I've started noticing a pattern in fiction that I've never heard anyone comment on: protagonists who rarely voice their thoughts.
I've been reading Geraldine Brooks' novel Year of Wonders, a coming of age story about an English town in the 17th century that is visited by plague. The plague brings death and suffering but also shows our protagonist, Anna, that she's capable of more than being a peasant miner's wife. As the plague upends old social conventions she develops an unlikely friendship with a noblewoman, Elinor, over their shared passion for understanding how the plague spreads.
Or at least, Elinor talks about their shared passion. Anna thinks about it a lot, but rarely voices that, or indeed says anything interesting at all.
Here's a typical "conversation" between the two (emphasis mine):
I looked at Elinor when she was attired in her miner's kit and wondered again about the strange turns this year was bringing us to. She seemed to catch my thought and laughed at herself. "All those ancestors who stared at me from their portraits when I was a girl — all those silken ladies and beribboned men — I wonder what they'd say about their descendent if they could see her now?" I did not tell her that I knew quite well what my Sam would say…
This follows the usual pattern: Anna thinks something, Elinor responds as if she said it out loud, and then Anna thinks a response.
And it isn't just this one book: once you start noticing it, it's everywhere. Even in truly excellent books, like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, we have a cast of colorful characters with great dialogue, and a protagonist who technically speaks but very rarely drives the conversation or says the most interesting things on his mind.
I sort of understand why this happens: because we have access to the MC's thoughts, we don't need them to speak to know what's going on. But it can be immersion breaking when the MC just. doesn't. talk.
What do you think about this trope? Have you noticed it? Does it affect your experience as a reader?
by FourForYouGlennCoco
4 Comments
It’s an easy resource to use when you don’t want to state what the character of interest is thinking all the time.
It’s also very useful when you want to imply thoughts or sensations by behaviour or by what the character notices, without stating them outright, leaving the ‘telepathic character’ as a safety net in case the reader didn’t get it.
I do notice it, but I generally don’t mind.
I haven’t, but that may be because I read probably 60-75% British fiction (I have a weakness for British detective fiction), and those seem to favor the brooding type. I also may not have noticed because as I’ve gotten older, I think just as much but choose my words more carefully.
I always interpret passages like the one you quoted as that the narrator is just sharing the most interesting line of the conversation, not that that’s literally the only thing that was said. Like, maybe the narrator responding by saying “haha nooo you look soooo cute in your miner’s kit” but then the narration describes what she was thinking and didn’t say aloud.
The way you’re describing it reminds me of those videos that show scenes from the show
“You” with the narrator’s inner monologue removed – what you get is just the main character staring fixedly at the other characters in silence, sometimes for minutes at a time.
Well hello, Dr. Freeman.