Theory of Mind and Suspension of Disbelief, Essay Example

The question of how fiction and drama work is one that has persisted for millennia. On the one hand, human consciousness is based in reason; on the other, it is inundated with fantasy. Art forms such as poetry, novels, and plays illustrate the complex connection between rationality and fantasy. The basic issue is why and how do audiences set aside their rational perceptions in order to embrace the “illusion” of art. The way that many people approach this idea is through a concept originally put forward by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In his Biographa Literaria (1817) Coleridge introduces the idea of the “suspension of disbelief” that takes place when an audience accepts a work of art as “reality” rather than fantasy. From this core concept, many important ideas about the nature of art, and particularly the nature of theater, can be shown. In fact, the idea of suspension of disbelief, along with modern psychological ideas about the theory of mind, should be considered the most important and essential components of theater.

By examining Coleridge’s concept of suspension of disbelief in greater detail, insight can be gained into the way that the human mind and the elements of theater interact. When Coleridge suggests that an audience is able to overcome the inconsistencies of an art form by “over-riding” or turning-off their rationality, he is also suggesting that irrational thoughts or fantasy have their own meaning. One of Coleridge’s letters touches on these points. He writes that “Images and Thoughts possess a power in and of themselves, independent of that act of the Judgement or Understanding by which we affirm or deny the existence of a reality correspondent to them” (Coleridge, 2000, p. 641). This seems to suggest that suspension of disbelief on behalf of an audience is more or less easy to accomplish because the “unreal’ world of imagination is as real in its impact on human emotions and the human mind as “real” experience.

The quotation marks in the preceding paragraph are necessary because the differences between what is “imaginary” and what is “real” are not only difficult to pin down; they are almost impossible to specify with accuracy. This is actually the point of Coleridge’s theories on “Stage Illusion,” which insist that the reality of illusion is actually a premise of the human mind. Coleridge observes that fantasy and dreams provide a template for understanding how the theater works. He notes that the way that dreams or plays are understood stands outside of normal rationality: “We neither believe it or disbelieve it—with the will the comparing power is suspended, and without the comparing power any act of Judgement, whether affirmation or denial, is impossible.” (Coleridge, 2000, p. 641). The conclusion that Coleridge reaches is that not only do fantasy and theater operate on a logic outside of rationality, but that human beings willingly engage in the suspension of their rational perceptions in order to appreciate the deeper experience of art.

Another way of looking at the suspension of disbelief is offered in B.J. Baars’s, In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind (1997). According to Baars, the process of “absorption” is the way that works of art are able to bypass purely rational judgment. Baars writes that “By soaking up the entire limited capacity of consciousness and working memory, absorption may make it momentarily impossible to disbelieve. It allows us for a while to live in wishful fantasy.” (Baars, 1997, p. 103) In other words, the conscious mind, according to Baar, prioritizes its contents. This means that some conscious contents are more important and therefore get more attention than others. When watching or reading a play, the priority shifts from verifying what is real or authentic to fulfilling an urge to fantasize. This approach is only slightly different from the idea of suspension of disbelief put forward by Coleridge. It is different because it posits the idea of a kind of rank in the order of ideas.

Either approach to the idea of how theater impacts the human mind can be easily applied to any given play. For example, Shakespeare’s Hamlet not only acknowledges the role of audience suspension of disbelief, but actually depends on it. From the opening scene, when the ghost of Hamlet’s father is spotted, reality is cast aside. However, not only is absolute reality cast aside, but even continuity in terms of the play itself. As mentioned in Walker’s The Time Is out of Joint: A Study of Hamlet (1948) the characters who are seen at the opening of the play vanish and are not heard from again. Walker notes that “Hamlet opens with a brief dialogue between two honest soldiers, the sentinels Francisco and Bernardo. Francisco, leaving the stage almost at once, is seen no more.” (Walker, 1948, p. 4) These strange departures from formal plotting are accepted by the audience because they represent another kind of logic, one which is based more on the dreamlike association of symbols than realistic cause and effect.

This departure from strict realism allows the outer world to symbolically express the inner world of emotions and psychological motivations. Walker writes that the “play within a play’ scene in Hamlet shows this function of art and theater. By exposing his mother and uncle to the stimulation of their own crimes in a stage-play, Hamlet uses the suspension of disbelief to probe the inner motivations of two “real” people. Walker writes: “Hamlet scarcely knows yet what his inspiration is, but if the actor can so turn Hamlet’s eyes into his very soul, he can turn Claudius’ eyes inward too. If there is within Claudius what the Ghost accused, the real King will be terrified…” (Walker, 1948, p. 69) The two scenes described above from Hamlet not only show that Shakespeare was aware of the suspension of disbelief, but that he regarded it is an important power of theater. Other references to the stage or to the theater play profound roles in Shakespeare’s plays. This is partially due to the fact that Shakespeare instinctively understood the way that fantasy and rationality can play interchangeable parts in the human mind.

Because audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief in the viewing or reading of a successful play, it logically follows that successful plays have a capacity to “instruct” or “educate” audiences at the same level as real-life events. The theory forwarded by Coleridge suggests that a mix of fantasy and reality is actually what makes up human consciousness. This is important to keep in mind, in view of another theory, that of Theory of Mind (TOM), which is a contribution of modern psychology. The TOM is very compatible with the preceding ideas about suspension of disbelief and the role of theater. It is compatible because it is almost an “explanation” for how and why suspension of disbelief is possible. Taken together with the theory of the suspension of disbelief, the TOM provides an interesting explanation for what makes theater possible.

According to Swirski, in the book Literature, Analytically Speaking: Explorations in the Theory of Interpretation, Analytic Aesthetics, and Evolution (2010), the TOM is not only important in terms of understanding reality, but also for understanding motivations in fiction or other fantasy. Swirski asserts that “Theory of mind is all about recognizing the role of cognition and intentions in our biological and cultural lives. It is about recognizing purposes and goals—whether in real life or in fiction—within a framework of human behavior.” (Swirski, 2010, p. 15). What TOM is concerned with is the way that human behavior is “explained” through an understanding of thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Obviously, such an understanding is necessary to write successful fiction and to create successful characters. This understanding is also used in the day-to-day world as a form of “mind reading” in which we are able to gauge the psychological states of other people from the way they speak and act.

Such a proposition brings the worlds of fantasy and reality even closer together. As Swirski points out, the type of “mind-reading” that is involved in TOM has nothing to do with extra sensory perception, but is based on understanding people very much in the same way we come to understand characters in a play. Swirski writes that this kind of mind-reading is “a normal, universal, and indispensable component of our innate folk psychology by means of which we attribute mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions) to other beings and have mental states attributed to us.” (Swirski, 2010, p. 15) So, when we watch or read a play, we are not only suspending our disbelief, but we are engaging in TOM relative to the characters presented on stage.

This idea is clearly shown, for example, in Tennessee Williams’s play The Glass Menagerie. This play dispenses with realism altogether in order to present a “memory play” that is based almost entirely on the presentation fo a TOM. The whole theater, in fact, becomes a representation of the TOM of the play’s protagonist, Tom. In Harold Bloom’s book, Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1998) the importance of the suspension of disbelief is emphasized: “Once Tom’s initial address to the audience establishes the entire play as memory, the action begins … the two women are seen through a pair of scrim curtains which achieve the effect of both unreality and distance.” (Bloom, 1988, p. 63) The play willingly embraces unreality to present a plastic representation of the TOM.

`The way that an audience’s suspension of disbelief and the TOM combine is the “soul” or essence of theater. The two functions as a team create a kind of magic. This magic allows an audience to slip into the natural state of accepting dreams and fantasies as having their own “logic” and their own reality. The purpose of this dream-logic and fantasy is to express the inner psychological and emotional contents of the human psyche. This means that the theater functions not only as a form of entertainment, but as a psychological tool that is meant to investigate and demonstrate the way that the human operates not only in a rational framework but in the realms of emotion and psychological mystery.

References

Baars, B. J. (1997). In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bloom, H. (Ed.). (1988). Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie. New York: Chelsea House.

Coleridge, S. T. (2000). Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Vol. 4) (E. L. Griggs, Ed.). Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.

Kaysili, B. K., & Acarlar, F. (2011). The Development of Theory of Mind According to False Belief Performance of Children Ages 3 to 5. Kuram Ve Uygulamada Egitim Bilimleri, 11(4), 1821+

Radcliffe, C. (2009). Remediation and Immediacy in the Theatre of Sensation.Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, 36(2), 38+.

Swirski, P. (2010). Literature, Analytically Speaking: Explorations in the Theory of Interpretation, Analytic Aesthetics, and Evolution. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Walker, R. (1948). The Time Is out of Joint: A Study of Hamlet. London: Andrew Dakers.