In my Spanish 277, we read a story called, "Continuidad de los Parques" (Continuity of the Parks). In this story, the protagonist is sitting in a green velvet chair, opening up his fiction book to where he left off the other day. The author explains that as the man turns the page, he is becoming increasingly engrossed in the novel and absorbed by the characters. The characters in the man's book are two lovers. They are planning the execution of the woman's husband. At the end of the story, the male lover storms into the house of the woman's husband to find a man sitting in a green velvet chair reading a book.
The author leaves the story open-ended -- We are unsure if the man in the green chair at the end of the novel is indeed the protagonist. Is he really going to be killed by his wife's lover? Or, did the protagonist become so engrossed in the novel that he just pictured himself as that character? We, as readers, do not know if the protagonist occurs in the same world where the lovers exist, or if they are two worlds apart. The line between what is fiction and what is reality is blurred. The novel is playing a game with our imaginations because the plot creates open-ended possibilities and meanings for the ending.
In addition to playing with our imaginations as readers, the story also plays with the imagination of the protagonist himself. The novel that the man is reading takes over his imagination so much that he thinks he is a participant in the lovers' world. Fiction plays with his head and imagination. As a result, the protagonist is unable to separate his life from the life of the lovers' in his fictional story. He is unable to distinguish between reality and fiction.
Overall, this story exemplifies how fictional writing can result in mind games. I know that for myself, when I read a book, I envision the characters and the scene in my head. The details in the story allow me to paint my own picture. I become extremely engrossed in novels and actually feel the emotions that the characters in my novel experience. In this sense, the books are playing with my head, as they are dictating my emotions to some extent. Moreover, when the novel includes an element of surprise and portrays a twist in the plot, my imagination starts to wander. I begin to come up with my own reasons for a character's actions. Before taking this course on games and that lecture in my Spanish class, I never really thought about this concept of books playing games with our imaginations. I never realized that painting that picture in my head and coming up with plausible explanations was the book playing games with me. This class has truly expanded my definition of a "game."
I read this story in Spanish class too, and I definitely thought it played games with my head. I think what really got me was that we did not know who to believe. The story jumped from the imagination of the narrator to the real world. The mix of reality and fiction was very confusing.
ReplyDeleteThis post made me think about mind games that people play with one another- whether they're friends, in a relationship, etc. People can be very manipulating, and I think a major reason we play these mind games is to confuse the other person- just like I was confused during this story. I think that in many cases, games are meant to throw people off- which is not necessarily "fun" like a typical game that we think of.
I think mind games are among the most interesting of games. It's especially interesting how written words have the power to invoke this kind of thought and confusion in the human mind. Mind games, such as the ones caused by stories, are particularly fascinating because they challenge our brain and cause us reorder and reevaluate what we think we know. The real competition is our brains versus the source of confusion as we try to sort out the information in a way that makes sense to us. While sometimes mind games can be fun to solve, they can also be frustrating as they cause tension and uneasiness within our brains.
ReplyDelete-Paige Rowin
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