William James and the Constituents of the Self
William James, brother of novelist Henry James and diarist Alice James, was a leading 19th century philosopher and one of the founders of modern psychology.
In his book The Principles of Psychology (1890), a publication that is often credited with making the idea of “stream of consciousness” more widely known in Western culture, one of the things he does (in Chapter 10) is name and describe three distinct aspects of human experience: the material self, the social self, and the spiritual self.
Photo by Marty O’Neill on Unsplash
Story writers can have fun exploring fictional characters via the triple lens of these categories, and using them to uncover new insights:
(a) The material Self, for example…
- the body
- clothes
- possessions
- home
- family (as we share common genes)
- things we have made
Invitation: When you consider the material aspects of your main characters’ lives (as listed above), what specific details of their experience might you newly identify and describe? Feel free to indulge all five senses, where relevant, as you write, and include sensory details. Try writing a good page or two (or three!) of notes that you might use as texture informing (explicitly or implicitly) the stories/chapters themselves later on.
(b) The social Self, for example…
- ways in which your protagonist is noticed (or not noticed!) by others
- ways in which they are talked about (i.e. reputation)
- social honour or dishonour
- different ways of behaving in different contexts
- how they relate to someone they are in love with…
Invitation: Consider all the different social contexts in which your main character operates – how might they behave differently according to context? What do other people say about the character? How do other people feel about the character? How are the emotions of your main character tangled up with how they imagine they are perceived by others? You might like to write 1 to 3 pages of notes helping you to get to know your main character more closely – these notes can serve as a foundation for your stories/chapters later (even if not explicitly mentioned!)
(c) The spiritual Self, for example…
- What do they see as the purpose or meaning of life, or what are their values and aims in life?
- What kinds of thoughts and feelings are typical for them? What kinds of typical reactions to experiences?
- What kinds of things dominate your main character’s internal chatter, their inward preoccupations, and what do they obsess over?
Invitation: Write some notes exploring your main character’s values and inner world. Aim to get to know them in new ways or from new angles…
Conclusion…
William James’s theory of the Constituents of the Self offers us specific windows through which we can observe our characters and get to know them better.
What will you discover when you look at your characters through these three windows in particular?
Where might your insights take your characters? Where might these insights take your story?
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