Narrative Worlds and Personality Transformation: Existential Attraction as a Mechanism of Literary Influence
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2026
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| author | Sulin, Zhang |
| author_facet | Sulin, Zhang |
| contents | <p>This article proposes a theory of fiction that relocates the center of literary value from textual self-sufficiency to transformative psychological function. It argues that the deepest and most consequential effects of novels do not arise merely from formal sophistication, stylistic innovation, or interpretive complexity, but from the capacity of narrative worlds to enter a reader’s deep mental life and reshape dispositions, self-understanding, and practical orientation. The proposed mechanism is not simple immersion alone. Immersion is necessary but insufficient. A novel becomes existentially transformative only when the reader does not merely follow the story but privately desires its world, admires its characters, and allows its values to become aspirational. This paper calls that mechanism existential attraction. On this account, fiction exerts strong transformative power when three conditions converge: immersive continuity, aspirational identification, and value transferability. The article distinguishes this framework from standard reader-response criticism, narratology, and empathy-based accounts, while showing that it can incorporate and refine them. It also explains why genre fiction often exerts stronger life-shaping force than elite literary fiction, without reducing literary value to popularity or emotional intensity alone. The resulting theory treats fiction as a personality-simulation environment capable of reorganizing affect, desire, and self-narration.</p> <p> </p> <p>Keywords: fiction, literary value, immersion, aspiration, identification, reader-response, personality transformation, genre fiction</p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_20070388 |
| institution | Zenodo |
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| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
| record_format | zenodo |
| spellingShingle | Narrative Worlds and Personality Transformation: Existential Attraction as a Mechanism of Literary Influence Sulin, Zhang <p>This article proposes a theory of fiction that relocates the center of literary value from textual self-sufficiency to transformative psychological function. It argues that the deepest and most consequential effects of novels do not arise merely from formal sophistication, stylistic innovation, or interpretive complexity, but from the capacity of narrative worlds to enter a reader’s deep mental life and reshape dispositions, self-understanding, and practical orientation. The proposed mechanism is not simple immersion alone. Immersion is necessary but insufficient. A novel becomes existentially transformative only when the reader does not merely follow the story but privately desires its world, admires its characters, and allows its values to become aspirational. This paper calls that mechanism existential attraction. On this account, fiction exerts strong transformative power when three conditions converge: immersive continuity, aspirational identification, and value transferability. The article distinguishes this framework from standard reader-response criticism, narratology, and empathy-based accounts, while showing that it can incorporate and refine them. It also explains why genre fiction often exerts stronger life-shaping force than elite literary fiction, without reducing literary value to popularity or emotional intensity alone. The resulting theory treats fiction as a personality-simulation environment capable of reorganizing affect, desire, and self-narration.</p> <p> </p> <p>Keywords: fiction, literary value, immersion, aspiration, identification, reader-response, personality transformation, genre fiction</p> |
| title | Narrative Worlds and Personality Transformation: Existential Attraction as a Mechanism of Literary Influence |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20070388 |