Make Real Through Fictional Presentation

Looking at an example of an illustration which accompanied a Victorian newspaper article about homelessness it is interesting to note that at the time photography was a used and functional medium and yet an illustrated presentation was preferred to sit alongside the text.
 "Yet this should not surprise us in an age when many find the dramatisation of recent events in  fictionalised on television or film accounts -of the holocaust say, or of the hostage crisis in the Middle East- more acceptably 'real' than factual and scholarly accounts." - Stuart Sillers, Visualisation in popular fiction.

In these cases what is happening is the use of a single dialogue of the text and illustration to 'make real through fictional presentation' a truth of contemporary reality that is otherwise difficult to grasp in human terms.

In the text accompanying this illustration, the author uses characters to describe the facts and situations of those people living on the streets. However it would seem that these characters are invented, the author is giving life and story to those he sees that the illustrator has presented. 'The fact that the characters are invented and given fictional life stories makes the scene more real to the reader.' We can sympathise with them, if not identify. That we now know of them 'personally' and not as just someone in the street we know nothing of, makes us care more about them, even though these particular people are not strictly speaking, real.

"We are taken along to the asylum with the central character, and approach it through her eyes as much as through those of the omniscient narrator. There is effectively a dual viewpoint, allowing us to both experience the asylum as does the central character, and also to recoil from it in horror."

Dickens

The most striking point in this quote in which Dickens discusses the actuality of life in the London slums from the preface of Oliver Twist is that "Dickens assumes without question that the 'reality' of urban vice and squalor is that which is presented by Hogarth - a statement of 'truth' of the image which reveals much about the impact of the earlier artist's work upon the writer and also of the larger power of the transmitted vision of the truth rather than the external truth itself at a time when engravings were the major source of reproduced visual data."

People are more willing to take presented visuals as truth when accompanied by the text than they are the reality which they may not be aware of or just unwilling to accept.
 The difference is that there is an involvement occurring between the reader and a text or image, they are being presented something which they can then use to recognise the world with and because they have read the text/image have (secondary) experience with and so take that as truth. Its almost like having a preconceived opinion about someone before meeting and getting to know them.

Extending the Narrative.

In the image of Little Nell's death the narrative is extended through metaphors by (in a paradox) altering the narrative of the text. The illustration is contributing to the continuum of the narrative and so alters our reading experience.

The placement of the illustration within the text can also extend the narrative and change our experience of the reading the book. 

On little Nell:

"Coming at the end of the chapter, it provides us with a moment of stati, of contemplation, in the face of the death f the character. That the engraving is placed sideways in the original edition, with the consent and to the satisfaction of Dickens, is also significant. We have to turn the book around to take in the image, and in doing so we suspend the continuum of the verbal discourse. The presentation of this moment of stasis within the text is only one function of the image, which also extends and deepens the verbal text in ways explored above." -Stuart Sillars

The placement of an illustration therefore is almost as important as that which it depicts. You may want pauses in your text for contemplation, to build tension ect. but you do not want to give away too much at the wrong moment. If the illustration of Little Nell were to come before the end of the chapter interrupting the text, then you'd be forced to stop reading unnaturally and wouldn't necessarily have the moment of reflect or perhaps even the understanding of what is presented. Furthermore if an illustration with such obvious connotations is shown before the event in the text this would alter our reading experience for the worst, ruining the 'ending.' Spoilers if you will.

The placement of illustrations can have a number of functions including heightening the suspense of a scene by delaying a moment in the narrative. Advancing the narrative by restraining it. An illustration may extend the text in its foreshadowing of events, depicting a happy scene like a weeding with signifiers of a funeral ect. evokes a sense of dread or unease. The illustration almost allows for a kind of dramatic irony, in which the reader knows more than the character.

Key Text: Visualisation in Popular Fiction 1860-1960

                 Stuart Sillars

                 1995

"What is the nature of the dual discourse that is produced by an illustrated text that truly unifies the two....How does it modify the response of the reader to the written word? Does it enable him or her to enter more fully into the creative fictive world, or does it present that world as more artifice? Does it amplify the concepts and structures of the words, or does it offer separate ones of its own, as a sort of visual commentary?"

This statement would be my ideal opening paragraph too! It highlights everything I wish to study on this subject. How does illustration change your perception of what you read? Does the visual interfere with the narrative 'visuals' or do they complement them? If the illustrations present a 'visual commentary' is this a bad thing?

I think what I must keep in mind is that each book, paragraph and illustration will be hugely different from the next. Therefore instead of looking at random examples I shall focus on those where the combination is successful (and of course examples where it is not) where the position, subject matter and craftsmanship are perfect, or close, and make case studies of these in the argument for the illustrated book. 

"...a novel which perhaps has more claim than any other of its age to be consider as a single discourse of word and image since both are the product of the same author."

I find this hugely interesting but I feel it has exactly the same problems as any other book illustration. Since the illustrator is also the author then those drawings may be exactly how she envisioned the characters, setting ect. whilst writing it. Of course we do not know this for sure, even with the illustrations the she may have wanted the text open to visual interpretation. I think it is impossible to present a drawing and say this is it. This is fact. Given a piece of text you will always connote and denote the signs embedded therein, even without a visual, it is engrained into our human psyche through culture, knowledge and experience. (Barthes)

What if the author is not a good enough illustrator to present their vision of the text? Are we left with the wrong impression? Is this a bad thing? Therefore should there be any illustrations at all? 

(Welcome to the never-ending circle of questions.)

"These circumstances make the nature and function of illustration in popular fiction of all kinds something which the serious critic may no longer ignore."

This statement may not be very important for my dissertation but I am genuinely surprised how accurate it is. The subject of the lack and decline of book illustration in adult fiction is something that appears to have been hugely over looked in the academic community. Even research in the area of the dual discourse of the visual and the written is hard to come by. It furthers my opinion that book illustration has fallen so far out of fashion and the social conciousness that it is no longer an issue to many people and furthers my want to know why. 

It makes me think that while my little blog wont change these facts perhaps my illustration work can!