The Concept of Mimesis

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, as a concept, mimesis claims that literature, like the other arts, is an imitation of some reality outside itself. In particular, it looks at how, in the novel, "Mrs. Dalloway"by Virginia Woolf and the film, "The Matrix", directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, the concept of mimesis is disputed as the characters work to disrupt its meaning. It analyzes how, through its disruption, truth becomes a product of the imagination, and therefore, the representations of characters as truthful images of the real are immediately futile. It shows how, in order to accept the meaning of mimesis, the ideals of truth and reality must first be acknowledged as accessible and how, in both works, these ideals do not exist.

From the Paper:

"In The Matrix, there are multiple worlds; in one world ideologies are accepted as truths, the second world a colored pill can determine your choice of worlds and the third is a complete rejection of ideology as the governing force of life. The first world is called the Matrix and it is the world where the majority resides; it accepts everything that ideology (represented through the Agents) feeds it as the "real." Through mimesis, the people who reside in this ideological world are representing the truth of this life. However, this is a simulacra world and the people that reside in it simply accept what they experience as the "real." Breathing, eating and sleeping, these are all signs of what people in this world regard as the real, and nothing is considered outside of this for there is nothing to compare it with. In this world the main character of the film is called Tyler Durden and he takes on the constructed formation of everyone around him, who all believe they are living in "the real." "

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