FRAZER WILLIAMSON.
PSYCHOLOGY AND CREATIVE WRITING.
207
Again, in real life, failure in equilibrium can come about either by role-reversal, which indicates that some attempt is being made to understand the other person’s position, or by role modification, through the introduction of humour, exploration of the facts, and compromise. Neither Claudette nor Rodolphe put themselves in each others position, and there is no exploration of the facts other than Rodolphe asking Claudette to drop her three men, and there was no humour or compromise. So the story develops from a state of order, through a state of disorder, to a state of restored order which is a great deal less viable that the state of the original order. The attitude here is tragic, the premise being that in a male dominated society, both men and women suffer tragically. Of course, the fictional world created by an author is not as complex as the real world and the premise of the story is only specific to the situation of the story and is not a universal truth. And it may be that universal truths stemming from psychological research may not be universal truths. When male psychologists investigate aspects of female behaviour such as “motherhood”, they start with the idea that women want, first of all, to be the womanly companions of men, and then to be mothers. This idea comes from a socialization with its basis in GENESIS chapter two: