Lugea Jane, Fernandez-Quintanilla Carolina, Carney Gemma, Devine Paula
Queen's University Belfast Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Belfast, UK
Department of English and German Philology, University of Granada, Granada, Andalucía, Spain.
Med Humanit. 2025 Feb 24;51(1):129-139. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2024-012976.
This paper addresses the question 'is there truth in fiction?', by synthesising a range of disciplinary approaches to the issue, as well as drawing on empirical research carried out with readers of fiction about dementia (hereafter, dementia fiction). We argue that fiction-perhaps because of its fictional status and apparatus-invites readers to consider its truth value, to explore the possibilities of human experience and interrogate issues relative to their subjective experience, community or society. The findings have significant implications for the Medical Humanities' use of fictional texts to explore lived medical conditions and experiences, as well as claims made about the potential for fiction to affect real-world understandings, awareness and empathy around the conditions depicted. We show that the techniques used in fictional language may be artifice, but they simulate a truth that corresponds with reality.
本文通过综合一系列针对该问题的学科方法，并借鉴对痴呆症题材小说（以下简称“痴呆症小说”）读者进行的实证研究，探讨“小说中有真相吗？”这一问题。我们认为，小说——或许因其虚构的性质和手法——促使读者思考其真实性，探索人类经历的可能性，并审视与其主观体验、社群或社会相关的问题。这些研究结果对于医学人文学科利用虚构文本探索实际医疗状况和经历，以及关于小说影响对所描绘病症的现实理解、认知和同理心的潜力的主张，具有重要意义。我们表明，虚构语言中使用的技巧可能是一种手段，但它们模拟出了与现实相符的真相。
