Literary
Impressionism
{
Decentering Plot, Emphasizing Experience
Impressionism
in Art
{
The Nature of Perception
{
Perfect detail by
photography
{
Limited vision
controlled by conditions
of observation
The invention of photography
diminished interest in perfect
replication by painting.
Rapid change in the world
disordered established ways of
thinking, believing, and living.
Impressionist artists
were interested in new
science about the way
{
the brain processes
what it sees.
The brain experiences a
delay between intake of
visual information and
the much slower
process
{
of understanding what is
seen.
The Changing Effects of Light
{
Limited and ambiguous perception
{
Delayed coding of perception
Unstable,
flickering,
inconsistent
Spontaneous, unfinished, inward
Light colors the perception of
reality. What do we really see?
What do we really know?
“Writing should be like
painting, or music, the
queen of the arts.”
{
Joseph Conrad
Impressionism
in Literature
{
The Nature of Perception
“We live as we dream –
alone.”
Joseph Conrad
It is difficult to escape
from the private reality of
personality.
It is possible, however,
to change the way we
see the world
as
a
whole
{
by experiencing another
individual’s perception.
{
What happens?
Plot
 Events
 Linear
 Certainty
 Narrative
 Objective
 Didacticism
 Truth

Plot
{
What do I think happened?
Perception
 Consciousness
 Non-linear
 Uncertainty
 Contradictions
 Subjective
 Dialecticism
 Truths

Experience
Literary impressionists
create an experience,
not a plot. The process of
understanding is an
active, not passive,
reading experience.
Conrad wants the reader
to be confused at times.
Reading Conrad is a journey, a quest,
an experience. Your personal experience
of the perceptions, not the plot, matters.
“Half of the book belongs to the writer.
The other half belongs to the reader.”
Joseph Conrad
What is real?
The surface of events can
be different from what is
really happening.
A literary artist suggests with
images, using small brushstrokes
and strong color. The reader
experiences the gap between the
impression and processing the
message in the brain.
THE PROCESS MATTERS.
{
The process is the force of your own
brain. If Conrad had wanted for you to
simply read a summary, he would have
written the summary himself.
{
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Images
 Colors
 Allusions
 Memory
 Confusion
 Ambiguity
 Information
 Incompleteness

{
Irony
Hypocrisy
Surprise
Shock
Horror
Pity
Comprehension
Explanation
Delayed Decoding:
deferred identification or
understanding of perception
Spontaneous
 Fragmented
 Strong colors
 Observations under
specific conditions
 Limited vision
 Revisions
 Simulation of light (vision)
 Changes in light (vision)
 Shadows & sunlight
 Ambiguity
 Distortion
 Small brush strokes

(details leading to big picture

Sketchlike
exploring consciousness
to discover how much
we do not know and
can never know, even if
we are absolutely
certain about what we
think we know
 Reader’s participation
in delayed decoding
and working toward
closure
 the haze or glow
around the plot that
matters more than plot

Literary Impressionism
MAY THE FORCE BE
WITH YOU.