Review of 'Flat Protagonists', for the TLS

A Review for the TLS

Flat Protagonists: A Theory of Novel Character, by Marta Figlerowicz

In Flat Protagonists, Marta Figlerowicz tells us that ‘we have never been as complex, or as deep, as the realist novel would have us believe.’ This new theory of character not only asks us to doubt the critical emphasis upon character as source of the richness, complexity, and enduring interest of a novel, it asks us to rethink our own significance in relation to the wider world.

A ‘flat protagonist’ is defined as a character whose ability to express his/her self and connect to other characters diminishes during the course of the novel. They continue to occupy a central space in the narrative, but they become simpler, flatter. Complex characters tend to be read, Figlerowicz says, as models for the reader to reflect upon their own lives and their relation to the wider community. So what we do with a major character who increasingly has no sway or significance to those that surround him/her, and whose own powers of self reflection increasingly offer little to no example? Figlerowicz’s theory tells us we might be looking at protagonists from the wrong way round; recognising the ‘flatness’ of certain protagonists might offer a new way of seeing ourselves.

The study ranges from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century and includes French as well as English literature. Each chapter describes a different type of flat figure: a prince, writer, misfit, and solipsist. The novels are selected on the basis that each attempts to recreate the experience of being an individual amidst the mass. In Figlerowicz’s reading of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, the eponymous character’s inability to make his thoughts and feelings understood speaks to a single person’s limited ability to act as a register for the larger community, and shows how insignificant an impact that individual can have on others. The second chapter likewise explores issues of self-expression, though in this instance it is the epistolary form of the two novels (by Isabelle de Charrière and Françoise de Graffigny) looked at that stresses the limited scope of character influence. The protagonists of Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles are labelled ‘misfits’, as Figlerowicz exposes the discrepancy between the fantasy and reality, abstract ideals versus words and gestures, in their attempts to socially rebel. Each of these chapters succeeds in showing that the flattening of characters exposes the illusion that the reader in turn suffers – the individual is blind to their relative insignificance, and has an exaggerated sense of their ability to make an impact beyond themselves.   

Proust’s In Search of Lost Time has long been celebrated as a complex narrative of deep introspection. Marcel is undoubtedly a solipsist, though one with a heightened interest in the indifference of others towards him. In this chapter, we have the starkest instance of limiting self-absorption as Marcel’s writing (about himself) is shown to be a project as much about the finitude of one’s self as it is an exercise in exploring and expressing one’s depths and complexities. Given Proust’s protagonist’s self awareness, this chapter strains against the earlier models of a ‘flat’ character but the analysis of Marcel’s acceptance (and practice) of self-enclosure makes for one of the most interesting studies in the book. To make sense of the world, simplification and narrowness of vision are shown to be necessary, not counter-productive.

Whilst a flat protagonist becomes more singular as the novel progresses, Figlerowicz hopes that her theory will mean the opposite for our interpretation of characters. Rather, it will, she writes, ‘open up ways of reading novels more open mindedly and even more generously.’ The identification of the ‘flat protagonist’ will certainly lead to other discoveries of this type in novels not explored here. Whether the theory will change how we read character in general, however, seems less likely; the celebration of individualism has hardly abated in criticism or beyond. The implications of this theory for our own ontology, however, is one of the great strengths of this study and one finely tailored to our own moment.

Figlerowicz tells us in no uncertain terms that characters have, for too long, convinced us of our sense of self-importance. Reading protagonists encourages us to think of ourselves as at the centre of our narrative with the surrounding world as supporting cast. At a time where an individual is able to project (versions of) ‘self’ via multiple digital avatars and platforms; contribute a ‘voice’ and opinion to virtually any (or any virtual) discussion; and connection to the wider world is seemingly illimitable, Figlerowicz’s theory scorns the impression that we are constantly the object of other people’s attention. To see yourself as a flat protagonist ‘is to imagine your existence as something in which other people might be interested only cursorily, or as a pastime, or maybe not at all.’ It is this practice of decentring, or ‘mental exercise in limiting one’s sense of oneself as the object of other people’s  interest’ that Flat Protagonists truly succeeds in promoting.