Analysis Of Jasper Fforde's 'The Eyre Affair'

How does Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair testify to the importance of reading in the formation of one’s self-identity? Many aspects contribute to the formation of a person’s self-identity. Whether it be their surroundings, their culture, their language, or even other’s personal identities, they all shape one’s perception of the world, the self-imposed rules surrounding them, and where they believe they belong within it. This world is encompassed with stories, and they contribute to the fabrication of everything ever known. It is these stories and histories that surround all things that play a comprehensive role in the formation of one’s identity. Jasper Fforde, in his novel The Eyre Affair, demonstrates and testifies to this through both his use of intertextuality and characterisation. Within his novel, Fforde places a significant emphasis onto literature. In the world of The Eyre Affair, literature, novels, and fiction are one of the world’s most precious and bounteous achievements, even to the extent that an entire division of law enforcement is dedicated to the protection of the art form. The fictional world of Fforde’s central character, Thursday
The theory that the fictional worlds that one immerses themselves into, either literally (in the case of The Eyre Affair), or through narrative products such as novels, films, and television, can affect and somewhat alter one’s self identity is psychological fact (Gabriel and Young