Social Minds in Drama. Golnaz Shams

For a detailed account of Herman’s arguments about the basic elements of narrative and the concept of qualia see Herman (2009).

33 This is a summary of Palmer’s ideas. For a detailed reading see: Palmer (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010a, 2010b, and 2010c).

34 The two concepts of “thought” and “mind” are very closely related in Palmer’s theory and thus often used interchangeably.

35 See Palmer’s essay in Style (2011, 45:2).

36 See Ryan (1991). Here Ryan states that according to the principle of minimal departure fictional entities are ontologically the same as real objects. Alterations are allowed when the narrative text specifically mandates a change.

37 There are a few exceptions within the genre of drama, such as plays where we have an explicit narrator figure who tells the story in form of a frame narrative as in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, memory plays, and some of the epic plays. Also see Nünning and Sommer (2008) and Fludernik (2008).

38 For a more thorough discussion on ToM see Zunshine (2007, 2011, 2010a, 2010b), and Oatley (2011).

39 See Margolin (1987, 1989, and 1990a).

40 Cognitive sciences can be discussed in both a broad and narrow sense. The broad sense refers to the study of human cognition and is uncontroversial. In its narrow sense, cognitive sciences refers to how the neural information processing of our brain is similar to information processing of a computer. This sense is very controversial. Well-known sceptics of this narrow sense are Searle (see The Rediscovery of the Mind, 1992) and Damasio (see The Feeling of What Happens, 2000).

41 There are some theories that try to tackle this problem by introducing new approaches or new terms. Herman’s “Hypothetical Focalization” (2010) or Jahn’s notion of zero-focalisation may be cases in point.

42 For a more detailed account of schematic language representation, and speech and thought representation in fictional context see Fludernik 1993 (in particular chapters 5 and 8).

43 Damasio believes there are two types of emotions: primary and secondary. Primary emotions are more individual like happiness, sadness, fear and anger. Secondary emotions are more social like embarrassment, guilt, jealousy etc. (Damasio 2000: 50–3).

44 When it comes to the idea of the inseparability of thought and action, Palmer draws heavily on Wertsch’s ideas on the connection between thought and action in analysing cognition. This is explored in detail in Voices of the Mind: A Sociological Approach to Mediated Action (1991). Also related is Ohmann (1973).

45 For a more detailed explanation of the six issues Palmer explicates see his The Fictional Minds (2004:171–93).

46 See Ruth Ronen (1988), Catherine Emmott (1997) and Menakhen Perry (1979).

47 For more elaboration on Bakhtin’s ideas and especially his take on dialogism see Vice (1997).

48 The term comes from Richardson (2001).

49 Theorists who seem to have a preference towards performance are Prince (1987: 58), Poschmann (1997: 48), and Zipfel (2001).

50 Jahn (2001).

51 Vanhaesebrouck (2004), this is an online magazine, hence no pagination. See: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/performance/vanhaesebrouck.htm

52 Fludernik (2008).

      ←64 | 65→

Chapter 3 Character and Consciousness in Drama

      Abstract: This chapter examines the main parts of the playscript where characters and their consciousness are constructed. There is an obvious shift from an internalist, psychological viewpoint to an externalist, social one. The chapter begins with the existing theories of characterisation and discusses what is missing and how they can be made more compatible with a more cognitivist approach like Palmer's that also suits a genre like drama.

3.1 Character and Characterisation in Theatre Studies So Far