Imagination and expectation in reading fiction

In the course of this thesis I work to provide a reader centred account of fiction reading. I argue that fiction reading (as a form of reading) is primarily about understanding and that fiction readers employ expectation and imagination as tools of comprehension. I challenge Kendall Walton' s make-believe theory of fiction, particularly in his focus on propositional imaginings and his construal of make-believe in terms of make-believe games. I draw on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Gilbert Ryle to provide an object-based account of imagining - allowing for readers to reconstitute imaginings as their understanding of character and story develops. I acknowledge that imaginings of objects can include aspects of incompleteness and indeterminacy yet still appear complete and coherent. I further allow that it is possible to form multiple mental images of the one object and to form images on the basis of prior imaginings. I then consider psychologist Frank Smith's work on reading, and how it applies to the context of reading fiction. I argue that it is not completeness of detail that constitutes good comprehension, but rather the capacity to form appropriate expectations from the text. I use discussions by Aristotle, Lamarque and Olsen, Noel Carroll, Gregory Currie, Robert Yanal and Richard Gerrig to consider genre and convention as providing coherent sets of expectation for both readers and authors. I argue that part of what it means to follow a story is to contextualize what one reads in terms of an ongoing narrative - which involves projection of potential outcomes and reinterpretation of prior developments. I synthesize my accounts of imagining and expectation to provide an explanation of reader identification with character. I argue that fictions encourage readers to share in the experiences and values of their characters - first by invoking common moral values and second by presenting its material in a way that can best be understood by imagining the story from the character's perspective. I argue, in opposition to Noel Carroll and D.W. Harding, that it is possible for the reader to identify with the character and still maintain a distinction between herself and the character. Furthermore, I argue that character-identification occurs intermittently and by degrees. This allows readers not only to engage with the narrative as narrative, but also to adopt a perspective external to the character so as to enable the reader to feel for as well as with a character. Finally, I consider how readers engage with a work of fiction as a whole. I consider the manner in which thematic structure is able to contribute both to understanding and emotional engagement with a text, drawing on Lamarque and Olsen as well as Michael Weston. I consider how a reader's attitude towards a work of fiction and its contents changes when she finishes the story. I discuss how internal perspective and external perspective are mutually dependent - and suggest that our understanding of characters as both self-willed agents and. as deliberate artistic creations contributes to the complexity of literary appreciation