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Why chart the emotions of the protagonist to evaluate the story? The value of a story is not in how happy or sad the protagonist was - but how it makes you feel
by ankeshk 17y ago
Why chart the emotions of the protagonist to evaluate the story? The value of a story is not in how happy or sad the protagonist was - but how it makes you feel.
If I had to evaluate stories, my vertical axis would have 4 parts. From top to bottom:
* Unpredictable and irrational
* Surprisingly Unpredictable
* Tolerantly Predictable
* Predictable and stale
The closer the story is to "Surprisingly unpredictable" the better it is.
Cinderella, Kafka, Hamlet - all reach that point.
(But to be fair - Cinderella reaches that point only because its amongst the first few stories you ever hear.)
Titanic reached that stage for many teenage girls by killing the hero.
The best book I've read - Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov reaches that "surprisingly unpredictable" point too.
- CodeMage 17y agoWhy chart the emotions of the protagonist to evaluate the story? The value of a story is not in how happy or sad the protagonist was - but how it makes you feel. It's a rather good starting point for analyzing stories. Most of the stories he mentioned (with Kafka being a notable exception) aimed to make the reader identify with the protagonist. Therefore, it's the protagonist's situation that matters the most. Also, bear in mind that he wasn't charting the emotions of the protagonist, but the protagonist's fortune.
- almost 17y agoWhy do you mention Kafka as an exception? I've always felt his characters were very easy to identify with. They're the confused part of you, constantly buffeted by processes you don't understand. Surely everyone feels a little like that at times?
- CodeMage 17y agoHonestly, I find it impossible for myself to identify with the young man who found himself transformed into a bug ;) I know it's supposed to be a metaphor, but it kind of kills my personal identification with the poor sod.
- aasarava 17y agoYou've never once in your life felt like a complete alien, unable to communicate with those who should be closest to you? Now that's good fortune.
- CodeMage 17y agoThat's not really what I said, is it? I said that the metaphor stands in the way of my identification, not that I can't understand the metaphor or that I've never been in situations that the metaphor tries to describe.
- ankeshk 17y agoThanks CodeMage. >Also, bear in mind that he wasn't charting the emotions of the protagonist, but the protagonist's fortune. Taken from the article: "Is she even sadder now? No, she’s already a broken-hearted little girl." "and she becomes off-scale happy" [draws line upward and then infinity symbol] So I don't think Vonnegut differentiated much between fortunes and emotions of the protagonist. He exchanged the terms for one another freely.
- TrevorBramble 17y agoAs he said, "what's the good news and what's the bad news?" The reason that fortune and emotion are being conflated in the discussion is because whether an event is considered good or ill fortune depends on the perspective of the protagonist. If the protagonist is happy with the outcome, the line charts North, and vice versa.
- JesseAldridge 17y agoI don't think the graphs were a serious attempt at literary analysis. They were just a way for Vonnegut to do what he does: thinking-out-loud about the human condition.
- olavk 17y agoHe is not trying to graph the "value" of the stories.
- joshfinnie 17y ago"If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness."