How do characters perceive their world? Representation of perception from traditional past-tense narrative to contemporary present-tense narrative

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates representation of perception in the novel. While many critics have great interests in the conceptual level of consciousness, namely characters’ thoughts, they have paid little attention to the perceptual level of consciousness. Characters’ perceptions are important, as they often lead to their cognitive activities, making up their experiences described in narrative. The narrative technique for representing perception that has been studied is what is called represented perception: a narrative technique for rendering a character’s perceptions without explicitly indicating his/her act of perception. However, as in the case of thought representation, there are more ways to represent fictional perception according to the degree of mediacy. This paper suggests a linguistic paradigm for perception representation, examining more mediate and im-mediate ways of representing perception with some historical insights, and reveals the varied importance of perception in the history of the novel.