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 narrate 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.

Today, I broke ground on the chapter on Life of Pi. It’s a measly paragraph right now, but I made an important discovery. I am beginning my writing on Chapter 23, in which Pi’s religious leaders discover that he’s been studying other religions. Throughout that chapter, none of the religious leaders (even though they are introduced at length before this chapter) are called by name. Instead, for six or seven pages, they are called by their religious title. It’s an amazing device, creating a parable-like effect. The benefit of switching to imago representation is that the action is universalized. The reason the leaders disagree in this chapter is not because of any personal failing but because of a fundamental failing by religion, according to Pi. Very cool.

Today, I idea-dumped for the Life of Pi chapter. I also tried to do a preliminary organization of these ideas. I put them into categories–Pi as author, agency, communion, and imagoes. The biggest take-away from today was that I want to nestle agency, communion, and imagoes within the discussion of Pi as author. I think that will be the way to make everything tie together.