David Peat

206 From Certainty to UncertaintyWhere, then, does a character exist? In the mind of the author assome private image that must then be set down in writing? On thepage as a unique objective reality? Or in the act of reading itself, inwhich each reader is creating something new and different?Think of a male reader who picks up a work of escapist fiction,one of the successors to James Bond for example, a hero who fearlesslybattles foes, drives fast cars, and can dismantle nuclear weapons orhack into elaborate computer systems. The male reader loses himselfin the book, fantasizes about a world in which he too has indomitablecourage, endless endurance, fast reflexes, and instant success withwomen. For a time the reader becomes that character, then the book isset down and the real world returns.Suppose the same reader now picks up David Copperfield. Again aform of identification takes place, but on a more subtle level. The earlyparts of the book deal with the pains of childhood, the love of a caringmother, the brutality of a stepfather, and a sense of being cast out intoan adult world. The reader sympathizes with David and recalls bothwarm and painful instances from his own childhood, perhaps his firstdays at school, bullying, a friend he admired, or an early love affair.The character David is clothed in a more subtle way than the stereotypesof a spy novel. Each reader creates a different DavidCopperfield. After all, the reader may be English or American, an onlychild or one of a warm family of brothers and sisters. Copperfield is nolonger a character confined to a book but has aspects of a real person, aperson who has been brought alive through the creative act of reading.Suppose the reader is a woman. For a time she suspends her femininityto identify with a male child and through that child’s eyes shesees a mother and the nurse Peggoty. A woman, suspending her disbelief,enters the world of a young boy and in turn brings to life femalecharacters that have been created by a male writer.Even more complex would be a Victorian woman’s reading ofWuthering Heights, a novel whose author was originally listed as a man,Ellis Bell. In it she meets the passionate Catherine Earnshaw, a fullyrounded female character far from the shy and delicate heroines of aDickens novel. Yet Catherine’s story itself is told through two observ-