The Problem-Solution Model of Fictions

One of my chief concerns in this blog has been to work out a theory of fictions, a project I have been pursuing ever since the very first post in early 2015. It is possible I have readers who have travelled with me on this journey from those early days, from posts like "Applying Predicate Calculus to Literature" and posts about Ghostbusters and Star Wars to recent posts such as "Evolutionary Psychology and Fictive Worlds" and "Politics in Literature". I feel I am on the verge of a breakthrough, to cracking the puzzle. In tonight's post, I wish to discuss literary and filmic works as presenting a problem and a solution, an interpretive method that is very fruitful and a method I have discussed before. This particular approach to interpreting stories is incomplete however without an understanding of human psychology – in particular, we need to work out why many of us prefer fiction to nonfiction. Why do we consume stories that we know are not true? I want to attempt to speak back to this conundrum. Like some of the other posts I have written, in this post I am, as it were, thinking aloud.

I wish to start with a seemingly plausible sketch of why we read and watch stories, a picture that nevertheless proves wrong, specious. The theory which I will posit provisionally is that when we read a novel or short story, or watch a film, we are driven forward by curiosity. We want to know what will happen next. For instance, the film Pulp Fiction opens with Vince Vega and Jules Winnfield in a car; they are dressed in suits but Vince's long hair and Jules's afro, together with the subject matter of the conversation (they are discussing McDonalds restaurants in Amsterdam) kindle our curiosity. Who are these two and where are they going? We learn soon that they are gangsters on their way to kill a couple of interlopers on their turf. A movie like Pulp Fiction is continuously piquing and satisfying our curiosity. Early in the film, we learn Vince has been tasked with chaperoning the wife of his boss Marsellus Wallace, and that a previous chaperone had been thrown out a window after giving Mia Wallace a foot massage. Again this arouses our curiosity. What will happen when Vince Vega goes out for an evening with Mia Wallace? Will he similarly be dallying with peril? This naive theory as to why we enjoy fiction, that fictions arouse and assuage our curiosity, also seemingly explains why people enjoy Agatha Christie. At the beginning of a detective novel a murder occurs and the reader is driven forward by his or her desire to know who did it, how, and why.

However this naive theory, although it may seem superficially promising and aligns with folk notions of why we enjoy narratives, can't be true. It can't be true because it fails to explain why we reread novels or watch movies more than once. Why reread a novel when we know its ending? And yet many of us do. When I was a child, I read and reread The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, the Dragonlance books by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett and then, a little later, read and reread the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson. Some books I would immediately start rereading as soon I had finished the first perusal. My mother compulsively rereads novels by Georgette Heyer and Jane Austin. I have reread Ulysses by James Joyce several times (although this is a special case because every time I reread it I find something new in it). The naive theory about why we enjoy stories fails because we can't be curious about the ending of a story if we already know it. It is not just the fact that we reread novels and rewatch films that evinces the failure of the naive theory. Even before we start reading a novel for the first time, we already have some sense of its plot – we learn it from the blurb. When we see a film, we already know much of its story from its trailers. For instance, recently I saw the film Rams starring Sam Neil. The preview of the film had already given away its most important twist, that as the result of an outbreak of an infectious sheep disease, a complete ovine cull is ordered which the film's protagonist attempts to evade by hiding some of his prize sheep in his house. Before we read a novel or see a film for the first time, we are likely to have read reviews of it that give away much of what happens in it. It seems we like to know a good deal of the plot line and themes of a novel or film before we engage with it. Admittedly blurbs, trailers, and reviews try not to give away the end of a story but usually we can guess it. If we watch a Spider Man movie or Iron Man movie, for instance, we know that we are going to see the superhero's origin story, that a villain will be introduced, that they will fight several times, and that, at their climactic brawl, the superhero will emerge victorious. Even on the first reading or viewing of a story, we know or can guess a rough outline of a story before we start it or early on.

In screenwriting parlance, stories are built around 'set-ups' and 'pay-offs'. A 'set-up' can be considered an action or incident in the story which raises a question in the mind of the reader or viewer; a 'pay-off' is when the question is answered. If we were to subscribe to the naive theory of fiction, we might suppose that the question arouses our curiosity, but in fact what it really does is create a sense of expectation. When a 'set-up' occurs, we hypothesise as to how it will be answered and the story proceeds by either confirming or disconfirming the provisional hypotheses we form. To return to the example from Pulp Fiction, when Jules tells Vince about the fate that had befallen a previous chaperone of Mia Wallace's, this creates a certain expectation in the mind of the viewer – that in going out for the evening with Mia, Vince is entering into a sort of peril. The viewer does not know if the evening will end well or badly for Vince, but nevertheless there is an expectation that something will happen. At the beginning of Rams, we find that Colin and his brother Les are estranged, although they live on neighbouring farms; when I was watching it, knowing something about story structure but little about this particular film, I immediately formed the expectation that the movie would present their reconciliation, a hypothesis that was later confirmed. (My mother, who saw the film with me, told me afterwards that she did not immediately form this expectation but I suspect she in fact did so subconsciously.) Some stories, such as Fight Club and The Sixth Sense, are built around twists, deliberately seek to make the reader or viewer reappraise everything that has happened in the story prior to the twist. However, such stories do not invalidate the general thesis I wish to advance – I shall return to Fight Club shortly in this post. There is a long tradition of stories that set up the conclusion right at the beginning. In The Odyssey, we are informed right at the start that the Gods wish Odysseus to return home and resume his position as king of Ithaca and husband of Penelope. The opening preamble of Romeo and Juliet explicitly states that the deaths of its two protagonists by suicide ends the feud between their warring families. In Elizabethan times, if we went to a tragedy we would expect the protagonist to die at the end; if we saw a comedy, we would expect the major characters to marry at the end. Usually, we know where a story is going before we engage with it, or very early on.

So, if the naive theory of fiction enjoyment fails, what then can we replace it with? I would like to suggest that a story presents a problem and a solution. I have argued in favour of this theory in previous posts. For instance, I have argued that the film Star Wars is built around the question, "How can Good triumph over Evil when Evil is vastly more powerful than good?" The film answers this question by showing that Good can triumph over Evil because it has the Force on its side. The problem a story presents is not, to be clear, a problem faced by the protagonists which they themselves must solve – rather it is a problem in the mind or world of the reader or viewer (although sometimes the problem is indeed tackled by the main characters). For instance, the films Trainspotting, Pulp Fiction and Fight Club all deal thematically with teenage rebellion and peer pressure; this is why they appeal to teenage boys (and appealed to me when I was a teenager). Consider Fight Club. In this movie, the unnamed narrator played by Edward Norton falls under the influence of Tyler Durden, an iconoclastic, charismatic, and contumacious figure played by Brad Pitt. Much of the film portrays their friendship. (A very long time ago I wrote an essay about Fight Club in which I argued that their relationship is homoerotic but I wish now to repudiate this claim; arguably the protagonist loves Durden but there is nothing sexual in his feelings towards Durden.) The problem at the heart of Fight Club, the theme that resonates with teenage boys, is "How can one be cool?" The provisional answer it gives is, "You can be cool by association." As the film progresses, we see the narrator's special relationship with Durden come under threat because of the sexual relationship Durden forms with Maria Singer (played by Helena Bonham Carter) and because the narrator seems almost superfluous to the organisation Durden sets up that grows out of the Fight Club. The viewer sees and identifies with the narrator's jealousy. At Plot Point 2 or shortly after, the narrator and audience realise quite suddenly that Tyler Durden doesn't exist – the narrator and Durden have been the same person all along. Durden is at once an imaginary friend and an alter-ego of the narrator. At this moment in the film, the viewer feels a sudden thrill – I certainly did when I first watched it. The problem has been resolved. The shy, impressionable, and unhappy narrator with whom the viewer identifies has been revealed to have been the cool one right from the beginning. This post is not the place to provide a rigorous interpretation of Fight Club but it is significant that it is just before the narrator realises that Durden and he are the same person that Durden pivots away from being an ally to being the adversary. 

The idea that a story presents a problem and a solution can be illustrated with respect to the film I mentioned earlier, Rams. The Wikipedia page about the film provides the following synopsis: "In remote Western Australia, two estranged brothers, Colin (Sam Neill) and Les (Michael Caton), are at war. Raising separate flocks of sheep descended from their family’s prized bloodline, the two men work side by side yet are worlds apart. When Les’ prize ram is diagnosed with a rare and lethal illness, authorities order a purge of every sheep in the valley. While Colin attempts to stealthily outwit the powers that be, Les opts for angry defiance. But can the warring brothers set aside their differences and have a chance to reunite their family, save their herd, and bring their community back together?" This quotation has the flavour of promotional material released by the production company. It is significant to my argument for several reasons. It is significant because it gives away much of the story beforehand as a way of enticing audiences into the cinema– although the release ends with a question, we can guess that the answer is "Yes". Even before cinephiles make the decision to buy a ticket, they know not only much of the story but also the main problem the story is addressing, namely disharmony or outright hostility between members of a family. The synopsis does not describe the circumstances through which Colin and Les reconcile with each other but the viewer knows, even before he or she sees the film, that they will.

The problem-solution model explains why we return to certain stories again and again in childhood and adulthood. If there is some pressing problem in a person's life, a story that addresses this problem provides some temporary relief, mitigates an internal tension or cognitive dissonance. We vicariously resolve the problem in our own life by acting it out in disguised form in imagination – although this resolution is only provisional and does not hold fast. Consider the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson, books I first read when I was eleven. This hero of this series is a self-hating leper who has been plucked from the ordinary world by a deity and transported to a magical world to save it from the plottings of the malevolent Lord Foul; in the story, Covenant decides that he is dreaming and rejects the heroic designation imposed upon him by the inhabitants of this world. The problem in the story is the tension between how the protagonist views himself and the way he is viewed by the other characters, characters who see him as a saviour figure; the problem in my own life was that I hated myself but wanted to believe that I had some special role to play in the world, that I was the hero of my own story. By identifying with Thomas Covenant, I was able to alleviate temporarily my feelings of low self-esteem and self hatred, to believe for a moment that these feelings were illusory or unjustified. The type of thematic dynamic explored in the Thomas Covenant trilogies is common in Fantasy literature. The protagonist of the Belgariad by David Eddings, for example, is a kid who is gradually revealed throughout the series to be a king and a sorcerer fated to defeat the evil god Torak. The series also gradually reveals that Garion's companions are all themselves kings, immortal sorcerers, or heroes in their own right. The Belgariad differs significantly from the Thomas Covenant books (it is not nearly so good) but is playing with similar ideas. The difference is that Garion is an ordinary youth plucked from obscurity and swept along volitionlessly by fate (the first book in the series is called Pawn of Prophecy) whereas Covenant is an adult who is continually fighting against the role of hero he feels has been assigned to him by the dream he feels he is in. The Fantasy books I read when I was young made me believe that I was important, special. Likewise, it is likely that the Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer books my mother compulsively rereads also provide temporary salves to problems in her own life.

The type of analysis I am advocating for here is related to, although not coincident with, a kind of interpretive methodology known as thematic analysis. In arguing, as I have, that Rams, for instance, deals with friction between members of the same family, a theme that has near universal resonance, I am performing just such a thematic analysis. Thematic interpretations are the default form of literary criticism – at high school, we are taught that the theme of Romeo and Juliet is love, that the theme of Macbeth is ambition, and that the theme of Othello is jealousy. Stories, according to this interpretive paradigm, deal with universal themes, with abstract ideas that anyone can relate to because of their ubiquity. However, many literary scholars reject thematic interpretations altogether. Over the summer of 2017 and 2018, I undertook some independent research into narrative theory under professor Brian Boyd at the University of Auckland. Brian doesn't like thematic analyses and, in one of the most important books he has written, The Origin of Stories, calls for a new form of criticism to replace it and other popular forms of interpretation, a new form he terms 'evolutionary criticism'. Ironically, although Brian doesn't like thematic analyses (perhaps he has read one too many undergraduate essay claiming to have discovered the true meaning of Hamlet), he believes that great stories, such as The Odyssey and Horton Hears a Who by Doctor Seuss, the plays of Shakespeare and the novels of Nabokov, shed light on human nature – furthermore, he believes that this human nature is the product of natural selection during prehistory. He applies evolutionary psychology to literature. I myself am unconvinced that there is such a thing as human nature; rather, I believe that the problems literature deals with are contingent rather than necessary, arising out of our culture, and that not only do stories arise out of our culture, they also speak back to it, can even change it. When I was studying under Brian, after he had formed an imprecise sense of my particular approach to fictions, he recommended the book New Readings vs. Old Plays by Richard L. Levin, a work that strongly critiques the thematic analysis school. Brian had sensed that the interpretive method I favour is somewhat adjacent to thematic analysis and had suggested this book because he wanted to shake up my conviction that a kind of thematic analysis of literary works can help us make sense of story structure. I recommend New Readings vs. Old Plays to anyone who, like me, embraces a thematic approach but has never seriously reflected on the assumptions underlying it. To be clear, the problem-solution model of fiction is not however the same as thematic analysis. A problem-solution model involves the supposition that a story asks a question and then answers it, whereas thematic analysis is often based on the supposition that a story is an exploration of or rumination on an abstract idea.

Let us assume for the moment that the theory that fictions present problems and solutions has legs. The issue which I wish to discuss now is: what types of problems do fictions present? The reader may have noted something which seems to give the lie to my theory. If we read fictions in order to vicariously solve problems in our own lives, why are the typical problems presented by fictions so far removed from the problems we actually face in reality? I have difficulty finding a job – why then do I not read stories about people who successfully find, apply for and obtain employment? I don't know how to use Paypal to buy goods over the internet – why then do I not read stories about people learning how to download Netflix films and buy cars on Trademe? If I wish to improve my understanding of other minds, why read novels and not biographies, memoirs, and psychology textbooks? It seems that the problems stories present often arise from hypothetical scenarios that have no bearing on the real world, that the audience and creators of stories alike recognise that the premise or conceit at the foundation of a particular story read or written is fanciful, unrealistic. In the post, "Interpretations of This is the End and The Night Circus", I discussed two stories, a film and a novel, that both seem to make supernatural claims about the world. This is the End asks the question, "If the Evangelical Christians are right and the Rapture is just around the corner, how can liberal Hollywood actors, with their tolerant attitudes towards drug use and homosexuality, go to Heaven rather the Hell?" This is the End answers this question by asserting that the route to salvation is platonic friendship between men. The Night Circus asks the question, "If real magic exists, what is its place in the world?" It answers this question by proposing that the place for real magic is some kind of ideal circus. Both stories are playing with conceits that are generally known to be untrue. Seth Rogen, who cowrote This is the End, I can say quite confidently is an atheist (a later Rogen film Sausage Party has an explicitly anti-religious message); likewise, I think it unlikely that the writer of The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern, believes literally in magic. In this blog, I have several times argued that the question at the heart of Star Wars is, "How can Good triumph over Evil, when Evil is vastly more powerful than Good?" This question is also at the heart of The Lord of the Rings. What I have failed to do so far in talking about Star Wars is address the fact that, in the real world, in any conflict, it can often be difficult to determine which side of a conflict is in the right and which side is in the wrong. Yet in both Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, it is patently obvious who is good and who is bad. The question at the heart of Star Wars can also be reframed as a hypothetical conditional: "If Good and Evil exist and Evil is vastly more powerful than Good, how can Good triumph over Evil?" This reformulation captures the way these stories present worlds in which the complexities, nuances, and sheer confusion of the real world are repackaged in a form that is more digestible for people who want to believe that all worldly conflicts can be regarded as battles between sides that can be simply labelled Good and Bad.

We can approach nearer an understanding of fictions by noting that people invest themselves in issues remote from their own lives. Consider sports. Whether or not the Auckland Blues defeat the Canterbury Crusaders in a rugby match has little objective impact on an ordinary Aucklander's own quality of life – and yet sports teams such as as the Blues can inspire fanatical devotion. Everyday I read the newspaper and pay attention to American politics, to for instance Donald Trump's latest tweet, even though his most recent broadside has almost no effect on my own life as a New Zealander. John Donne said, "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main [...] any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind". Human beings do not focus narrowly on their own self-interest and individual concerns; rather, they participate imaginatively in the struggles of others, in their successes and defeats. On public issues, we take sides. Both Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker and The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis deal with abortion, a subject people hold strong opinions about – even if they themselves have never been put in the position of considering an abortion, and don't know anyone who has. It may be that we take an interest in stories that present problems we do not currently face because the possibility always exists that we may face such problems in the future. Although Seth Rogen and a fair share of his audience do not believe in an afterlife, it is always possible that he and we are wrong and that the Christian Evangelicals are right. We can't be absolutely sure. Yes, most of us believe death is the end, that morality is relative, that real magic is impossible. But we can't be absolutely confident that we are right.

This line of thought leads us to the supposition that people do not possess what Bertrand Russell, in the context of discussing Meinongianism, called "a robust sense of reality". Although people pay lip service to rational materialism, the stories we consume betray the fact that there are myths we deeply want to believe even if we know rationally that they are not true. One such myth, for instance, is the idea that everyone is destined to meet his or her soulmate, that True Love exists. This is the theme of many Hollywood movies, such as Sleepless in Seattle, and the generic Romance novels published by Harlequin. In the real world, though, the romantic relationships we form usually result from luck, opportunity, and compromise – in the words of Eddie Vedder, often the woman "can't find a better man". The idea that one is fated to find and be together for all eternity with one's soulmate is a comforting story people tell themselves that is usually not true. The genre of detective fiction is committed to another myth, the myth that, when a murder occurs, the culprit will be reasonably quickly identified and brought to justice. Although my mother often returns to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, she also reads PD James and the Scandinavian crime writers, and watches TV shows like Midsomer Murders, Vera, and Lewis. In these shows, not only is the culprit soon apprehended but always confesses when arrested. In the real world, most homicides go unsolved and most killers never admit their guilt. For instance, here in New Zealand, Scott Watson and Mark Lundy, both convicted of murder, the first in 1998 and the second in 2002, have consistently maintained their innocence from before their convictions right up until the present. The problem-solution model applies to romance fiction and to detective fiction as much as to the stories I have already discussed. Romance fiction deals with the problem, "If True Love exists, how can one find one's soul mate?" Detective fiction deals with the problem, "If murders occur, will the perpetrator be caught?". Both genres present reassuring bromides, that true lovers always find each other and that justice always quickly prevails.

However, the supposition that people do not possess a robust sense of reality also can't be right. In an earlier post, I discussed the fact that children, from when they are quite young, can tell the difference between real stories and made up ones. I am not cognisant of any psychological studies that have determined the age at which children first start distinguishing fictional stories from true stories but I imagine this capability develops contemporaneously with their first exposures to narratives. (Oddly, although Brian Boyd discusses the ontogeny of story-knowledge as possessed by children in The Origin of Stories, he does not discuss this rather crucial question.) It seems possible that children's ability to distinguish fancy from reality first manifests at the same age that they start to distinguish between dreams and waking life. There is a connection between dreams and fiction that has perhaps not been explored sufficiently (although Freud made some gestures in this direction). It may be that, although we know fictions to be unreal, perhaps a part of our brain accepts the underlying thematic propositions advanced by fiction as true. If we were to indulge in some cod neurology, we might posit that the left hemisphere of the brain recognises fictions as imaginary, while the right hemisphere processes and integrates the messages of fiction into its understanding of the world. It seems that we enjoy fictions not only knowing that they are unreal but because we know they are unreal. It may even be that we need fictions in order to distinguish the real world from imagination. A writer who knows something about both dreams and stories is Neil Gaiman. In The Sandman, the titular hero is the anthropomorphic personification of Dreams; as the series progresses, we learn that he is also the lord of stories. In the storyline Brief Lives, Dream and his sister Delirium embark on a quest to find their prodigal brother Destruction; during the story, the reader learns that Destruction, despite his name, is a clumsy dabbler in painting, poetry, and cooking. When they find him, Destruction delivers a monologue from which I shall quote. "A two-sided coin: destruction is needed. Nothing new can exist without destroying the old. Things are created. They last for some little while, and then they are gone. Empires, cities, poems and people. Atoms and worlds. One cannot begin a new dream without abandoning the last, eh, brother?" Destruction, this passage implies, defines creation by being its opposite. He goes on to say, "Our sister [Death] defines life, just as Despair defines hope, or Desire defines hatred, or as Destiny defines freedom." Morpheus asks him, "And what do I define, by this theory of yours." Destruction replies, "Reality, perhaps?"

It seems that I am equivocating. Does our love of fiction indicate that we lack a robust sense of reality? Or, alternatively, do we hunger after fictions precisely because they help us better distinguish between the real and the unreal? Yes, stories bring solace because through them we can vicariously solve the problems that preoccupy us. But why are these problems, to restate something I said earlier, so often so far removed from the problems we actually are likely to face in the real world? Is it pure escapism? I am unsure of the answer. But I feel certain that we cannot make sense of fictions without also understanding reality, what it means for something to be real.

I'll finish this post by saying something about it. It is, like other posts I have written, an 'essay', a form of literary writing pioneered by Montaigne. To quote Wikipedia: "The name itself comes from the French word essais, meaning "attempts" or "tests", which shows how this new form of writing did not aim to educate or prove. Rather, his essays were exploratory journeys in which he works through logical steps to bring skepticism to what is being discussed." This post took me an awful long to write but nevertheless there may be orthographic, grammatical, and stylistic faults, solecisms, that I have overlooked when rereading it. The reason the paragraphs are so long is because the type of literature I most enjoy employs long sentences and long paragraphs. I am keenly aware that an argument of the sort that I am making succeeds, persuades, only if the style is compelling. People will often reject a good argument if they feel it is badly expressed, especially if the argument goes against their preconceived notions. Still, even if I am the only one to read this post though to the end, that's something. At least I myself know something new.