True Characters

Christina Stewart
Delta Delta Delta

I was explaining my idea for this article to my friend and she likened it to the scene from the last Harry Potter film, where Dumbledore appears in Harry’s mind when Voldemort has just wounded him in the woods. (I figure most of us Penn kids are Harry Potter fans). 

Harry encounters Dumbledore in this white urban train station and pleads to Dumbledore: “Tell me one last thing. Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” Dumbledore responds: “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?”

What Dumbledore means by this is that we should not automatically deem what is happening inside our heads as unreal, because it is real to us. What we imagine is part of our own reality. We perceive every event or person that happens to us in real life through our minds and through our imaginations. 

The figments of our imagination that come about in dreams or visions are extensions of our experiences in real life, or perhaps little emergences of the realm of our subconscious, which is also real itself.

Take dreams, for example. Sometimes we dream about people we know and events that happen to them or to us in our dream. These constructions are extension of our conscious or unconscious perceptions of these people and of our lives. 

Sigmund Freud has argued that dreams convey our true desires, but taking a step back from this, say they merely convey our thoughts or emotions (that may or may not be known to us). 

Why should we dismiss these thoughts or characters as unreal, when they convey the true feelings that we, living, thinking humans, possess? In other words, just because dreams reframe or elaborate upon certain people, places or instances when these may not have actually happened, this reframing is itself real, and thus should not be dismissed.

We can make the same point regarding fictional characters in novels or movies. Why is Elizabeth Bennett not real? Or Phil from "Modern Family?" If anything, these people are more real than anyone, since they have been intentionally infused with aspects of humanity that are intended to shine through their characters for the benefit of the audience, making them almost hyper-real. After reading and watching Pride and Prejudice, I was so inspired by Keira Knightley’s character that sometimes when I had an issue, I would think to myself: “How would Elizabeth Bennett handle this?” 

She was my inspiration, and she was just a figment of Jane Austen’s imagination. But if she has this power to inspire, just as politicians can, or if she faced challenges in love and friendship and familial duty like we all do, why is she not a person? Life is comprised of so many more people than we think it is—we are lucky!

So what to make of this realization? Embrace the fact that Holden Caulfield is one of your best friends. Take your dreams seriously. They say something about your internalization and portrayal of your friends, your life and your situation, whatever it may be.

Christina is a senior studying English and consumer psychology. You may contact her at cstewa@sas.upenn.edu.