representation
Representation plays a large role in the relating and experiencing of stories. The act of representation has two aspects pertinent to this study. The first is the idea of symbolism, using signs and symbols to represent an object and/or idea. In the performative aspect of representation, an object or idea is being presented again, or re-presented each time a spectator engages the symbols and signs. It is a performance in the moments of engaging. A performance itself is a means of representation, but every means of representation has a performative aspect. As David Summers notes, the process of representation has three factors - an object, its actual image, and a mental image (3). The mental image is the performative interpretation by an audience member and is a representation itself (3). Each time an audience engages a text, whether a CD-ROM, book, comic, etc., the representation occurs again but with present interpretations of the representation. So, representation is not only a symbolic act of portrayal and description, but is also a performative moment that lives in the present(ation) again and again.
WJT Mitchell states that the process of representation occurs in three forms: iconic, symbolic and indexical (14). Iconic representation stresses resemblance by association (14). For example, the folder icon on a Macintosh or Windows screen is more than an image of a folder, it resembles a real folder in that you can put (electronic) documents into it. A symbolic representation is more of an agreed upon, arbitrary and associative stipulation; no resemblance is specified (14). The word "dog" is accepted as a symbol for an actual dog. It doesn’t look or act like a dog, but the word represents the dog for us. An indexical representation stands for an absent object. In terms of cause and effect, the existence of the index indicates the presence of the absent object (14). A great example is a footprint. The footprint is an index of the passing foot, illustrating the existence of the absent object. Representations can share and combine the characteristics of an icon, symbol and/or index (14).
According to Mitchell, Aristotle "defined all the arts as modes of representation" and went further to make "representation the definitively human activity"
("Representation," 11). As humans, we use and manipulate symbols and signs - things that "stand for" and "take the place of" something else (11). Mitchell’s graph (above) illustrates the process of representation with the two bisecting axes of communication (maker and beholder) and representation (stone and dab of paint) (12). He points out that the intersection of these two axes shows how communication occurs through representation and that representation can also be a "barrier to communication, presenting the possibility of misunderstanding, error or falsities" (12). Plato worried that a representation was merely a substitute for reality and at worse a "false or illusory substitute" (14). So, representation is a "means and obstacle," a necessary part and problem of the process of communication (13).
Aristotle notes that representations can differ in three ways: object- what is represented, manner- the way it is represented, and means- the materials used to represent (13). The stories related and experienced in this study will be represented differently in manner and means. As Mitchell so eloquently states,
Representation is that by which we make our will known. . . [There is] no representation without taxation. Every representation exacts some cost, in the form of lost immediacy, presence or truth, in the form of a gap between intention and realization, original and copy. . . Sometimes the tax imposed by representation is so slight we scarcely notice. . . Sometimes it is as ample as the gap between life and death. But representation does give us something in return for the tax it demands, the gap it opens. One of the things it gives us is literature (21).