The theory of possible worlds (henceforth PW), a modern adaptation of
a Leibnizian concept, was originally developed by philosophers of the analytic
school (Kripke, Lewis, Rescher, Hintikka) as a means to solve problems
in formal semantics. In the 1970s a group of literary scholars familiar
with structuralist methods (Eco, Pavel, Dolezel) discovered the explanatory
power of the PW model for narrative and literary theory, especially (but
not exclusively) for the areas discussed below. Critics of the PW approach
to narrative (Ronen) have argued that literary worlds are not the PWs of
semantic logic in any rigorous technical sense; but this objection ignores
the variety of conceptions of PW found among philosophers, as well as the
heuristic value of cross-disciplinary metaphorical transfers. Philosophers
themselves have invited the analogy by comparing PWs to ‘the book on’ or
‘the story of ’ a world.
The basis of the theory is the set-theoretical idea
that reality -- the sum of the imaginable -- is a universe composed of
a plurality of distinct elements. This universe is hierarchically structured
by the opposition of one well-designated element, which functions as the
centre of the system, for all the other members of the set. The resulting
structure is known as ‘modal system’, or M-model (Kripke). The central
element is commonly interpreted as ‘the actual world’, and the satellites
as merely possible worlds. For a world to be possible it must be linked
to the centre by a so-called ‘accessibility relation’. The boundary between
possible and impossible worlds depends on the particular interpretation
given to the notion of accessibility. The most common interpretation associates
possibility with logical laws; every world that respects the principles
of non-contradiction and the excluded middle is a PW. More controversial
is the problem of the nature of the property that designates one world
as actual. Two theories of actuality stand out among the various proposals.
The first, proposed by Lewis, regards the concept of actual world as an
indexical notion whose reference varies with the speaker. According to
Lewis, ‘the actual world’ means ‘the world where I am located’, and all
PWs are actual from the point of view of their inhabitants. The other theory,
defended by Rescher, states that the actual world differs in ontological
status from merely possible ones in that this world alone presents an autonomous
existence. All other worlds are the product of a mental activity, such
as dreaming, imagining, foretelling, promising, or storytelling. The primary
logical purpose of this model is to formulate the semantics of the modal
operators of necessity and possibility. A proposition asserting the possibility
of a state of affairs p is true when it is verified in at least one of
the worlds of the system; a proposition asserting the necessity of p must
be true in all the worlds; and a proposition asserting impossibility must
be false in all of them. The model has also been found useful for the formulation
of the truth conditions of counterfactuals and for the characterisation
of the distinction between intension and extension (or sense and reference).
Possible worlds and the semantics of fiction
Before the advent of PW theory it was almost sacrilegious to mention
the issue of *truth in relation to literary works. Recourse to the notion
of PW makes it possible to talk about the truth of the propositions asserted
in fictional texts without reducing these texts to a representation of
reality. In a work like Doktor Faustus by Thomas Mann, for instance,
we are invited to give equal credence within the fictional world to the
musicological discussions and to the conversation of the hero with the
devil. But as Pavel has argued, we are also entitled to regard the musicological
discussions as potentially accurate information about the real world: readers
occasionally use fiction as a source of knowledge. Fictional propositions
can thus be evaluated in different *reference worlds. While they may be
true or false of worlds that exist independently of the text in which they
appear, they are automatically true of their own fictional world by virtue
of a convention that grants declarative (or performative) force to fictional
statements: unless its narrator is judged unreliable (see reliability),
the fictional text gives imaginative existence to worlds, objects, and
states of affairs by simply describing them. In creating what is objectively
a non-actual PW, the fictional text establishes a new actual world which
imposes its laws on the reader and determines its own horizon of possibilities.
In a seminal paper, Lewis proposed to extend his
pioneering analysis of counterfactuals to the problem of the truth of statements
made about (rather than found in) fiction. According to Lewis, a counterfactual
statement of the form ‘if p had been the case then q would have been the
case’ is true for an evaluator if the PWs in which both p and q are true
are closer, on balance, to the actual world than the worlds in which p
is true and q is false. A statement referring to a fictional world may
be compared to an ‘if p then q’ statement in which the text specifies p
and the reader provides q as an interpretation of p. The statement ‘Emma
Bovary was unable to distinguish fiction from reality’ translates as: ‘if
all the facts stated by Flaubert’s text about Emma Bovary were true then
it would be true that she was unable to distinguish fiction from reality’.
This analogy enables Lewis to formulate the truth conditions for statements
about fiction in the following terms: a sentence of the form ‘in the fiction
f, p’ is true when some world where f is told as known fact and p is true
differs less, on balance, from the actual world than does any world where
f is told as known fact and p is not true.
This analysis entails a principle which has come
to be recognised as fundamental to the phenomenology of reading. Variously
described as ‘the principle of minimal departure’ (Ryan), the ‘reality
principle’ (Walton), and the ‘principle of mutual belief’ (Walton again),
the principle states that when readers construct fictional worlds, they
fill in the gaps (see gapping; reader response theory) in the text
by assuming the similarity of the fictional world to their own experiential
reality. This model can only be overruled by the text itself; thus, if
a text mentions a blue deer, the reader will imagine an animal that resembles
her idea of real deer in all respects other than the colour. The statement
‘deer have four legs’ will be true of this fictional world, but the statement
‘deer have a single horn, and it is made of pearl’ will be false, unless
specified by the text.
The principle of minimal departure presupposes that
fictional worlds, like the PWs postulated by philosophers, are ontologically
complete entities: every proposition p is either true or false in these
worlds. To the reader’s imagination, undecidable propositions are a matter
of missing information, not of ontological deficiency. This view is not
unanimously endorsed by theorists. The main dissenter is Dolezel, who regards
incompleteness as the distinctive feature of fictional existence. He argues
that by filling the gaps, the reader would reduce the ontological diversity
found in fictional worlds to a uniform structure, namely the structure
of the complete, Carnapian world. Dolezel further believes that a filling
of gaps would neutralise the effect of the strategies of showing and hiding
that regulate the disclosure of narrative information -- strategies which
determine the ‘texture’ of the text and its degree of informational saturation.
It is not insignificant, for instance, that visual information and the
surname of the hero are suppressed in Kafka’s The Trial. This raises
the question of the location of gaps (see gapping): are they part
of the texture of the text, or do they belong to the fictional world itself?
One way or another, however, gaps can only be apprehended against a full
background: the incomplete texture of the text compared to the completeness
of the fictional world for the proponents of minimal departure; the incompleteness
of the fictional world compared to the fullness of the real world if gaps
belong to the ontological fabric of the fictional world.
Whereas Dolezel regards the imaginative domain projected
by fiction as less than a complete PW, Ryan argues that this domain encompasses
not just one world but an entire modal system. In contrast to modes of
expression that refer to the non-actual in a hypothetical mode, such as
if…then
statements, fiction includes both factual and non-factual statements. The
former outline a textual actual world (TAW), while the latter allude to
the virtualities of the fictional system. The contrast actual/non-actual
is thus reinscribed within the textual universe. Author and reader engage
in an act of make-believe by which they relocate themselves as *narrator
and *narratee in TAW. This imaginative relocation results in a reorganisation
of the modal system around a new centre. Through the concept of playful
recentring this proposal reconciles the indexical theory of actuality proposed
by Lewis with Rescher’s absolutist view. From the point of view of the
‘actual actual world’ the worlds of fiction are discourse-created non-actual
possible worlds, populated by incompletely specified individuals; but to
the reader immersed in the text the TAW is imaginatively real, and the
characters are ontologically complete human beings.
Possible worlds and narrative semantics
As a model for narrative semantics, PW theory is applicable to both
fiction and non-fiction. The need for a semantic model that recognises
different propositional modalities was recognised in the early seventies
by Todorov and Bremond. Both insisted on the importance of hypothetical
events for the understanding of the behaviour of characters. Every intent-driven
action, for instance, aims at preventing a possible state of affairs, thus
making it forever counterfactual, and at actualising another state. To
capture the logic of action, narrative semantics should therefore consider
both the factual events of the TAW and the *virtual events contemplated
by characters (*see virtuality). The mental representations of characters
can be conceived as the PWs of a modal system.
Thus Eco describes the narrative text as a ‘machine
for producing PWs’ (1984: 246). He has in mind three types of worlds:
1. The PW imagined and asserted by the author, which consists of all the states presented as actual by the *fabula.The worlds of type 2 are formally described by PW theorists as sets of propositions governed by modal operators, or predicates of propositional attitude (Eco, Vaina, Dolezel). These predicates distinguish various domains of mental activity: worlds of beliefs (the epistemic system), of obligations (the deontic system), of desires (the axiological system) and of actively pursued goals and plans. The propositional content of these private worlds enters into a system of compatibilities which defines the relations of antagonism or cooperation between the characters, as well as the points of *conflict in the narrative universe. The relation between hero and villain can for instance be characterised as pursuing p versus pursuing ~p.
2. The possible subworlds that are imagined, believed, wished (etc.) by the characters.
3. The possible subworlds that the reader imagines, believes, wishes (etc.) in the course of reading, and that the fabula either actualises or ‘counterfactualises’ by taking another fork.
Narrative worlds typology and genre theory
As already mentioned, the logical interpretation of possibility is not
the only conceivable one. A typology of narrative worlds can be obtained
by narrowing down the criteria of possibility and by varying the notion
of accessibility relations. In a broad sense, possibility depends not only
on logical principles but also on physical laws and material causality.
Following this interpretation, narrative worlds can be classified as realistic
(see realism, theories of) or *fantastic, depending on whether or
not the events they relate could physically occur in the real world.
Maître, for instance, distinguishes between
four types of narratives: (1) Works involving largely accurate reference
to actual historical events (true fiction [see nonfiction novel],
creative nonfiction, or *roman à clefs). (2) Works dealing
with imaginary states of affairs which could be actual (strongly realistic
texts). (3) Works in which there is an oscillation between could-be-actual
and could-never-be-actual (Todorov’s conception of the fantastic). (4)
Works dealing with states of affairs which could never be actual (Todorov’s
marvellous). This typology can be refined by introducing other criteria
of compossibility: a world can be declared accessible from AW if it presents
a common geography or history; if it is populated by the same natural species;
if it is in the same stage of technological progress; if its human inventory
includes the population of AW; if it may be reached without time travel,
etc. Every genre defined by its content can be described through a particular
set of broken and preserved relations, true fiction breaking the fewest,
and nonsense verse the most. But one set of values for accessibility relations
is not always sufficient to classify a textual world. Narratives may present
what Pavel calls a dual or a layered ontology. In this case the domain
of the actual is split into sharply distinct domains obeying distinct laws,
such as the sacred and the profane, the realm of the gods and the realm
of humans, or the knowable and the unknowable. The lines that divide narrative
worlds may be cultural and ideological as well as strictly ontological.
The deontic system can for instance describe a world (real or fictional)
in which some beliefs are obligatory, others permitted, and yet others
forbidden.
Poetics of postmodern narrative
Though the idea of a centred system of reality is contrary to its ideology,
the *postmodern imagination has found in the concepts of PW theory a productive
plaything for its games of subversion and self-reflexivity. McHale characterises
the transition from modernism to postmodernism as a switch from epistemological
to ontological concerns. Whereas modernism was haunted by the question
‘What can I know about myself and about the world’, postmodernism asks
more radically: ‘What is a world?’ ‘What makes a world real?’ ‘Is there
a difference in mode of existence between textual worlds and the world(s)
I live in, or are all worlds created by language?’
The ontological inquiry of postmodern literature
takes a variety of forms: (1) Challenge of the classical ontological model
through branching plots (see multi-path narrative) that lead to
plural actual worlds, or through the blurring of the distinction between
actuality and possibility -- no world in the system assuming the role of
ontological centre. (2) Thematisation of the origin of narrative worlds
in mental processes and questioning of the relation creator-creature. (3)
Exploitation of the relation of transworld identity through the migration
of characters from one narrative universe to another. (4) Extension of
the principle of minimal departure to textual worlds through *postmodern
rewrites (the world of the rewrite being construed as the closest possible
to the world of the original). (5) Blocking of the principle of minimal
departure through the creation of impossible objects, inconsistent geographies
and radically incomplete beings. (6) Recursive applications of the gesture
of recentring through the Chinese box effect of fictions within fictions
(see embedding). (7) Entangling of diegetic levels, trompe-l’oeil
effects, play with world boundaries, and what McHale calls ‘strange loops’:
repeated shifts into higher *narrative levels which eventually lead back
to the original level. (8) Subversion of the hierarchy of accessibility
relations, through the creation of hybrid worlds situated at the same time
very close and very far from experiential reality (*magical realism). (9)
Fascination with the scenarios of *counterfactual history and creation
of fictional universes in which the real and the possible exchange places.
(In such worlds characters may ask: ‘What would have happened if Hitler
had not won the war’.) (10) Multi-stranded or parallel plots that play
simultaneously in separate ontological domains, such as reality and computer-generated
virtual worlds.
See also: fiction, theories of; reference
References and Further Reading
Dolezel, Lubomír (1998) Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible
Worlds, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Eco, Umberto (1984) The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the
Semiotics of Texts, Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Kripke, Saul (1963) ‘Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic’, Acta
Philosophica Fennica, 16, 83-94.
Lewis, David (1978) ‘Truth in Fiction’, American Philosophical Quarterly,
1, 37-46.
Maître, Doreen (1983) Literature and Possible Worlds,
Middlesex: Middlesex Polytechnic P.
McHale, Brian (1987) Postmodernist Fiction, New York: Methuen.
Pavel, Thomas G. (1986) Fictional Worlds, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard UP.
Rescher, Nicholas (1979) ‘The Ontology of the Possible’, in M. Loux
(ed.) The Possible and the Actual: Readings in the Metaphysics of Modality,
Ithaca: Cornell UP.
Ronen, Ruth (1994) Possible Worlds in Literary Theory. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP.
Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991) Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence,
and Narrative Theory. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Vaina, Lucia (1977) ‘Les Mondes possibles du texte’, Versus,
17, 3-13.
Walton, Kendall (1990) Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations
of the Representational Arts, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP.