I enjoyed reading this and there are probably many novels that fit your thesis, but I immediately thought of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. In fact this saint/sinner/monster idea feels almost like a skeleton key to Dostoevsky’s works. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before.
The modern tendency to see sin through the lens of psychology also serves to diminish the drama of stories. - Well, yes, a crude, labelling sort of psychology. Methinks the best approaches to psychology are the very meaning of drama.
That's fair. Drama depends on agency. Whether we are actually moral agents or not, drama is built on the presumption that we are. A reductive psychology that denies moral agency reduces drama. But a psychology that shapes the exercise of moral agency without reducing it enhances drama.
I enjoyed reading this and there are probably many novels that fit your thesis, but I immediately thought of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. In fact this saint/sinner/monster idea feels almost like a skeleton key to Dostoevsky’s works. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before.
That's a thought. Dickens was the first example that occurred to me of a writer who could routinely integrate all three. But Dostoevsky is another.
Thanks, Mark. Always meat to chew on.
The modern tendency to see sin through the lens of psychology also serves to diminish the drama of stories. - Well, yes, a crude, labelling sort of psychology. Methinks the best approaches to psychology are the very meaning of drama.
That's fair. Drama depends on agency. Whether we are actually moral agents or not, drama is built on the presumption that we are. A reductive psychology that denies moral agency reduces drama. But a psychology that shapes the exercise of moral agency without reducing it enhances drama.