July 12, 2020
Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”: an Example of Post-Autonomous Fiction
Today’s post offers an example of post-autonomous fiction, focusing on Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”. The article is authored by Igor da Silva Livramento. He’s a fellow academic from UFSC, fellow author, fellow creative-writing advisor, and overall a great fellow. He’s also a composer, music theorist, and producer. Check out his papers on Academia.edu, his music on Bandcamp, and his personal musings on his blog – in Portuguese, Spanish/Castilian, and English.
Having explained what on earth is post-autonomous fiction, this time we’ll see an example of it, focusing on some of its literary specifics. Our example will be a most fascinating story. It appeared on The New Yorker, on December 4th, 2017.
I’m referring to Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”.
What’s so interesting is that the story got more views on a single week than any other one published on the magazine that year. That alone is impressive, but the reaction it got is also worthy of mention.
This reaction was due to a narration technique we’ll explore, and such a technique as applied there increased its post-autonomous status.
Roupenian’s “Cat Person”: The Basics
“Cat Person” is a short story about the unsuccessful relationship between the young Margot, 20 years of age, and Robert, 14 years older. It focuses on describing Margot’s thoughts about her desires and expectations about the relationship (built through instant messaging with Robert).
I won’t go into details regarding the content of the story. That would lead downwards a spiral of sociopolitical and affective issues that are burning the best minds of our time. By my standard, it is not even a great short story – one worthy of literary praise.
But that’s exactly the whole idea of its being an example of post-autonomous fiction.
Post-Autonomy at Work
What’s important is not whether the story is good in a literary sense. That would be an autonomous judgement. Rather, its importance lies in that, as a story, it’s indistinguishable from reality.
Most readers thought Roupenian was writing about herself; an autobiographical account, some awful time she had in her life.
Now, that was a truly post-autonomous reception of the story. It was so indistinguishable from reality that readers thought it was about the author herself. So much, that she had to come out and speak against that interpretation.
Though we should remember from my last post: “The author” is not an analytical category worth thinking through in such cases, precisely because it adds nothing to the understanding and interpretation of the story.
This points us in a curious direction: Margot embodies a wealth of women, she is many. In other words, a twitter hashtag like #We’reAllMargot is perfectly feasible.
However, the question remains: Why did people think Margot was Roupenian? To understand it we’ll have to get our hands dirty in the theoretical jargon.
Roupenian’s “Cat Person”: Theory and/in Practice
The story is narrated in third person, but the narrator is far from an omniscient disinterested eagle hovering above the clouds. It is more akin to the game Resident Evil 4‘s close-up on the back of the protagonist: All we ever get to know is filtered by Margot’s perceptions, feelings, sensations, and intuitions.
Let us label it a false third person or, more precisely, a disguised first-person narrator. Let’s check the opening paragraph:
Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown when he came in and bought a large popcorn and a box of Red Vines.
Analysis to the Rescue!
From the outset, time is framed from Margot’s perspective: It happened “toward the end of her fall semester”. We get to know where she was working.
Movement is also perceived through her lens: “[…] when he came in“. Robert’s shopping is presented to us through her objective, outside-looking-in impersonal listing: “a large popcorn and a box of Red Vines” (if it was not for his name, we would almost hear his voice as merely another costumer order). And last but not least: her name comes first in the first sentence of the first paragraph: She is the grand opener – a most meaningful decision.
From such marks on the path of reading we get used to Margot’s perspective as the narrator’s perspective.
Another quote three paragraphs ahead and we’ll notice how narration tricks us further into it:
Robert did not pick up on her flirtation. Or, if he did, he showed it only by stepping back, as though to make her lean toward him, try a little harder.
The very first sentence tries to fool us with objectivity: “Robert did not pick up […]”. As soon as we get to the next sentence, we’re back at Margot’s shoes: “Or, if he did,” – here lies her impression of his action – “he showed it only by stepping back” – and now we’re trapped in her limited access to his outer side, her observation of his external behavior.
The fact two such sentences form a single paragraph reinforces that narration chooses Margot’s perspective as the single one true (third-person) position from whence to tell the story. A trick well played, most readers bit the bait.
Hands-on Advice
Getting practical, let’s think of a method to enable us to write in such manner.
A great way to write in disguised first-person narration is to actually write first in full-blown first person. Then, when the text is finished, change every part of speech (verbs, pronouns, etc.) to third person, as necessary.
Devising a text under such methodology will ensure we do not slip any inadequate perspectives that would break the verisimilitude Verisimilitude stems from the Latin verisimilar, meaning truth-like(ness) ("similar" is a common English word; vera appears in "veracity"). It may be translated as "feasibleness". A technical term within poetics first appearing on Aristotle’s Ars Poetica as a criterion of fiction. It remains meaningful to this day: If a fictional world is coherent, it is verisimilar. This has nothing to do with truth in philosophy or science. Or does it? Food for thought. of our fictional creation.
Note that the “objective” sentence about Robert we analyzed further above is but a strategy to trick us into buying the equation “Margot’s perspective = Narrator (third person) = Objective perception”.
In Guise of Conclusion
As we saw, a well-devised close-up (“zoomed in”) third-person narrator can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It becomes a disguise for a first-person narrative.
If it ain’t the best of both worlds!
The illusion of objectivity provided by third person goes hand in hand with the affective intensity of first-person impressions and reactions. And, oh if it works!
It does work so well that not only did it give Roupenian a million-dollar contract for two books, it also was the most accessed story that whole year on the magazine. This is a notable feat, considering how late in the year – December 4th – it was published.
And all that happened because of the post-autonomous reception (“Did this happen to her? Is this autobiographical?”) of the short story.
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Reading this splendid exemplification of post-autonomy, I was reminded of the so-called “discovered manuscript” trope in Gothic fiction. I mean, the whole notion of “based on a true story” is a device meant to enhance the affective power of a narrative.
This is more readily understandable in the Gothic (“a true story with ghosts?! Oh my…”) but its psychological underpinnings and machinations are more subtle – and interesting – in realistic genres.
Why is it that we react differently to “true stories” (whether actually true, partially true, or entirely fictitious), even if they represent simple, everyday chunks of life?
Do we have some sort of innate mistrust in fictional writing that we consciously choose to ignore when slapped with a “true story”?
Post-autonomy, as described in this post, would definitely count as a face-saving mechanism, at least: “I didn’t know”; “it looked real enough”; “well, it could’ve happened”.
To blow my own trumpet a bit, I could also here offer the way my Versus Self novel begins:
I would say the opening paragraphs of your Versus Self are masterful examples of post-autonomous fiction for two reasons: 1) the content discussed, and 2) the manner of discussing it (in other words: form and content always become one single entity). Because not only it could have happened or will have happened, is this even a fictional text? It reads a lot like some freer form of philosophy. So what guarantees it is a fictional text and not philosophy? Reading it a certain way. At the same time, philosophy has grown closer and closer to fiction across the 20th century – for good reason –, so there really should be not much distance at all.
On another note, I would say “based on true story” stuff touches deeper because, unconsciously, that’s an impossibility, a contradiction: either it is reality itself, or it is a reduction of it with the constraints of the symbolic order – yes, I am appealing to Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory here. If it is simultaneously real and symbolic, it touches us from a safe place (that should not be able to reach our skin, being safe it should stay far enough to remain safe). In other words: reality is inhuman, if it comes too close, what will be of us?
And to finish quoting Jacques Rancière (I hope the HTML formatting works!):
Your observation that “based on a true story” is an impossibility is a very apt one. I actually mention it in my linked post to the Gothic, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the same would also apply to realistic genres.
Symbolism entering the picture definitely complicates things – and this can be done creatively, if the author is skilful. I’ll go back to American Psycho, and point out that one major point of literary debate is whether the murders described are real or imaginary; the protagonist’s fantasies. Of course, this misses the point:
It’s precisely the inability to tell for sure what gives it its affective power.
Whether because of the story’s social or personal context – the 80s Reaganite cynicism or (and? in a tangled hierarchy?) the protagonist’s mental state – the murders “might have happened” or “could’ve happened”. That we can’t say for sure “they happened”, even within the fictional (or… ?) world of the novel, removes the option to – perhaps paradoxically – establish a cause and experience the associated catharsis. Essentially, it removes the option to (again, somewhat paradoxically) pat ourselves on the back and continue as if order was once again established.
“reality is inhuman, if it comes too close, what will be of us?”
A good point indeed!
As Juan José Saer said (and I translated):