Thesis musings

“Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
The representations of women with mental illness in fiction vs non-fiction: an exploration into narrative empathy and ethics.

Stockholm University - Transnational Creative Writing Master’s Thesis.

Abstract

This thesis is a comparative study into the effects of narrative empathy and ethics between fiction and non-fiction stories. The research into these fields is then given contextual knowledge as it is applied to the changing representation of women with mental illness across fiction, non-fiction, and ‘life writing’ narratives. In order to gain the theoretical knowledge within this niche research field, I closely study the background of fiction and non-fiction genre divides (Scharffer), Green’s work into the art of life writing (2008), Susanne Keen’s work (2007) in narrative empathy, as well as drawing a concluding link to James Phelan’s work (2014) in ethics.

In this discussion of how fictional and non-fictional stories impact the representation of women with mental illness, I ask the questions: Is empathy strengthened if a story is told as a non-fictional memoir? And, what are the ethical implications of blending genres and presenting a female character with mental illness in a fictional story?

For the non-fiction analysis I will close read an extract from First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety by Sarah Wilson (2017). For the fiction analysis, I will close read an extract from Isabelle of the Moon and the Stars by S. A. Jones (2014). And for the third text, I will analyse an extract from Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. A mostly true memoir by Jenny Lawson (2012), a post-modern story that doesn’t fall into a genre binary of fiction or non-fiction, rather this story fits within the discovered classification of ‘life writing’. In analyzing an extract from this text, I will show how the theories of empathy and ethics translate to a story that does not categorise itself as either fiction or non-fiction. This critical thesis connects to the essence of my creative work as I present a woman with mental illness as the story’s protagonist. This story is based on my life’s experience; however, there are many elements of fiction within the story which meant that I needed to understand how to present the representation of women with mental illness with empathy and ethics.

Keywords: Mental Illness; Fiction Literature; Non-Fiction Literature; Genre Theory; Life Writing; Female Representation; Reader Identity; Narrative Empathy; Narrative Ethics; Narratology; Narrative strategies.

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