Q&A Question #2: Is it appropriate to use “he”, “she”, and “who” to describe characters? Ought we instead to use “it” and “that”?
The words we use to describe something can alter our perceptions of that thing. The example with which I am most familiar is in which words we use to describe animals; if I give my cat a name (Stormy) and say things about her like "she went outside" and "Stormy is a cat who likes to sleep", then these pronouns bolster my seeing her as an animal with personhood status. I am therefore more likely to treat her with the respect she deserves. If, however, I do not give my cat a name, say that "it went outside" etc., my perception will be altered so that I do not see my cat as a person, but rather as a thing to be treated however I like (as a side note, saying "my cat" does not necessarily imply ownership, any more than I own my grandmother or my boyfriend).
Let us now apply this phenomenon to characters in a literary work. I noticed that in "Fictional Characters as Abstract Artifacts," Amie Thomasson writes "a fictional character can go on existing without its author..." (145). Thomasson describes a character as an "it" rather than a "he" or "she". Since characters do not exist in the real world, do not suffer, do not have rights, etc., ought we to use "it" when describing them? I think that we indeed ought to whenever we are not trying to suspend our disbelief to become engrossed in a story. This will anchor our occasional perceptions of characters as real beings into a perception of characters as imaginary. Using "it" is not intuitive; we will naturally want to say "she" when describing Anna Karenina and "he" when describing Captain Ahab. I think, however, that purposefully saying "it" instead (especially during classroom discussions about characters) will remind us that we are not discussing real people.
I am honestly not certain that this is anything that need to be changed. I think that these characters are not only real, and with gender, in their fiction universes, but they have been written into our universe as well. Having emotions isn't the only thing that makes something real. I also see no functional use in purposefully using 'it' to describe characters; if it does anything, I think it will cause confusion or will take up more time when you are talking about two people in the same sentence. Snape is a potions master, and Lily is Harry's mother. After this I could say 'he loves her,' 'it loves it,' or any combination of their names. I think that the first one is the most useful while retaining it's clearness.
ReplyDeleteI also think that using it could be a slippery way to desensitize ourselves to the feelings of certain things. Again, I do not think it is largely important, but I find it interesting that most people refer to pets and friends with the gender pronouns, but refer to the living animals who are going to be killed for human consumption as 'it.'
I don't think it's a large deal if we choose to say it, given that Snape and Lily will not be offended if we call them 'it.' However, I think for clarity purposes, we may as well continuing to use the gender pronouns of 'he,' 'she' and 'they'