Identifying with a character without immersion
We were talking about the limited objective point of view. Now one of the questions that comes up a lot of the time when we talk about the limited objective point of view, is this: “How are my readers going to identify with my characters when they can’t even get into their heads?” The answer to this is something that is a phenomenon that happens whenever you spend a lot of time with someone.
When you spend a lot of time someone, as a matter of course, you begin to sympathize with that person. This is similar to the “Stockholm syndrome” in which a captive of kidnappers will begin to sympathize with his very kidnappers. Just spending time with someone, you begin to see the world as that person sees the world.
Moreover, when we read a story, and we follow one character exclusively, we only know what that character knows. The result of this is that we understand the reasons why this character is acting – why this character does what he does; what we do not understand is why any other character acts the way he does. So, the information that we have is the same information that our character house – I mean, the character we are following. We don’t see inside his head, nor do we know precisely what his feelings are. But, in a sense, we see the world through his eyes simply because we are, as it were, standing right next to him throughout the story – so we experience each scene pretty much the way he experiences it.
Now, as a result of this, we will tend to root for this character – and we will tend to identify with him and with all the positions he takes on any given issue. This does not mean that we need to like this person, it only means that we are being placed into a situation that’s the same situation this character finds himself in. So we can’t help but take up his point of view, even when we don’t particularly agree with it.
This seems counterintuitive, at least when you first think about it. But on the other hand, if you think about any movies we see, isn’t this pretty much the same thing? I mean, in most movies, we don’t feel what to character feels, nor do we know exactly what the character is thinking. Instead, the camera shows us what is going on around this central character, and, in a way, we see what he sees and we know what he knows.(Of course, when the character is being portrayed by an actor with whom we feel great sympathy and connection, we’re going to like and identify with the character.)
(Composed via dictation Saturday, August 30, 2008)
(I leave the text unedited as a reminder of how differently a talesman will compose his text according to the means he uses to do so.)
