ABSTRACT
Realistic fiction is a genre with enormous strengths and, in its classical form, with certain built-in weaknesses. The psychological approach helps us to understand its problems and to appreciate its achievements. Though the psychological approach gives us a powerful tool for relating the confusions of the work to the inner conflicts of the writing self, it also helps us to see that there are certain conflicts which belong to realistic fiction as a genre and which can be either exacerbated or reduced by the author's technical choices. The conflict between the mythic and the mimetic components of fiction is difficult to resolve. There are technical solutions to the conflict between representation and interpretation which do not depend upon the psychological health or integration of the author. The psychological approach can help us, too, with some of the moral problems by which Booth is troubled.
