Author surrogate

As a literary technique, an author surrogate is a character who expresses the ideas, questions, personality and morality of the author.

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Frequently, the author surrogate is the same as the main character and/or the protagonist, and is also often the narrator. As an example, the author surrogate may be the one who delivers political diatribe, expressing the author's beliefs at an appropriate time, or expound on the strengths and weakness of other characters, thereby communicating directly the author's opinion on the characters in question.

Related Topics:
Main character - Protagonist - Narrator

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Most stories have an author surrogate, in that the author is usually capable of pointing to one character (major or minor) whom he or she identifies with to a much greater degree than any other character. This can take the form of a realistic depiction of the author (Benjamin in Animal Farm), or a negative (Woody Allen) or positive depiction of the author.

Related Topics:
Animal Farm - Woody Allen

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Other notable author surrogates include Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy, Paul Auster in the New York Trilogy, Isaac Asimov in Murder at the ABA, Martin Amis in Money, Jorge Luis Borges in The Book of Sand, Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, Huckleberry Finn in Huckleberry Finn, Charles Dexter Ward in The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward and Charlie Kaufman in the film Adaptation.

Related Topics:
Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales - Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy - Paul Auster - Isaac Asimov - Martin Amis - Jorge Luis Borges - Hermione Granger - Harry Potter - Huckleberry Finn - Charles Dexter Ward - The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward - Charlie Kaufman - Adaptation

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Perhaps one of the best known is Kilgore Trout, author surrogate to Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut makes no secret of the fact, and meets Trout personally more than once in his works.

Related Topics:
Kilgore Trout - Kurt Vonnegut

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Author surrogacy is a frequently observed phenomenon in hobbyist and amateur writing, so much that fan fiction critics have evolved the term Mary Sue to refer to an idealized author surrogate. The term 'Mary Sue' does not arise from any actual known character; rather, it is thought to evoke the cliche of the adolescent author who uses writing as a vehicle for the indugence of self-idealization rather than entertaining others. For male author surrogates, similar-sounding names such as 'Gary Stu' are occasionally used.

Related Topics:
Fan fiction - Mary Sue

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The expression has also been used in a different sense, meaning the principal author of a multi-author document. http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/8290.html

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Compare: audience surrogate, autobiographical novel.

Related Topics:
Audience surrogate - Autobiographical novel

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