I have been thinking about something.
Every now and then, I will be reading, just going on my merry little way, enjoying the story. When out of nowhere, a mirror gets placed in front of me. Not a real mirror, showing my frizzy hair and sleepy eyes because I am probably up past my bedtime. But a character who mirrors exactly who I am on the inside.
One of the first times it happened, I was reading ‘Catch-22’, which has a major in it who is scared of everything. He is scared of an event happening, and of it not happening, he is afraid to talk to people, and of not talking to people. He is just, afraid. Which obviously is not very helpful when you are stuck in the middle of a war. It has been many years since I read the book, but the character has stuck with me since. I realized at that moment how afraid I was of everything. I was, in a way, like the ridiculous major of the story.
It has happened a couple of times since then, these mirrors that show me things I may or may not like about myself. And it only happens in fiction, never nonfiction.
People in history are too real for me to find a mirror in. Perhaps I relate to them in some way, but there is no mirror. They are their own people, with their own faults, idiosyncrasies, and times when they contradict even themselves. Real people are complicated, messy, and so beautiful in their own right I can not see anything except what they are. Which is, I think, how it should be. I read history, memoirs, and biographies to learn about the world past and present. I read to understand how other people think and view life.
In fiction, even the best created character is still far simpler than a real person. This is not a dig at fiction, some characters are so real within those pages I can imagine meeting them. But real people are much more complicated. I think this is why I see myself in fictional characters. I see a mirror of some part of myself, expanded to be a full person in the book. This can give me clarity this part of myself, blown up and mirrored back at me.
This is, I think, part of the power of fiction. I can read to find myself, to learn more about myself, good and bad. When I know who I am, stripped away of all the lies and stories I tell myself about myself, then I can move forward, move on, or make peace. Maybe the mirror will even be a catalyst of change in my life, to get rid of fear that cripples me.
The stories we tell, the stories we hear, the stories we read, are powerful things. They can show us who we are.
Shaina Merrick
The Beauty of a Story 