In literature, psychological fiction (also psychological realism) is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of its characters. The mode of narration examines the reasons for the behaviours of the character, which propel the plot and explain the story.[1] Psychological realism is achieved with deep explorations and explanations of the mental states of the character's inner person, usually through narrative modes such as stream of consciousness and flashbacks.[2]
Early examples
The psychological novel has a rich past in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works of Mme de Lafayette, the Abbé Prévost, Samuel Richardson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and many others, but it goes on being disinvented by ideologues and reinvented by their opponents because the subtleties of psychology defy most ideologies.[3]
One of the greatest writers of the genre was Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His novels deal strongly with ideas, and characters who embody these ideas, how they play out in real world circumstances, and the value of them, most notably The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.
A subgenre of the thriller and psychological novel genres, emphasizing the inner mind and mentality of characters in a creative work. Because of its complexity, the genre often overlaps and/or incorporates elements of mystery, drama, action, slasher, and horror — often psychological horror. It bears similarities to the Gothic and detective fiction genres.[9]
A subgenre of the horror and psychological novel genres that relies on the psychological, emotional and mental states of characters to generate horror. On occasions, it overlaps with the psychological thriller subgenre to enhance the story suspensefully.
A subgenre of the drama and psychological novel genres, focuses upon the emotional, mental, and psychological development of characters in a dramatic work. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Requiem for a Dream (2000), both based on novels, are notable examples of this subgenre.[10]
Psychological science fiction refers to works that focus is on the character's inner struggle dealing with political or technological forces. A Clockwork Orange (1971) is a notable example of this genre.[11][12]
References
^The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Third Edition (1991) J.A. Cuddon, Ed. p. 709.
^A Handbook to Literature Fourth Edition (1980), C. Hugh Holman, Ed., pp. 357–358
[The Tale of Genji, as translated by Arthur Waley,] is written with an almost miraculous naturalness, and what interests us is not the exoticism — the horrible word — but rather the human passions of the novel. Such interest is just: Murasaki's work is what one would quite precisely call a psychological novel. ... I dare to recommend this book to those who read me. The English translation that has inspired this brief insufficient note is called The Tale of Genji.
^Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix (1987). "Year Zero: Faciality". A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Massumi, Brian. University of Minnesota Press. p. 174. ISBN978-1-85168-637-7. When the novel began, with Chrétien de Troyes, for example, the essential character that would accompany it over the entire course of its history was already there: The knight of the novel of courtly love spends his time forgetting his name, what he is doing, what people say to him, he doesn't know where he is going or to whom he is speaking, he is continually drawing a line of absolute deterritorialization, but also losing his way, stopping, and falling into black holes. [...] Open Chrétien de Troyes to any page and you will find a catatonic knight seated on his steed, leaning on his lance, waiting, seeing the face of his loved one in the landscape; you have to hit him to make him respond. Lancelot, in the presence of the queen's white face, doesn't notice his horse plunge into the river; or he gets into a passing cart and it turns out to be the cart of disgrace.
^Paul Schellinger, ed. (2014). "Psychological Novel and Roman d'analyse". Encyclopedia of the Novel. Routledge. p. 1057. ISBN9781135918262.
^Logan, Peter Melville; George, Olakunle; Hegeman, Susan; et al., eds. (2011). "Northern Europe". The Encyclopedia of the Novel, A–Li. Blackwell Publishing. p. 583. ISBN978-1-4051-6184-8. Retrieved 6 February 2012. The most significant novelist of the Scandinavian countries is Knut Hamsun, who almost singlehandedly created the modern psychological novel through the publication of four works that probe the human subconscious, Sult (1890, Hunger), Mysterier (1892, Mysteries), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898).
^N. Baym, et al. Eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Seventh Edition, New York: W.W. Norton Co. 2008, p. 1697
^Christopher Pittard, Blackwell Reference, Psychological ThrillersArchived 2018-06-14 at the Wayback Machine, Accessed November 3, 2013, "...characteristics of the genre as “a dissolving sense of reality; reticence in moral pronouncements; obsessive, pathological characters; the narrative privileging of complex, tortured relationships” ( Munt 1994)..."
