Imagined Human Beings - 9780814766569

Imagined Human BeingsA Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature\nAuthor(s): Bernard Jay Paris\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: New York University Press, United States\nImprint: New York University Press\nISBN-13: 9780814766569, 978-0814766569\nSynopsis\nOne of literature's greatest gifts is its portrayal of realistically drawn characters--human beings in whom we can recognize motivations and emotions. In Imagined Human Beings, Bernard J. Paris explores the inner conflicts of some of literature's most famous characters, using Karen Horney's psychoanalytic theories to understand the behavior of these characters as we would the behavior of real people.\nWhen realistically drawn characters are understood in psychological terms, they tend to escape their roles in the plot and thus subvert the view of them advanced by the author. A Horneyan approach both alerts us to conflicts between plot and characterization, rhetoric and mimesis, and helps us understand the forces i.