How do we decide what is fictional in a given represen- tation? As we all know, interpretation even at this basic level is fre- quently uncertain and subject to dispute. Is it fictional that Hamlet suffers Oedipal guilt? Ts it fictional that Macbeth really sees a dagger or just that he hallucinates one? What, fictionally, is the expression worn by the Mona Lisa?
Representations generate fictional truths by virtue of their fea-tures- the marks on the surface of a painting, the words of a novel, occurrences on stage during the performance of a play-in accor-dance with applicable principles of generation. Some disagreements about what is fictional derive from the failure of one party to notice crucial features, and are sometimes resolved when these are pointed out. But many disagreements persist. It is not because anyone has failed to notice some of the words in Shakespeare's play that Hamlet's Oedipality is a matter of dispute. There is uncertainty and disagree- ment, in many cases, about what principles of generation are applica- ble to a given work.
In this chapter we will observe what we can about the principles of generation in effect for representations of various kinds. My aim is not to settle particular interpretive questions; many of them do not admit of definitive resolution in any case. But we may hope to improve our understanding of the disputes by clarifying the principles on which conflicting interpretive claims rest. Beyond that, we will want to see how the particular forms which the machinery of genera-
tion take accord with the conception of the overall nature of the institution of representation I am developing. This will involve not only observing what principles of generation are at work but also reflecting on why we have the ones we do.
Critics and appreciators rarely have definite principles explicitly in mind, even when they are confident about what fictional truths a work generates; nor do artists consult formulas in order to fashion works so as to make them generate the fictional truths they want generated. Often it just strikes us that, given the words of a novel or the paint on a stretch of canvas, such and such is fictional. Insofar as we do have reasons, what we are conscious of being guided by is a diverse assortment of particular considerations which seem somehow reasonable in one or another specific case.
But rules can operate beneath the surface, and superficial diversity sometimes obscures underlying order. Is there a relatively simple and systematic way of understanding how fictional truths are generated, a limited number of very general principles that implicitly govern the practice of artists and critics? I doubt that any experienced critic will consider this a live possibility. I do not think it is a live possibility. But some theorists have sought such general principles and have made at least tentative suggestions as to what they are.1 (In the background are worries about how there could be even as much agreement as there is, how we could learn to extract fictional truths from new works as confidently as in many cases we do, unless there is at some level a reasonably simple relationship between features and fictional truths.) Our examination of these suggestions will reinforce the suspicion that the search is in vain, and will foster a healthy respect for the complexity and subtlety of the means by which fictional truths are generated.
The observations of this chapter are not to be construed as contri- butions to an understanding of the nature of fictionality, of what it is for a proposition to be fictional. We have already dealt with that question. A proposition's fictionality consists in a prescription to imagine it. Our present interest is in the means by which such pre- scriptions are established, the machinery of various familiar represen- tational genres for generating fictional truths. It is one thing to explain what it means to signal a left turn and quite another to observe how, in a particular cultural context, one goes about doing
1. "Which states of affairs are to be reckoned as included within the world of a given work of art?. . . In pursuing the answer to this question I shall be looking for a general rule, a principle." (Wolterstorff, Works and Worlds, p. 115.)
so. Our present task is analogous to the latter. In our society one can signal a left turn either by activating suitably placed blinking lights or by extending one's left arm. There could be conventions whereby left- turn signals-in the very same sense of the phrase-are effected by throwing red balloons into the street or barking like a dog. The contingent means by which fictional truths are generated in one or another social context have no bearing on what it means for a propo- sition to be fictional. I suspect that failure clearly to separate the two has encouraged the futile hope that there is, that there must somehow be, a simple and systematic way of understanding the mechanics of generation.
Although our present focus is on the generation of fictional truths, we must keep in mind that the interest and significance of representa- tional works of art does not reside in them alone. The critic or appre- ciator needs to be sensitive to a work's features-the look of a paint- ing, the sound of a poem-apart from their contributions to the generation of fictional truths. There are also the overall themes, morals, admonishments, insights, and visions for which a work's fictional truths are in part (only in part) responsible. How much emphasis is accorded one or another fictional truth is also significant, as we shall see, and so is the manner in which fictional truths are generated, including what principles of generation are operative in particular cases. The machinery of generation is not just a means of cranking out fictional truths; it and its operation are open to inspection by the appreciator, and are not infrequently more interesting than the fictional truths that result. Much of the artistry of the painter's or novel-ist's work consists in the means he discovers for generating fictional truths.