Thesis Fest #8

Continued writing on Chapter 23 tonight. It’s a little harder than I expected it to be, but it’s going well overall.

Something that I discovered tonight that I probably should have noticed sooner: Dan McAdams only uses imago in reference to the self. This doesn’t matter a whole lot when you are talking about actual people because the identities they assume are usually imagoes. It matters a great deal, however, when you are talking about how people narrateĀ other people. In other words, when Pi flattens characters, he is simplifying them into archetypes, maybe, but not imagoes. Imagoes are reserved for the self. I wonder if that needs to be changed in my first chapter.

One thought on “Thesis Fest #8

  1. Interesting thoughts. It may not be too big of a deal, though, because part of Pi’s role as Author (with a capital A) is that all of his characters are, in a sense, an extension of himself. As Author and owner of his story, he has the ultimate freedom to determine the true selves–the imagoes–of his own characters. What you can do, if the distinction bothers you, is note int he first chapter that imagoes are reserved for the self in McAdams (hence his departure from Jung’s archetypes), but that Pi’s authorial position allows him to transcend even that life-story limitation. Nice thoughts–I like where you’re going with this.

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