Levels of Reality

During this century, humans have started to recognize that we really have no idea of what reality is. This has largely been a result of the development of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. At about the time these two new fields of physics were first being explored, Pirandello wrote his play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Many of the questions raised by relativity and quantum mechanics are touched upon in this play. Examples of this include the relativity of perception and the fact that a model can never be that which it is modeling. The basic nature of reality is also explored by both the play and the physics. Pirandello has the Father, a character in his play, state that literary characters are more real than human beings because their reality never changes. I have to disagree. I do not think that characters are more real than people and, if following the Father's line of reasoning, are actually less real than people.

The Father says that characters are more real than people because their reality is "an immutable reality". He claims that a person's reality will change as the person changes and matures. This does not occur with a character, so they are more real. I see three major problems with this hypothesis. First, the Father bases his argument on what he sees as the changing reality of people, but his perceptions have twisted reality so that what he sees is not what is actually occurring. Also, according to the Father's logic, a person would be just as real as a character if any part of his or her life has been written down and, thus, characters and people are equally real. Lastly, I feel that, as a result of what defines the identity of each, a character is simply less real than a person.

The Father feels that people are less real than characters because a person's reality changes, that it is "mere transitory and fleeting illusion" while that of a character is permanent. I disagree with the Father on this. It is not a person's reality (or at least not as much as the Father suggests) but his or her perceptions of reality that change. A person might see an event in one way now and in another way tomorrow. However, the event has not changed in reality. The Father believes that he is observing the changing reality of people, but what he is in fact describing is the changing perceptions people have of the reality outside of them. This reality is very different from that which exists inside the person. Both may change, but, as with outside reality, a person's inner reality will change very slowly. Of course, a person's perceptions of both may change radically in his or her lifetime. This is what I think the Father is really speaking of, though he does not realize it, and this has very little to do with how real a character is. It is the inner reality that defines a person and the Father is speaking of a person's perception of outer reality. Even if a person's reality is changing as dramatically as the Father wishes us to believe (which I do not), it seems that it would be a simple matter to make a person just as real as a character. All that would have to be done is record the events that have occurred in the person's life. This would have the effect of making the person a character since then his or her reality would become just as "permanent" as that of the Father's or any other character's. In the Father's eyes, the person would become just as real as a character. After all, if a biography of John Wayne was found by a nuclear holocaust survivor who had never heard of him before, John Wayne would be no different to this person than a purely fictional figure such as Tarzan.

I believe there is, however, a difference between characters and people that make people "more real". In both cases, we interpret the actions of the character or person to form our own perception of his or her identity. It is through these actions that a character is defined. When trying to understand people, however, there is always something we cannot see that limits the extent of our assessment. A person always has an identity outside of what is observed or recorded of him or her.

For example, take the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. We know about Hamlet from his actions in the play. This character can be interpreted in many different ways. Hamlet can be a brooding, morbid character or one that is vibrant and boisterous. Both of these interpretations are still Hamlet because they are both based upon observations of the same actions. Neither is truer to Hamlet than the other because there is nothing more to the character than what we can see.

When trying to understand a real person, such as Thomas Jefferson, we undergo the same process. We observe his actions and interpret them in order to develop a picture of who Jefferson the man was. However, Jefferson was a real man and there was a reality that was him that is transcendent of how our models portray him. There are facets of Jefferson that are, and always will be, hidden from us that also define the man. This is the genuine reality of Jefferson and it transcends and is truer than our models of him can ever be. Hamlet does not have this inner definition. He does not exist outside of Hamlet, and thus every interpretation is just as accurate as any other since we know everything there is to know about his character. In Jefferson's case, an accurate interpretation of his identity does not exist because there will always be more to him than we can ever know.

The Father tries to convince the Manager (and, as a result, us) that characters are in some way more real than people. However, the only thing that defines a character is his or her actions. It is from a character's behavior that people develop their understanding of the character and, since no person's opinion is more correct than another's, the character has thousands of different realities. When dealing with a person, there is something in that person that defines him or her, regardless of what our opinions of him or her are. A person, like a character, has thousands of realities, but he or she also has one reality that transcends the others and this is the one that exists inside of the person. The Father's assertion that characters are more real than people seems to be false and lacking in any convincing support. He bases his argument on observations whose significance is interpreted incorrectly. His entire proposition is weak.

I think that Pirandello's incentive to explore the questions that he does in Six Characters probably stems from knowledge of the revolutionary thought that was occurring in physics at the time. It would be interesting to analyze how the philosophical aspects of Six Characters resemble those of modern physics. I see many similarities between the two. It seems that Pirandello had some knowledge of those ideas and that those ideas found their way into his work. I do not know if this is true, but I suspect that it is and it would be very interesting to research the matter and discover if my suspicions are correct.