) with relation to the self-narrative of the protagonist/author, August Brill, and the dialogical relationship with his created hero, Owen Brick, reveals that the main tension revolves around two central positions, “I-as-the-creator-of-war” (Brill; Auster, 2008/2009, p. 10) ¹ and “I-as-the-peace-maker” (Brick; p. 9). These two positions are in continuous conflict and disagreement with one another throughout the course of the novel, each trying to establish itself as the dominant one.

Moreover, based on the narrative, we identify “I-as-freedom-seeker” as a meta-position that helps the protagonist/author to form a convincing dialogical space between various other positions in the repertoire, namely “I-as-guilty” (pp. 10, 15, 73, 158), “I-as-uncertain” (pp. 14, 15, 101, 158, 177), and “I-as-lonesome” (pp. 13, 32, 101), which are the prevailing positions in a postmodern self. Many times during the storytelling, Brill projects these positions and the emotional feelings associated with them onto his hero’s self, namely “I-as-fearful” (pp. 5, 12, 33, 71, 107), “I-as-uncertain” (pp. 30, 35, 11, 23, 30, 36, 67), “I-as-lost” (pp. 23, 35), “I-as-lonesome” (p. 32), “I-as-dreaming” (pp. 55–56), and “I-as-pessimist” (p. 64), and thus better reveals the mental and physical status of his creator.

Brill as the author becomes other to himself and looks upon himself through the eyes of his hero; this is why most of his internal positions are also manifested as internal positions in Brick’s self, and by reading Brick the reader comes to have a better understanding of his creator’s self. This view supports the idea that the inside of the hero is the outside of his/her author; in other words, the hero is the “other-in-the-self” of the author. Through attentive textual reading, it can plausibly be argued that “I-as-uncertain” is the most common position that works both within and between the author and his hero’s self, passing through the mind of the author and relating him to his hero, which acts as a moderating factor for Brill in terms of experiencing a state of uncertainty as the prevailing position afflicting the postmodern self.

Figure 2 is a development of the VFP model presented in Figure 1 and revives Hermans’ model of positions in a multivoiced self (2001a, p. 253). Figure 2 depicts the interrelation of the main positions in Brill (the author; I-as-artist/novelist) and Brick’s (the hero; I-as-the-hero-of-my-story) self repertoire. In spite of the fact that the hero’s self domain stands out as a fully valid, autonomous, and well-developed self with both internal and external spheres—as demonstrated by dotted circles inside the author’s self domain—its communicational relationship with his author’s self domain is an inclusive one.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Interrelation of the main positions in Brill and his hero’s self repertoire (adapted from Hubert Hermans’ model of positions in a multivoiced self; 2001a).

Brick’s self-repertoire grows inside his creator’s self-realm as one of his internal positions (“man in man”) and this is a meeting and merging of two consciousnesses. Positions located at the top of these two interrelated self systems are associated with fictional positioning and are highlighted in bold. “I-as-husband,” “I-as-father,” and “I-as-grandfather” are Brill’s factual internal positions, which are respectively associated with “I-as-guilty” in relation to his wife, Sonia, as his external position, and “I-as-dependant” in relation to Miriam and Katya. This group of positionings is allied with Brill’s actual life positioning and the events of his life story. “I-as-man-in-dark” is perceived as the central position in Brill’s factual self-realm.

The “artist/novelist” and the “creator of war” form another internal cluster in Brill’s fictional positioning that establishes a close bond with similar internal positions in his hero’s internal self domain, including “I-as-uncertain,” “I-as-fearful,” “I-as-lonesome,” “I-as-lost,” “I-as-pessimist,” and “I-as-dreaming.” The second group of internal fictional positionings works as both Brill and Brick’s external positions.

Brill’s affinity with his “story” is exceptionally forceful as he constantly sticks to his story as “my story” (pp. 13, 44, 48), a significant other that he calls the “solution” (p. 22) and the “cure” (p. 168). He finds solace in relating himself to his story in the midst of the long night with its metaphorical weight, “Give me my story [emphasis added]. That’s all I want now—my little story to keep the ghosts away” (p. 48). This correctly signifies the role of “I-as-artist/novelist” or “I-as-the storyteller,” as a promoter position which primarily seeks to bring order to the multiplicity of disorganized positions in the self. The artist/novelist position as a promoter position acts like an “innovative” and “integrative force” (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010, p. 228) and helps the protagonist/author to come to terms with his present situation and develop the “accepting” position in the context of his uncertainties. An “accepting” position helps to redefine the existing positions and reorganize the repertoire into a healthier one, thus paving the way for the emergence of further positive positions, such as “I-as-peaceful” and “I-as-man-in-the-dawn” (see Figure 2). Further clarification and development of the named positions is provided later in the discussion.

“My war” (pp. 82, 159), is yet another significant external position that exists on three basic levels in Brill’s life: primarily, on a “personal” level, as he fights within himself, remembering, or at times avoiding, his past life incidents, memories of Sonia and his second marriage to Oona; secondly, an “imaginary/fictional” war, his hero’s disposition during the American civil war; and finally an “actual” war, where America invades Iraq and relates the horrific murder of Titus. Brill points out that life and war are strongly interrelated, that “One minute you’re living your life, and the next minute you’re in the war” (p. 9).

Emphatically, as Brill cannot change the narrative of the “actual” war and feels helpless to resolve his “personal” war, he authors an “imaginary/fictional” war and situates Owen Brick inside it; and afterwards, by positioning himself inside his own narrative, he makes it more real and plausible. Although, in the beginning, he ignorantly puts his hero in a hole, a “sleeping man” dressed as a soldier in a challenging situation—ironically resembling Brill’s own condition in bed as a powerless old man—and takes pleasure in watching him struggle with his life, later, the connection becomes more intense and intimately intertwined. As the story continues, the confrontation between the author and his hero switches from a narrative to a dialogical one and we see Brill more as a participant, rather than a mere observer; he evidently pictures “my story” as “my war,”

By putting myself into the story, the story becomes real [emphasis added]. Or else I become unreal, yet one more figment of my own imagination [emphasis added]. Either way, the effect is more satisfying, more in harmony with my mood—which is dark, my little ones, as dark as the obsidian night that surrounds me. (p. 102)

Assessing the system of functional and dysfunctional valuations (Hermans, 1999) of Brill’s self repertoire reveals the lack of fulfilment of the “contact and union with others” motif in his “prolonged grieving” for the death of Sonia, who according to Brill “was too much a part of me, and even after the divorce, she was still there, still talking to me in my head—the ever-present absent one” (p. 158). After so many years, even remarriage, still the fact that he has betrayed Sonia haunts him and fills him with a deep feeling of guilt.

Admittedly, he avoids the past and the images associated with those times (pp. 22, 47, 130): “I shouldn’t be doing this. I promised myself not to fall into the trap of Sonia-thoughts and Sonia-memories, not to let myself go. I can’t afford to break down now and sink into a despond of grief and self-recrimination” (p. 101). Nevertheless, his bonds with his daughter, Miriam, and his granddaughter, Katya, are very strong. We learn from his narrative that he spends a considerable amount of time with Katya, watching and discussing films and later, in the second half of the story, he narrates the actual events of his past to her, which is very comforting for him.

The physical helplessness and powerlessness of an old man with a broken leg trapped in a sense of guilt and uncertainty, longing for contact and union with somebody, form the dominant atmosphere of I-as-man-in-the-dark’s actual life story:

The real and the imagined are one. Thoughts are real, even thoughts of unreal things. Invisible stars, invisible sky. The sound of my breath, the sound of Katya’s breath. Bedtime prayers, the rituals of childhood, the gravity of childhood. If I should die before I wake. How fast it all goes … Touch me, someone. Put your hand on my face and talk to me … . (p. 177)

Brill’s relationship with his hero forms the basis of his internal conflict and self-enhancement motif. He establishes a virtual fictional relationship with Owen Brick, and assigns him to kill the creator of war, Brill himself; and this is nothing but an artistic plan for a suicide, a self-murder to seek freedom; as Brill says:

I might … spend the next several hours thinking of ever more artful and devious ways to kill myself. That task has been reserved for Brick, the protagonist of tonight’s story. Perhaps that explains why he and Flora [Brick’s wife] turn on her computer and look at Miriam’s Website. It seems important that my hero should get to know me a bit [emphasis added], to learn what kind of man he’s up against, and now that he’s dipped into some of the books I’ve recommended, we’ve finally begun to establish a bond [emphasis added]. It’s turning into a rather complicated jig, I suppose, but the fact is that the Brill character wasn’t in my original plan. The mind that created the war was going to belong to someone else, another invented character, as unreal as Brick … but the longer I went on, the more I understood how badly I was fooling myself. The story is about a man who must kill the person who created him, and why pretend that I am not that person? (p. 102)

Despite all these internal conflicts, what motivates him to go on is his artist/novelist’s side which, being a powerful promoter position, connects him with his hero in another time and space. By positioning himself in the fictional realm of his story, though it is a sad story of an inevitable war, he leaves his actual life for a while and finds momentary relief. As we have seen, this bond strengthens as the narrative progresses and the conversational space develops.

In this new land of fictional relations, Brill, the author, is granted the freedom to be “other”; he let his hero experience what he wished when he was young and had a crush on Virginia Blain, who now, in Brill’s imaginary/fictional narrative, serves as a connecting position between Brick and the creator of war: “Let Virginia Blaine have her brief moment of joy. Let Owen Brick forget his little Flora and find comfort in the arms of Virginia Blaine. Let the man and the woman who met as children take mutual pleasure in their adult bodies” (p. 115). This is the final image that we have of the hero; and then, they are blown away, before they can visit the creator of war and ask him to stop imagining and therefore actualizing the war.

This story is finalized, abruptly, only when Brill initiates positioning himself, rightfully, in his factual life story and talks about his past to Katya, who has also joined him in the middle of the night. Relating himself to his factual life narrative and unveiling the unspeakable (what has happened between him and Sonia, divorce, reunion, her cancer and eventual death) helps Brill to develop an “accepting” position as an improved more desirable position.

The long night is soon over, and by dawn he has a new perspective for the future, which becomes apparent in a few revealing lines addressing Miriam about Katya: “the next step is to talk her into going back to school” (p. 178). The “man-in-the-dawn” position, as we call it, is developed and has a new plan for the future; the moment he casts his eyes on the actual and real future it is the beginning of a new life. He goes further and completes this reading of his attitude by suggesting: “I think we should go all out this morning” (p. 180); accordingly, the central position of “man-in-the-dark” is relegated to the background of Brill’s self system, and “man-in-the-dawn” bearing more positive perspective surfaces.

The same internal and external positions are dialogically interconnected; they influence and interact with each other in the actual world of the author and the fictional world of the hero, blurring two imaginary/fictional and real/factual domains of self-actualization in a meaningful dialogical response. This kind of interpretation addresses the question posed earlier, and truly puts forward that the postmodern self of an artist/author can develop a dialogical self which can eventually help him/her resolve his/her uncertainties to some extent.

The freedom-seeker side—freedom from his actual life and freedom to be “other”—of Brill, who performs as a meta-position, contributes to the integration and unity of the repertoire by creating a forceful dialogical relation between the positions. Considering the positive coalition between the two main positions of author and hero, “I-as-creator-of-war” and “I-as-peace-maker,” and also “I-as-artist/novelist” as a promoter position, Brill develops an “accepting” position that has the potential to stimulate further positive positions, such as “I-as-peaceful” and “I-as-man-in-the-dawn,” and thus repositions “war-seeker” and “man-in-the-dark” to the background of the system. Under the influence of this dynamic course of positioning and repositioning, the postmodern self of the protagonist/author as “I-as-artist” demonstrates a significant degree of dialogical self by letting go of the past, dealing with the present, and generating a perspective for the future—and in doing so responding to his conflicting situation in a quite innovative way.

Concluding remarks and future directions

We have emphasised the close affinity between psychological and literary studies as a way to seek a better understanding of human behaviour. The recent advances in, and critiques of, DST in psychological studies of the self are examined in this paper, and they suggest a promising outlook for subsequent reworking of this theory in literary studies. The affordances of DST for the study of literary texts are highlighted through the works of such eminent critics as van Halen, Janssen, Rojek, and a few others. Despite the fact that the existing accounts steer in new directions and open up outstanding insights into study of the dialogical self in literature, they have failed to examine the interactive relationship between author and his/her hero from a literary standpoint. Moreover, this gap in the literature means that the assessment of literary authors’ valuation systems in relation to their narratives is not treated explicitly.

The insubstantial research on the novel genre has primarily tended to offer a relatively general overview of various positions in the self narratives of characters, looking merely through the lens of the concept of the dialogical self and, very broadly, raising issues and possibilities that are rife with questions worth exploring. What we know about DST largely pertains to empirical studies—qualitative research and prevailing quantitative surveys in the social sciences. Despite the numerous investigations within the social sciences, what is still missing is a clear framework that fully accounts for the literary aspects of this psychological theory.

To add to the existing body of research in the interdisciplinary studies of psychology and literature, we have made use of Bakhtin’s discussion on author and hero and looked at qualitative reflections of DST, via a literary scope, and presented VFP as a new and workable mindset to approach the self-narrative in literary studies and, pre-eminently, the novel genre. Various layers of fictional and factual positioning of the author and his/her hero’s self and their relation to Auster’s Man in the Dark (2008/2009) have been discussed in the light of VFP. In fact, this literary analysis accurately proposes that the artist/novelist position helps Auster’s protagonist to develop a dialogical, healthier self.

Since VFP is basically and inclusively introduced as an approach for the reading of literary works, it provides ample opportunities for an evaluative analysis of other literary genres, rather than just fiction, such as lyric poetry. New scholarship will inevitably cast a critical eye on the relationship between cultural and social valuations and the workings and development of various I-positions in the poet’s persona. Armed with Bakhtin’s notion of “chronotope” (1981), future research could continue to draw on applications of VFP in the study of protagonists’ multi-dimensional narrative selves in relation to time and space.

Moreover, with specific reference to Paul Auster’s self as the “artist/novelist,” and his social, personal, and cultural positions, further research domains are open for researchers to examine his “Virtual Fictional/Factual Positioning” in relation to his fictional world and factual life. All in all, the value of a dialogical study of the self goes beyond literature and addresses human experience in the context of one’s everyday self-narrative. Accordingly, each individual, as the author of his/her life story, monitors the functioning of his/her dialogical self and develops a better sense of his/her own self in the dialogical transformation and clarification of his/her self-repertoire.