Parlindungan Pardede

Christian University of Indonesia

THE NATURE OF FICTION

Definition: Fiction is an imaginary but plausible and ultimately truthful prose narrative which dramatizes changes in human life and is made by an author by selecting, ordering, and interpreting life experience to create a structure of fictional world through written or spoken words as its medium

FICTION IS GENERALLY REPRESENTATIVE FICTION INSTRUCTS AND ENTERTAINS FICTION IS RELATED TO LIFE FICTION IS CREATIVE AND IMAGINATIVE

FICTION IS CONCRETE AND SPECIFIC

FICTION IS DRAMATIC

FICTION IS DRAMATIC
To dramatize= to express ideas or feelings through actions

Every fiction is basically a

dramatization of ideas. It tells a storyin which characters perform actionsand through the actions, the author reveals his ideas (theme, message) about human life.

Since the ideas are implied, readers

should discover them by observing and reflecting upon the actions.

 To dramatize ideas the author creates dramatic symbols (or concrete and specific characters, actions, setting, etc.) in which ideas are embodied. The use of dramatic symbols give fictions two peculiar facilities: 1. to produce an impressive counterfeit of actual experience (the felt sense of life) which is used to let the reader get involved and respond to the story. 2. To present the complexity of life more fully by involving the readers emotion and logical thinking.

FICTION IS GENERALLY REPRESENTATIVE

The experiences, emotion and ideas about human life embodied in a fiction are also valid (though not identical) for some groups outside of the story.
What

Siti Nurbaya faces can also happen to other women. Bills attitude, to a certain extent, may be shared by other persons

FICTION INSTRUCTS AND ENTERTAINS

The embodiment of general ideas in a concrete and specific story enables reader:
To understand life To broaden experience To extend sympathies To humanize himself

FICTION IS RELATED TO LIFE

A fiction is based on the authors observation of life. But he selects, shapes, and sometimes manipulates them in such a way to fulfill his purposes. Thus, who (what)ever we find in the story, it always reflects something about human life.

In True Love, Asimov makes the computer acts like human being.

 A fiction is created by combining existing things (experience or observed phenomena) to form something new (a story) functioning as a new world or new modes of existence. Reasons for the creation of the new world: 1. to simplify experience so that the mind can grasp the ideas it embodies accurately. 2. to devise incident that represent the idea more accurately. Some parts of the process of composisition are done consciously; some other writers say it is an unconscious mind.

FEED-BACK
QUESTIONS:

Show each feature of the nature of fiction in Hemingways Cat in the Rain! Support your points by using appropriate arguments. Good Luck!