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Samuel Johnson Short Fiction Analysis

(LITERARY ESSENTIALS: SHORT FICTION MASTERPIECES)

Samuel Johnson is primarily thought of not as a fiction writer but as a critic, and since his
criticism explains so much about the peculiar form which his own fiction was to take, it is
wise to discuss his views on criticism. The subject of The Rambler 4 is modern fiction. Johnson
recognized that fiction underwent a profound change in his lifetime. Gone were the
improbabilities of the romantic fiction of the past, expressed in its giants, knights, ladies,
hermits, and battles. Contemporary works of fiction, Johnson wrote, “exhibit life in its true
state, diversified only by accidents that daily happen in the world, influenced by passions and
qualities which are really to be found in conversing with mankind.” With this new
verisimilitude, fiction acquires a new power, and consequently, a new responsibility. Since
these works are chiefly read by the “young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as
lectures of conduct, and introductions into life,” writers must be very careful in choosing their
subjects and characters:It is not a sufficient vindication of a character, that it is drawn as it
appears, for many characters ought never to be drawn; nor of a narrative, that the train of
events is agreeable to observation and experience, for that observation which is called
knowledge of the world, will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than
good.

Fiction, then, has a didactic purpose, whether a writer wishes it or not: Readers imitate the
behavior of the characters their authors offer as admirable, and authors therefore have a
moral responsibility to select their characters and incidents carefully. They must also
distinguish the “good and bad qualities in their principal personages,” lest, as readers became
more involved with these characters, they “lose the abhorrence of their faults, or, perhaps,
regard them with some kindness for being united with so much merit.”

The type of fictional hero Johnson advocates is virtuous, although not angelic. In the plot, his
virtue, “exercised in such trials as the various revolutions of things shall bring upon it, may,
by conquering some calamities, and enduring others, teach us what we may hope, and what
we can perform.” Vice must be shown, but it “should always disgust; nor should the graces of
gaiety, or the dignity of courage, be so united with it, as to reconcile it to the mind.” The final
purpose of fiction is to teach this moral truth:That virtue is the highest proof of
understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness; and that vice is the natural consequence
of narrow thoughts, that it begins in mistake, and ends in ignominy.

Johnson was acutely sensitive to the power which people’s lives, both fictional and historical,
have on the reader. In The Rambler 60, he stresses the fundamental “uniformity in the state of
man,” insisting that “there is scarce any possibility of good or ill, but is common to human
kind. We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all
animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.”
An examination of Johnson’s fiction reveals that these beliefs about character and the moral
function of fiction appear again and again. Many of The Rambler, The Adventurer, and The
Idler essays take the form of short fictional letters, didactic and moral in their intent, which
recount more or less artificial tales of hope and misfortune. They are not really what is
considered fiction: Plot is stylized, truncated, and undramatic; characterization is minimal;
and both are subordinated to the moral lesson. Johnson does not create individual
personalities but displays states of minds, generalized experiences, and moral decisions
common to all. Carey McIntosh has pointed out...

(The entire section is 2,148 words.)