10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 V era N üNNiNg The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ Twelve Strategies for the Direction of Readers’ Sympathy It may seem strange to take a famous statement by George Eliot as a cue for exploring the value of literature in the twenty-first century. After all, the values and worries of Victorian times are quite remote from our contemporary reality, and the didactic conception of literature as a means to delight and to teach, particularly regarding morals, is definitely a thing of the past. So why should we concern ourselves with Eliot’s belief that the greatest value of literature lies in its potential to extend our sympathies? 1 With hundreds of Facebook friends and constant communication via other social media, we seem to have extended our potential for sympathising with others to the limit Looked at more closely, Eliot’s conceptualisation of the value of literature is even more timely today than it was in the middle of the nineteenth century In the 1840s, Benjamin Disraeli tried to bridge the gap between what he called Two Nations within Britain, but today the divisions within societies seem to have multiplied There are growing chasms between different groups; a liberal’s view of the world differs profoundly from that of a conservative, and right-wing ‘populists’ work with prejudices and distort facts, creating yet another world for themselves In addition to politics, factors such as religion and the question of immigration foster divisions, which have grown in many countries during the last ten years 2 Even the process of globalisation adds to such rifts, for it concerns the spreading not only of capitalism, but also of a particular kind of conservative politics aimed at excluding others as well as the dissemination “of fundamentalist structures of feeling (not only in religion, but in politics, identity, etc )” 3 Communicative rules in social media 1 See George Eliot, “The Natural History of German Life,” Essays of George Eliot, ed Thomas Pinney (1856; London: Routledge/ Kegan Paul, 1963), 270 2 See Bobby Duffy et al , “BBC Global Survey: A World Divided? ” Ipsos MORI, 23 April 2018, www ipsos com/ ipsos-mori/ en-uk/ bbc-global-survey-world-divided 3 Lawrence Grossberg, Cultural Studies in the Future Tense (Durham: Duke UP, 2010), 59 74 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 are also involved in these changes and render it difficult to make one feel empathy with others; hate-speech has become an unfortunate and growing part of digital communication It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that the Dalai Lama thinks that “compassion for all living beings” is the first step in the attempt to counter nationalist and tribalist traditions in the twenty-first century 4 Modern scientists agree that an other-oriented feeling that makes us concerned for the welfare of others is at the root of altruistic behaviour 5 If this feeling plays such an important role for peaceful communication and cooperation, the value of fiction as a means for extending our sympathies can scarcely be overestimated. In order to explore this affective value of fiction, I will first of all clarify some key terms, such as sympathy and empathy, as well as their relation to fictional works. After briefly showing why literature can serve to foster sympathy, I will explore the narrative conventions that bear the potential to extend readers’ sympathies Though there are a host of strategies to be considered, one can arguably group them into six conventions relating to the level of narrative mediation and another six concerning plot patterns and the conceptualisation of characters The conclusion will focus not only on the benefits, but also on the dangers involved in the potential of fiction to arouse readers’ sympathies 1 Evoking Sympathy and Empathy in Works of Fiction: Clarifying Key Terms and Processes At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the resurgence of nationalist traditions and growing rifts and divisions even within nations, the most important value of literature may be its potential to evoke sympathy and foster positive feelings for others. In order to explore this potential of fiction, however, one needs to consider related concepts, one of which can already be found in Eliot’s beliefs about literature: The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies Appeals founded on generalizations and statistics re- 4 Quoted in Paul Ekman, ed , Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion: A Conversation Between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman (New York: Times Books, 2008), 186 For social media see Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now (London: The Bodley Head 2018), 74-80 5 Cf Daniel C Batson/ Nadia Ahmad/ David A Lishner, “Empathy and Altruism,” Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, eds Shane J Lopez/ C R Snyder (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 418-420 The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 75 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 quire a sympathy ready-made, a moral sentiment already in activity; but a picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment 6 What one needs in order to extend one’s sympathy, is, first of all, the giving of attention to something or someone apart from oneself In the context of literary studies in the twenty-first century, this call for attention can be related to ‘deep reading’ or ‘immersion’ These terms signify more than simple concentration on any menial text, such as a cooking recipe or an instant message on social media While paying full attention to a broad range of activities plays an important role for the quality of one’s life and experience, 7 it does not entail the kind of positive effect that the absorption in literary works may have. In order to profit from the cognitive and affective potential of literature, one needs to fully immerse oneself in a book 8 Attention is one facet of this process of immersion 9 In addition, one needs to distinguish between sympathy and empathy When Adam Smith contributed to the popularisation of the value of sympathy in the eighteenth century, the term ‘empathy’ did not exist, and he used the word ‘sympathy’ to designate two meanings: that of empathy, i e feeling like someone else, and of sympathy, i e feeling for someone else, which usually signified pity or compassion. Empathy and sympathy are closely related, and literary characters can evoke both feelings Nevertheless, for clarity’s sake, it is helpful to differentiate between them In literary works, empathy, the sharing of the feelings of characters, can be induced in different ways One important means of inciting empathy is 6 Eliot, “Natural History,” 270 For Eliot’s conceptualisation of the value of literature for the extension of our sympathies see, e g , Ansgar Nünning, “‘The Extension of our Sympathies’: George Eliot’s Aesthetic Theory and Narrative Technique as a Key to the Affective, Cognitive, and Social Value of Literature,” Values of Literature, eds Hanna Meretoja et al (London: Rodopi, 2015), 117-137 7 See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 128 8 See Melanie C Green/ Timothy C Brock, “The Role of Transportation in the Persuasiveness of Public Narratives, “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 5 (2000), 701-721 See also Keith Oatley, “Fiction: Simulation of Social Worlds,” Trends in Cognitive Science 20 8 (2016), 618-628 9 See Moniek M Kuijpers et al , “Towards a New Understanding of Absorbing Reading Experiences,” Narrative Absorption, eds Frank Hakemulder et al (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2017), 29-47 They stress that attention, mental imagery, emotional engagement and transportation are involved in what they call narrative absorption These four facets have also been emphasised in previous research, for instance in many studies by Melanie Green, some of which are specifically referred to below. 76 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 the use of focalisation (for instance by free indirect discourse), which enables readers to see and feel the situation through the eyes of a character 10 A second mode of evoking empathy with characters involves putting them into a difficult situation, which may lead either to a good or bad outcome. This can prompt readers to imagine themselves being in that difficult situation; this has been called “situational empathy” 11 This feeling provides an incentive for caring about the future of the characters Placing literary characters in a precarious position reduces the distance towards them and is an important basis for the readers’ willingness to take their perspective; this device has been popular for centuries in Western literature The problems the characters have to deal with differ significantly according to the genre in question, and they may range from trying to escape from a gruesome prison on an isolated island to choosing the right husband Sympathy, in contrast, presupposes a certain distance between the reader and character, with the reader acting as an observer who is moved by the fate of the character Rather than sharing emotions such as insecurity, fear or sadness, readers can respond with a different feeling, namely compassion This feeling can even be evoked when the character is not troubled by problems and is not feeling any negative emotions such as fear or sadness, which the reader could share In George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch (1871-72), for instance, readers may feel pity for Dorothea, when she herself is full of happy anticipation for the (from her point of view) exciting and meaningful life she will lead together with her husband-to-be, Casaubon Knowing more about Casaubon’s intentions and desires than Dorothea, however, readers are able to foresee a very different, sad future for the heroine and therefore feel compassion for her In Eliot’s novels, the authorial narrators play an important role in evoking the audience’s sympathy, since they often explicitly appeal to the pity of readers or explain the characters’ motives and (mis)conceptions, which puts readers in a superior position, enabling them to feel compassion with a broad range of characters However, it is impossible to make any generalisations about ‘the effect’ of literature, since there are differences with regard to both readers and works of literature Not everyone is able to fully immerse themselves in a novel; some genres and individual works lend themselves more to immersive reading than others, and even the same reader may at one time be deeply engaged with a novel, and at other times might not be able to concentrate on the con- 10 The importance of focalisation will be discussed below 11 See Patrick C Hogan, The Mind and Its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 140 The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 77 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 tent of the same book at all As Melanie Green shows, some readers are more able to feel transported and to forget their surroundings while focusing on fictional narratives, and books of high quality invite more immersive reading than others, for instance those written by psychologists for test purposes 12 The kind of story world and type of plot (for instance of adventure fiction or romance) and literary style also play a role in the readers’ response to a literary work 13 Moreover, readers of different ages and experiences have heterogeneous preferences for particular genres and works: What is too complex for one person may well be too boring for someone else Even though it is impossible to predict the effect of works of fiction on specific readers, it is possible to explore the potential of specific texts and narrative features for evoking readers’ empathy and pity As the quote by Eliot shows, she was aware that not every book can extend readers’ sympathy For her, only “a great artist” can achieve this feat As most authors in the nineteenth century, she confidently distinguished between great and minor authors, some of which she criticised in her essay on “silly lady novelists” Nowadays it is a matter of dispute as to which works can be said to be of high quality and in how far it is possible to differentiate between ‘canonical works’ and merely ‘popular’ ones Moreover, there is no direct relation between literary fiction and the evocation of positive emotions; instead, our sympathies can also be engaged by reading extremely popular works such as Joanne K Rowling’s Harry Potter (1997-2007), Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) or even Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877) - probably much more so than by some postmodern novels The distinction between ‘great’ and ‘minor’ artists therefore does not help to elucidate the question of which literary works are able to achieve the extension of readers’ sympathies Instead, it is worthwhile to ask which kind of works can extend one’s sympathy to others who are not similar to oneself After all, feeling empathy and sympathy with those who belong to one’s family and close friends or are similar to oneself is, fortunately, a rather common reaction 14 The difficulties become much more pronounced when unfamiliar and dissimilar people or members from out-groups are concerned In order to explore the question of which works are able to elicit the readers’ sympathy, it is necessary to shed some light on the concept of sympathy As a meticulous study by Howard Sklar demonstrates, the interdisciplinary research on narrative sympathy encompasses several components: A reader’s 12 Melanie C Green, “Transportation into Narrative Worlds: The Role of Prior Knowledge and Perceived Realism,” Discourse Processes 38 2 (2004), 248-249 13 See Kujpers et al , “Towards a New Understanding,” 34-37 14 See Batson et al , “Empathy and Altruism” 78 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 awareness that the suffering of the character should be alleviated and is frequently judged to be unfair, “‘Negative’ feelings on behalf of the sufferer, [and a] Desire to help” 15 That ‘sympathy’ is a pejorative term for some scholars may be due to their belief in the alleged superiority of the observer and the allegedly egoistic desire to help the sufferer 16 The negative attitude towards the concept can also be related to the denigration of the ‘sentimentalism’ of the second half of the eighteenth century, when Adam Smith and David Hume introduced their reflections about the moral importance of sympathy. However, in the culture of sensibility (a less pejorative term for ‘sentimentalism’), sympathy, benevolence and other refined feelings were not divorced from rationality; in fact, the link to reason was as close as to morality 17 Taking their cue from the meaning of the English term ‘sympathy’, literary scholars often work with a concept of sympathy that excludes positive feelings on the part of readers Sklar and others emphasise that “at the heart of sympathetic experience is a judgment of the unfairness or unpleasantness of another’s situation”, 18 which presupposes that the feeling of sympathy is more or less equivalent to that of pity or compassion: We feel sympathy for those who suffer Consequently, literary scholars have concentrated on narrative means of raising compassion for the characters in question The exploration of modes of directing readers’ sympathy is thus focussed on “‘Negative’ feelings on behalf of the sufferer” 19 This focus on affective responses to people in distress is shared by psychologists, who are interested in such reactions because they are the most important source for altruistic behaviour. As Daniel Batson and his colleagues confirm, there are many terms for these feelings, but most of them centre on an other-oriented emotional reaction to seeing another person in need This emotional reaction has variously been called “empathy” (Batson, 1987; Krebs, 1975; Stotland, 1969), “sympathy” (Eisenberg Strayer, 1987; Heider, 1958; Wispé, 1986, 1991), “sympathetic distress” (Hoffman, 1981), “tenderness” (McDougall, 1908), and “pity” or “compassion” (Hume, 1740/ 1896; Smith, 1759/ 1853) 20 15 Howard Sklar, The Art of Sympathy in Fiction: Forms of Ethical and Emotional Persuasion (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2013), 53 16 Cf ibid , 38-39 17 See e g Michael L Frazer, The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Reflective Sentimentalism in the Eighteenth Century and Today (Oxford: OUP, 2010), 11 18 Sklar, The Art of Sympathy, 48 19 Ibid , 53 20 Batson et al., “Empathy and Altruism”, 418; the definition of what Batson and his colleagues call ‘empathy’, however, is broader: “an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of a person in need” (ibid , 417) The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 79 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 Though the terms differ, it has by now been demonstrated that this kind of ‘sympathy’ or ‘sympathetic distress’, which is caused by the observation of others who are suffering and in need of help, induces altruistic motivations Feeling “for the other - feeling sorry for, distressed for” 21 is related to pro-social behaviour Fictional works which have the potential of evoking such feelings can therefore foster altruistic motivations There is, however, another meaning of sympathy which should be taken into consideration In the Spanish, Italian, and German languages, ‘sympatía’ or ‘Sympathie’, denote a positive feeling for others, which leads to wishing them well and rejoicing in their good luck Psychologists have dubbed this feeling ‘symhedonia’, which is “more partial, selective, and, consequently, less wide ranging than sympathy proper [i e pity]” and “inherently biased toward those whom people especially care about” 22 In everyday situations, it is restricted to an interest in the good fortune of a few people who are close to us. By presenting likeable and attractive characters, fictional works often provide stimuli for feeling this positive counterpart to pity Works of literature thus serve to generate a feeling that is arguably ethically valuable and may make it easier for readers to engender it in everyday situations By feeling sympathy for long stretches of time, avid readers may reinforce and heighten their sympathetic dispositions and form a positive attitude towards the well-being of others, which can be translated into everyday life In the following, I will use the term sympathy as encompassing both sympatía and sympathy, symhedonia as well as compassion, and gauge its importance for the value of literature 2 Difficulties of Engendering Sympathy - and the Value of Fiction In our daily lives, sympathy is as necessary as it is precarious Partly, empathic feelings and sympathy for those in distress are automatic and take place without the observer being aware of it However, the devil is in the details, namely in the specific situation and in the identity of the human being involved Several kinds of bias impede feelings of sympathy and empathy and hinder or even block helping behaviour: “Although people tend to respond 21 Ibid , 419; see also Martin L Hoffman, Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice (New York: CUP, 2000), 30 22 Edward B Rozyman/ Paul Rozin, “Limits of Symhedonia: The Differential Role of Prior Emotional Attachment in Sympathy and Sympathetic Joy,” Emotion 6 1 (2006), 83, 91 80 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 empathically to almost anyone in distress, they are vulnerable to bias” 23 Empathy and sympathy are modified by the “Family Bias”, the “Familiarity Bias”, the “In-Group Bias”, the “Friendship Bias”, and the “Similarity Bias” 24 Apparently, there are inhibitions that impede our helping others whose knowledge, beliefs, values, and personality traits differ from ours, while we are automatically inclined to aid members of our in-group, family, friends, and people who are similar to us These forms of bias are closely related, and in specific situations there is a mixture of several of them. In the following, I will refer mainly to the similarity and in-group bias, which seems to play a role in other predispositions (such as the family or familiarity bias) as well Even though it is important to overcome these impediments, it is anything but obvious as to why fictional stories can serve as means of achieving this feat An encompassing exploration of this question would need to consider a host of features not only of literature, but also of narratives 25 Here, I only want to stress a few important preconditions for this potential benefit of fiction First, as Beau Lotto succinctly states, summarising a wealth of research: “Imagined experiences encode themselves in our brains in nearly the same way as lived ones” 26 Though narrative fiction allows readers to have vicarious experiences, it gives rise to real emotions 27 There is no fundamental difference between the cognitive processing of real or imaginary events The neuronal processes involved in reading about a specific scene more or less match the processes involved in understanding the same event in real life Functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that there seems to be a “shared neural basis for attempting to make sense of real people and for processing fictional representations of persons”. 28 Second, the imagination and the capacity to take the perspectives of others play a large role in the ability to feel sympathy for victims in distress Martin Hoffman, for instance, advises parents who want to foster their children’s altruism to encourage them “to imagine how someone close to them, someone 23 Hoffman, Empathy, 13 24 Ibid , 13, 197, 206-209 25 For a brief survey, see Vera Nünning, Reading Fictions, Changing Minds: The Cognitive Value of Fiction (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2014), chapter 2 26 Beau Lotto, Deviate: The Creative Power of Transforming Your Perception (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2017), 234 27 See e g Katja Mellmann, “Biologische Ansätze zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Emotionen,” Journal of Literary Theory 1 2 (2007), 357-375 28 Raymond A Mar/ Keith Oatley, “The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3 (2008), 180; see also Roel M Willems/ Arthur M Jacobs, “Caring About Dostoyevsky: The Untapped Potential of Studying Literature,” Trends in Cognitive Science 20 4 (2016), 243-245 The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 81 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 they care a lot about, would feel in the stranger’s or absent victim’s place This is a way of turning empathy’s familiarity and here-and-now biases against themselves and recruiting them in the service of prosocial motive development ” 29 As Hoffman stresses, one only has to imagine victims, for instance by reading about them, to incite sympathy In order to imagine “someone they care a lot about” in a difficult situation one may just as well read a fictional story which evokes the plight of a fictional character in a predicament. The problem is that taking the perspective of another, which is at the heart of the reading experience, is actually surprisingly difficult to achieve in real life. As Nicholas Epley and others note: “Possessing this capability does not, however, mean that people will necessarily use their perspective-taking skills when they should, or that their skills will actually lead them to accurately identify another person’s mental states ” 30 A third precondition for the value of fiction is a collection of factors that foster the removal of any impediments from taking the perspectives of others In real life, people find it difficult to suspend their own beliefs and opinions. Moreover, they often do not know enough about the traits, attitudes and feelings of others in order to gauge how the others feel, and they lack the time - and perhaps even the interest - to think about the state of mind of people in distress. When reading fiction, in contrast, perspective taking occurs spontaneously 31 One cannot understand a story focusing on the actions and experiences of characters without adopting their perspective Moreover, there is no danger involved in immersing oneself in the minds and views of fictional characters; readers can try out new roles without having to fear negative consequences 32 As a rule, fictional stories provide the knowledge that is needed to understand the major characters Even though the information may remain sketchy, salient facts are usually given, and the nuanced contextual- 29 Hoffman, Empathy, 297 30 Nicholas Epley/ Eugene M Caruso, “Perspective Taking: Misstepping into Others’ Shoes,” Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, eds Keith D Markman et al (New York: Psychology Press, 2009), 296 These authors also provide reasons for failing to perform this activity: “We believe that there are three critical barriers - activating the ability, adjusting an egocentric default, and accessing accurate information about others ” (Ibid ) 31 See Daniel M Johnson et al , “Reading Narrative Fiction Reduces Arab-Muslim Prejudice and Offers a Safe Haven from Intergroup Anxiety,” Social Cognition 31 (2013), 593. For a more extensive discussion of the potential and benefit of fictional stories to encourage perspective taking, see Nünning, Reading Fictions, chapter 5 32 This ‘safety argument’ is put forward by many scholars. The first ones to use it were, to my knowledge, Daniel C Batson et al , “Empathy and Attitudes: Can Feeling for a Member of a Stigmatized Group Improve Feelings Toward the Group? ” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72 1 (1997), 105-118 82 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 ised rendering of significant features often makes it possible to understand characters depicted in fiction better than in interactive situations. What would we know about Madame Bovary if she lived next door? The feeling that we know some of our favourite characters better than many of our friends, is explained by Keith Oatley: Fiction provides context to understand the elliptical It offers the context of characters’ goals and plans It gives a sense of how actions lead to vicissitudes It allows, too, the reader to experience something of emotions that can arise All of these elements are omitted from a faithful, empirically unexceptionable copy of real life 33 So far, it has been argued that sympathy is of vital importance for altruistic motivations and for communicating successfully and peacefully in the crises of the twenty-first century. In addition, some of the most important impediments to a sympathetic adoption of the perspective of others are next to non-existent when reading about the fate of fictional characters in narrative texts. But which characteristics of fiction enable readers to feel sympathy for unfamiliar characters? 3 Features of Narrative Fiction Fostering Readers’ Sympathy and Overcoming Counterproductive Biases An obvious point of departure for identifying works with a potential to induce readers’ sympathy for others is by way of their content. At first sight, books that feature characters from out-groups seem to be more valuable for the extension of our sympathies and the fostering of pro-social dispositions than others In the nineteenth century, social novels already used ‘explorer characters’, which cross cultural or social boundaries, as protagonists 34 Today, postcolonial novelists sometimes feature “bridge characters (sharing some traits with target audiences) and the construction of a wide array of character types, to maximize the chances that a reader can travel with one of the characters” 35 In addition, heroes who extend their sympathies to unfamiliar others can serve as role models that readers may identify with - a device 33 Keith Oatley, “Why Fiction May Be Twice as True as Fact: Fiction as Cognitive and Emotional Simulation,” Review of General Psychology 3 2 (1999), 108 34 For the strategies of evoking empathy in nineteenth-century social novels, see Mary-Catherine Harrison, “How Narrative Relationships Overcome Empathic Bias: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Empathy Across Social Difference,” Poetics Today 32 2 (2011), 255-288 35 Suzanne Keen, “Strategic Empathizing: Techniques of Bounded, Ambassadorial, and Broadcast Narrative Empathy,” Deutsche Vierteljahreszeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 82 3 (2008), 490 The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 83 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 that was employed extensively in British sentimental novels in the eighteenth century A less obvious means of prompting readers to pay attention to characters who differ from themselves consists of presenting characters that embody conflicting hierarchies of values and show a common ground between them and the reader Novels that fulfil these criteria may be especially prone to evoke readers’ feelings for members of out-groups and overcome the similarity bias, but the value of fiction for the extension of readers’ sympathies exceeds such obvious examples As George Eliot stated, great artists can prompt readers to pay attention “to what is apart from themselves”, to characters and concerns that are beyond the pale of their daily lives and routines Inducing readers to feel for others is not limited to members of specific (social, ethnic, etc.) out-groups; the broader question is how to evoke sympathy for unfamiliar others, for people who are different from oneself even though they may be of the same social class, gender, or ethnicity. One can find individuals who are perceived as ‘different’, holding contrastive opinions and subscribing to conflicting values even in a close circle of friends or a family There can be differences within groups that cannot be explained with reference to well-established social categories such as class, age, or gender 3.1 Narrative Strategies for the Direction of Sympathy on the Discourse Level Narrative conventions for the direction of sympathy are just as important for the evocation of readers’ sympathies as the content of a given work After all, the depiction of characters, values, and actions of an out-group can evoke rejection, anger, or even disgust as well as sympathy. The value of fiction as a means of extending our sympathies hinges upon formal features, on the way in which unfamiliar characters are presented An important precondition for feelings of empathy and sympathy is the immersion of readers, which is linked to the degree of their affective engagement with the story world and the characters 36 Narrative genres that keep readers at a distance, such as novels of ideas, may serve important functions in so far as they induce readers to reflect upon the validity of their own values and attitudes, and even change them However, such works are unlikely to 36 For the following, see Nünning, Reading Fictions, chapter 5, with a host of references to the relevant psychological studies See also Martha Nussbaum, who states that “reading can only have the good effects we claim for it if one reads with immersion” (“Exactly and Responsibly: A Defense of Ethical Criticism,” Philosophy and Literature 22 (1988), 353) 84 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 induce readers to empathise or even sympathise with the characters 37 The following aspects are (even though on different levels and in different ways) relevant for the direction of readers’ sympathies (1) The ‘perceived realism’ of a text is related to the degree of readers’ immersion 38 and thus to the evocation of affective responses to the characters The concept ‘perceived realism’ refers to the impression of readers who ascribe life-likeness and plausibility to the events and to the feelings, intentions and actions of the protagonists If a story is perceived to be plausible and the characters are held to be life-like, readers tend to become more absorbed into a text Depending on the genre, a wide range of characters can be perceived as life-like - in fantasy, for instance, characters like Harry Potter appear to be plausible and ‘realistic’ and engage the emotions of the audience (2) Psychologists have also linked the degree of immersion to the degree to which narrative events seem “like personal experience” 39 or, in narratological terms, the degree of experientiality of a text As Werner Wolf stresses, analogies to experiences in real life create an aesthetic illusion If readers can make inferences by using scripts and schemata that they employ in their daily lives, the text will evoke the impression that the world of the story is real 40 This illusion of the life-likeness of the characters and the story also corresponds to the use of vivid mental images, which generate the readers’ interests and contribute to a high degree of immersion into the story 41 (3) The internal coherence of the story world and the lack of foregrounding or distancing devices are two other factors related to readers’ immersion in the fictional world. Whether the events closely correspond to the real world is not of paramount importance; instead, the text-internal consistency of the events and thoughts and feelings of the characters have a large impact on readers’ interest in, and sympathy for, the characters In a high fantasy novel, the use of a magic sword might be plausible, while the use of a revolver might 37 Kujpers et al , “Towards a New Understanding,” also stress that different storyworlds evoke different kinds of narrative absorption and, by implication, different feelings on the part of readers 38 See Melanie C Green/ Karen E Dill, “Engaging with Stories and Characters: Learning, Persuasion, and Transportation into Narrative Worlds,” The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology, ed Karen E Dill (New York: OUP, 2013), 454 39 Melanie C Green/ Jennifer Garst/ Timothy C Brock, “The Power of Fiction: Determinants and Boundaries,” The Psychology of Entertainment Media: Blurring the Lines Between Entertainment and Persuasion, ed L J Shrum (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2004), 169 40 See Werner Wolf, “Illusion (Aesthetic),” Handbook of Narratology, eds Peter Hühn et al (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 144-159 41 See, e g , Kuijpers et al , “Towards a New Understanding,” 34; Melanie C Green, “Transportation into Narrative Worlds,” 247, 250f The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 85 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 not 42 Disruptions of the internal coherence are in so far related to foregrounding and defamiliarisation as both increase the readers’ distance to the storyworld Foregrounding and defamiliarising devices may therefore, at least momentarily, disturb readers’ immersion 43 (4) The degree of suspense influences both immersion and readers’ affective engagement with the characters Suspense is thus related to the readers’ willingness to feel empathy and sympathy According to Richard Gerrig and Fritz Breithaupt, the expectations of readers with regard to desired or feared outcomes are of major importance for their emotional responses As Gerrig concludes: “To a large extent, a theory of suspense must include within it a theory of empathy: Under what circumstances do we care sufficiently about other people to engage in active thought about their fates? ” 44 One might add that the same holds true for engaging in feelings for the characters’ fates There is a close link between sympathy and suspense: Feelings of suspense go along with an intensification of attention, interest and affect. (5) Narrative conventions that induce readers to vicariously experience thoughts and feelings of others are perhaps even more important for the direction of readers’ sympathies According to Marisa Bortolussi and Peter Dixon, the use of gaps and ambivalences that invite narrative implicatures enhance the reader’s affective engagement 45 The very lack of concrete information can induce readers to make inferences in order to fill in gaps and understand what is being alluded to By means of such inferences, which often draw on readers’ personal memories, readers construct a mental image of the characters Since this image conforms to their own experiences, it is more concrete and life-like than the information explicitly given in the text This in turn makes readers feel that they comprehend the characters on more 42 See, e g , Oatley, “Fiction May Be Twice,” 109 As Rick Busselle and Helena Bilandzic, “Fictionality and Perceived Realism in Experiencing Stories: A Model of Narrative Comprehension and Engagement,” Communication Theory 18 2 (2008), 255-280, have pointed out, the absence of either external or internal consistencies is of crucial importance for ‘perceived realism’ and the degree of transportation; moreover, genre plays a major role as well in determining which kind of props, action, or causality appear to be realistic within the given story world 43 However, it is important to acknowledge that the foregrounding of stylistic devices can foster a specific form of immersion that Kuijpers and her colleagues have called ‘artifact absorption’ (cf Kuijpers et al , “Towards a New Understanding”, 38-42) Readers may be captivated by a skillful use of language that draws their attention to the style rather than the content and does not increase their affective engagement with the characters 44 Richard J Gerrig, Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the Psychological Activities of Reading (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1993), 80 45 Marisa Bortolussi/ Peter Dixon, Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 91-94 86 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 than just a superficial basis. Bortolussi and Dixon conclude that readers tend to affectively relate to characters when they are given enough room to “use their own knowledge and experience to construct narratorial implicatures” 46 Whether there are any basic sociological similarities between a character and a reader does not matter, what counts is “the ability to construct an analogy between the experiences of the reader and those of the narrative character” 47 Readers are thus encouraged to feel that they share some features with a character on a deeper level, which may be “more potent and compelling” 48 than the recognition of superficial similarities with regard to social group, age, or ethnicity Conventions that induce readers to make inferences and draw their own conclusions can therefore counter the similarity and the familiarity bias, since these narrative means allow readers to detect what they have in common with the characters In a similar vein, Mary-Catherine Harrison claims that “the ethical potential of narrative empathy can in some ways surpass that of interpersonal empathy because of its ability to overcome what Martin Hoffman (2000) calls ‘similarity bias,’ that is, our unwillingness or inability to empathize with people who are not like ourselves” 49 Despite contrasts in outward appearance, gender, social class, and life style, characters may turn out to be, for instance, just as concerned about helping others or conquering their fears in order to act in pro-social ways as readers are After all, it is ‘perceived similarity’ that determines the similarity bias, 50 and reading fiction can serve to expand the range of characters that readers come to know well enough in order to perceive similarities with and extend their sympathies to them There are thus several major factors which influence the degree of sympathy that readers extend to the characters: • ‘perceived realism’ and the life-likeness of the characters and the story world; • the degree of experientiality and the vividness of the mental images the text evokes; 46 Ibid , 94 47 Marisa Bortolussi/ Peter Dixon/ Paul Sopčák, “Gender and Reading,” Poetics 38 3 (2010), 314 48 Ibid 49 Harrison, “How Narrative Relationships,” 257 50 See Marilynn B Brewer/ Samuel L Gaertner, “Toward Reduction of Prejudice: Intergroup Contact and Social Categorization,” Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Intergroup Processes, eds Rupert Brown/ Samuel Gaertner (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 451-472 The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 87 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 • the lack of internal contradictions and defamiliarising and foregrounding devices; • the degree of suspense; • the use of gaps and ambivalences that allow readers to attribute traits and feelings to the character which they perceive as plausible and life-like While the lack of contradictions and of defamiliarising devices form preconditions for readers’ immersion into the story world, the other factors evoke readers’ sympathies in the broad sense of the term ‘sympathy’: They are conducive in making readers wish for the well-being of the characters and rejoice when they succeed In addition, they may also incite compassion for the characters (6) The sixth narrative convention that fosters the affective engagement of readers on the level of narrative mediation is often relevant for, but does not necessarily appeal to, their sympathies It concerns the relatively ‘immediate’ and vivid rendering of the characters’ mental processes, which invites readers to share the characters’ thoughts and feelings Psychologists have devoted a lot of effort to the study of ‘simulation’ (i e the imaginative sharing of others’ thoughts and feelings), and narrative theorists have extensively studied the process of ‘focalisation’ and the modes of presenting characters’ consciousness In the present context, two aspects deserve to be singled out First, the presentation of characters’ thoughts and feelings allows readers to simulate and share these cognitive processes However, the degree to which readers empathise with characters can vary Depending on the particular context, this process shifts between a more emotional and a more cognitive simulation of the character’s thoughts and feelings Readers can, for instance, cognitively follow the egotistic, cruel thoughts of anti-heroes or villains without affectively sharing them In some cases, the presentation of a villain’s thoughts is more likely to result in abhorrence rather than empathy or sympathy Only the cognitive and affective sharing or appreciation of the characters’ mental processes are relevant for the direction of readers’ sympathies Having to follow gruesome thoughts of, for instance, serial killers (a device that is rather popular in contemporary thrillers) is a means of raising antipathy rather than sympathy 51 Second, the process of simulating the characters’ affective and cognitive experiences is linked to the readers’ own appraisal of the situation in question 51 That the sharing of misguided and naïve beliefs of some characters (for instance concerning the worth of the partner or adversary) may induce not only understanding but also pity, demonstrates once again that feelings of empathy cannot simply be mapped onto feelings of sympathy 88 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 This is influenced by their knowledge about the whole text that they have read so far and can include information about events that is not available to the focaliser This second process is connected to an overall assessment of the situation and to the moral positioning of readers; it is closely related to the development of sympathy and questions of ethics As James Phelan has pointed out, “[o]ur emotions and desires about both fictional and nonfictional characters are intimately tied to our judgments of them” 52 3.2 Narrative Strategies for the Direction of Sympathy on the Diegetic Level of Story and Characters The first six narrative conventions concerned the level of narrative transmission, the presentation of thought processes and stylistic features of the text The following six groups of conventions relate to plot patterns and the conception of those characters who are the object of readers’ sympathy Even more so than stylistic features, the personality traits and physical attributes of a character that are likely to raise the reader’s sympathy vary according to cultures and genres In eighteenth-century Britain, for instance, stylistic devices such as free indirect thought, which vividly render characters’ mental processes, were next to non-existent, while paragons of virtue who are considered insufferable bores today were once regarded as admirable heroes Genres also play a role in the conception of protagonists: The kind of character that readers affectively relate to in a bildungsroman differs from that in an adventure novel A contemporary Western audience seems to react positively to mixed characters with many positive traits and some minor flaws. 53 In order to be likeable, characters should neither be complete villains nor “godlike” 54 On the one hand, characters who are meant to induce the readers’ pity and sympathy should not violate important cultural values, norms, and feeling rules in major ways. On the other hand, minor flaws are likely to make them appear as more human and life-like, and thus enhance their appeal The direction of sympathy towards such characters can, on the level of the story world, consist of several means The following principles can be manifested in several ways and are based on research in literary studies and psychology as well as on an analysis of the direction of sympathy in British 52 James Phelan, Living to Tell About It (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2005), 160; see also Sklar, The Art of Sympathy, 43-55 53 See Ed S Tan, “Film-Induced Affect as a Witness Emotion,” Poetics 23 7 (1994), 23 54 Ibid The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 89 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 novels of the eighteenth century, 55 which have been adapted for the purposes of a Western contemporary audience (1) The characters should show their basic benevolence and good-will, for instance by performing one or two remarkable actions According to cross-cultural studies by the psychologist Shalom Schwartz and his colleagues, caring for others and the motivation to help others in one’s own community and beyond are highly esteemed in most cultures 56 Interestingly, Hollywood screenwriter and author Blake Snyder confirms this crucial role of benevolent actions for the creation of sympathy, since such behaviour can turn even seemingly unlikeable characters into beings that readers affectively relate to According to this writer, even characters with many negative traits can be accepted as heroes if they are shown to do something humane and likeable in the beginning, such as risking some discomfort or ridicule in order to help a blind woman or save a cat This strategy is used, for instance, in Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning novel Wolf Hall (2009), in which the protagonist Cromwell saves a cat twice - and helps dogs, too 57 (2) Generating ‘situational empathy’, i e placing a character in a precarious position, is one of the most important means of directing the audience’s sympathy It reinforces readers’ interest in the fate of the characters by creating a situation of potential harm Situational empathy “involves an openness to putting oneself in the place of the other person” 58 When characters are in situations that can go any number of ways, the resulting uncertainty will engage not only the cognitive, but also the affective responses of readers Situational empathy can also evoke pity for the plight of the character, but is usually understood as a forward-oriented feeling, as a kind of hopeful anticipation of a good outcome, and dread of a bad one, which includes symhedonia Situational empathy can be manifested in several ways, two of which deserve to be singled out in this context: 55 See Vera Nünning, “Gender, Authority and Female Experience in Novels from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth Century: A Narratological Perspective,” Narrations Genrées: Écrivaines dans L’Histoire Européenne Jusqu’au Début du XXe Siècle, eds Lieselotte Steinbrügge and Suzan van Dijk (Louvain/ Paris: Édition Peeters, 2014), 19-42; and Vera Nünning, “Voicing Criticism in Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women: Narrative Attempts at Claiming Authority,” English Past and Present: Selected Papers from the IAUPE Malta Conference in 2010, ed Wolfgang Viereck (Frankfurt a M : Peter Lang, 2012), 81-108 56 See Lilach Sagiv et al , “Personal Values in Human Life,” Nature Human Behaviour 1 (2017), 634 57 See Blake Snyder, Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (San Francisco, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2005) For the saving of cats in a novel, see Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (London: HarperCollins 2009), 188, 303; for that of dogs 221, 223 58 Hogan, The Mind, 140 90 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 First, turning the character into a victim can be understood as a heightened form of situational empathy. This strategy is often used in British fiction from the eighteenth century onwards Charles Dickens, in particular, was a master at engaging his readers’ feelings by putting innocent children at the mercy of villains who exploit them pitilessly, for instance in Oliver Twist (1837-39) or The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) The brilliant opening scene of Mantel’s Wolf Hall also uses situational empathy by prompting readers to take the protagonist’s perspective while he is still a boy and nearly beaten to death by his father Pity and compassion are likely to follow, especially when the young and injured boy leaves his country, without any means, in order to save his sister from the retributions of his father Second, Ed Tan and others stress that, in order to engage the audience’s affections, the heroes should be pursuing a difficult but righteous task; sometimes this task is imposed upon them, sometimes they volunteer to risk their well-being for a higher goal or the welfare of the community, which turns them into even more worthy objects of sympathy and admiration 59 The difficulties the heroes have in overcoming dangerous situations prompt the reader to firmly root for the cause of the heroes and against their foes. In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008-10), for instance, quite a number of morally highly ambivalent actions of the protagonist may be overlooked by readers because of her initial aim of saving her sister and for fighting for the common good 60 (3) Though the characters should have at least some minor flaws in order to engage the affections of a contemporary Western audience, harming others or acting in selfish ways potentially impairs the audience’s sympathy. This risk of diminishing the readers’ sympathies is frequently ameliorated by the use of several conventions: When characters act in ways that breach cultural norms and values, the reasons for this deviant behaviour are given, for instance by stressing that the characters were not properly taken care of as children and never learned the rules or by emphasising that, in the present situation, other ways of acting would have been even more harmful These are, again, time-honoured devices that can be found in a large number of British novels particularly from the eighteenth and nineteenth century Charlotte Lennox’ Arabella (1752) and Francis Burney’s Evelina (1778), for instance, feature heroines who (as many others) do not have a mother who might have helped them, and the actions 59 See Tan, “Film-Induced Affect,” 23 60 For Fritz Breithaupt, Kulturen der Empathie (Frankfurt a M : Suhrkamp, 2009), 76-77, this act of deciding to take the character’s part, against someone else, is a crucial component of the evocation of empathy The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 91 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 of the protagonist of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1894-95) are bound to lead to suffering Another means of perpetuating the reader’s good-will towards a character consists of concentrating on their good intentions or on their feelings of regret after they realise the damaging consequences of their actions The emphasis on the difficulties the characters have to overcome, on their good intentions and misgivings, makes it easier for the audience to affectively engage with them In such cases the focus is kept on the character; the negative consequences of the character’s actions on others - for instance the sadness or mourning of those who were ‘incidentally’ killed or harmed by the hero - are played down or deleted; otherwise the readers’ sympathies might waver and give way to ethical reflections concerning the characters and their deeds. A prime example of this mode of writing can be found in the second part of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which concentrates on Dorian’s regret and unhappiness, while the reader is not even told exactly how many young men he has ruined or driven to commit suicide (4) Character constellations also play a role in the direction of sympathy In an eighteenth-century sentimental drama, with the typical cast of supremely moral protagonists, even characters with small faults appear as nasty villains The aristocratic rake in Richard Steele’s sentimental comedy The Conscious Lovers (1722) is cast as a villain, while the same character type can be the hero of Restoration Comedies Conversely, the act of hunting an extremely cruel serial killer turns the detectives looking for them into good men - no matter how many minor or even major faults they may have The notion of James Bond as a superhero depends partly on the degree and scope of his adversary’s evil intentions (5) One of the most important implicit devices of fostering sympathy for a specific protagonist is to have him or her either praised or criticised by certain other (groups of) characters Thus, positively depicted characters who embody the norms and values of the text and who think well of the (unfamiliar) protagonists incite the readers’ sympathies for them Mr Knightley in Jane Austen’s Emma (1816) is a famous example of one of those perfect, “knightly” characters who continues to appreciate the good nature of the heroine despite her many faults and who serves as a model for the response of the audience 61 The counterpart to this strategy consists of having unattractive, unworthy characters (often stock figures) acidly criticise the protagonist in question Sometimes, such characters play a more important role, such as Mrs 61 See also Wayne C Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961; Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1983), 253; and Sklar, The Art of Sympathy, 56 92 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 Tulliver in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860), who cannot understand her daughter Maggie and constantly criticises her conduct and appearance Rather than aligning themselves with the negatively portrayed characters who (often unfairly, self-servingly, or exaggeratedly) censure the protagonists, readers are induced to stick to their own appraisal of the situation or feel even more sympathy with those characters who continue to behave well even though they are constantly and unjustly criticised for their actions (6) The last narrative convention to be considered here concerns the appeal to the reader’s pity and sense of justice by punishing the characters to an unwarranted degree Cruel and unjust punishments, which have already been declared illegitimate in the British and American Bills of Rights, can prompt readers to have compassion even with wayward characters The punishments of Jane Eyre (just think of the red room) and the beatings of David Copperfield, for instance, by far exceed their wrong-doings, and even exceptionally good characters such as the protagonist of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) can find themselves in prison for minor faults. In Gothic novels such as Matthew Gregory Lewis’ The Monk (1796) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), such punishments are more extreme, but even in Marguerite Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928), the lesbian heroine renounces the love of her life because the harm done by society to same-sex couples and thus to her beloved is too damaging Related means of directing readers’ sympathies comprise the staging of conflicts that the character is bound to lose, no matter how hard they try, and emphasising the powerlessness of those who are worthy of the readers’ affections The young Jane Eyre, for instance, never stands a chance in her fight against the older and bigger Master George, nor is she able to marry Mr Rochester while Bertha is still living: She has to run away - and can thus continue to be the object of readers’ sympathy 4 Conclusion: Benefits and Dangers of the Potential of Fiction to Extend our Sympathies There are several reasons why fictional stories can be a particularly powerful means of extending our sympathies. Vicarious experiences of and with fictional characters allow readers to develop affections that are more or less impossible in daily life, where many impediments hamper a deep understanding of others In addition to the similarity and familiarity bias, which are not easy to overcome in real-life situations, one has to reckon with, for instance, the lack of time, the necessity of dealing with the requirements of the situation rather than the mental state of others, and the problem that appreciating the The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 93 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 feelings of others might oblige one to perform actions that one would rather refrain from However, these impediments that block perspective taking in real-life situations are negligible as far as literature is concerned Reading fiction provides a perfect opportunity for practicing the kind of affectionate concern for others that is, due to the manifold difficulties, precarious in interactive situations A second cluster of reasons for the affective potential of fiction comprises the use of narrative conventions By several means - for instance situational empathy, gaps, and narrative implicatures - fictional stories allow readers to perceive similarities between themselves and others Instead of relying on outward appearances and easily recognisable markers of identity or social inand out-groups, readers can feel that the character in question is similar to them on a deeper level Fiction can thus induce readers to overcome their similarity and familiarity bias. Since in most fictional stories the appearance of characters belies their nature, and in genres as different as romances and crime fiction, it usually remains open till the end who ‘Mr. Right’ or the villain behind the murders is, readers are denied cognitive closure for several hours per book The repetition of this experience may help them develop a practice of staying open-minded and to look for deeper similarities rather than judging on the basis of appearances At the same time, it is necessary to stress that not all works of fiction have the potential to extend readers’ sympathies in the way meant by George Eliot and the Dalai Lama On the contrary, the potential of literature to raise readers’ empathy and sympathy can prove to be dangerous As Martha Nussbaum recognises: “Literature has great seductive power: it can get us to sympathize with class privilege, the oppression of women, war and pillage, and […] hideous racism” 62 The same holds true for the (new) media As Martin Hoffman noted, the media often render it difficult for us to focus our feelings on the victims of conflicts. 63 There are always many perspectives involved in ethically challenging situations, and spectacular stories may well expend more space and interest on perpetrators rather than their victims. The fictional stories circulating in contemporary societies often show heroes and heroines who may be in distress and thus invite readers’ compassion, but who may be anything but worthy of the extension of our sympathies Though readers (or viewers) are highly unlikely to be swayed by reading a few stories or watching a few films, they tend to prefer a specific genre that matches their desires and beliefs People may thus spend quite a lot of time with a particular type 62 Nussbaum, “Exactly and Responsibly,” 355 63 Hoffman, Empathy, 212f 94 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 of story inviting their sympathies for characters embodying or favouring class privilege, or the exclusion and oppression of out-groups Such indiscriminate feelings of sympathy for those whose plight is offered to us most insistently is obviously not related to the kind of moral development that George Eliot had in mind. If we want to benefit from the potential of fiction to extend our sympathies in a pro-social way, we need to be aware of possible problems in order to resist, if necessary, the persuasive power of fiction. While it seems questionable to assign the ability of enhancing and expanding our sympathies towards an altruistic goal only to ‘great artists’, as George Eliot did, we have to acknowledge that many, perhaps even the majority of fictional works, do not induce readers to feel with and for unfamiliar others who are worthy of their sympathy Many stories cement the borders between inand outgroups, painting the latter as villains, while assigning superior value to conventional heroes and heroines. Today one still finds fictions that focus on heroes bent on destroying and killing as many ‘enemies’ as possible, while firmly blending out the thoughts and feelings of the victims. Many examples could be cited, and even publishing houses and reviewers are usually not aware of the drift and persuasive power of such works The protagonist of Aidan Truhen’s The Price You Pay (2018), for instance, whose long killing spree determines the plot of the novel, is described as a “brilliantly entertaining psychopath” 64 In such works, basic strategies for the direction of sympathy are oriented to anything but ethical ends; the conventions used to show the protagonist solving his problems by hyperbolic killings invite empathy or laughter rather than reflection. Given the power of fiction to make us sympathise with and appreciate even unfamiliar characters, we have every reason to rethink our attitude towards stories featuring ‘oddly charming’ egotists and killers, and to choose our books carefully After all, immersive narratives are persuasive; they are likely to change readers’ attitudes and can alter their evaluation of whole social groups 65 In order to profit from the potential of literature to extend our sympathies and cultivate our moral abilities, we have to be careful in what we read As Martha Nussbaum recognises, we need an “[e]thical assessment of the novels themselves” 66 This assessment should be based on an interpretation of the 64 Carl Hiaasen “The Price You Pay: Praise” Penguin Random House, n d , www penguinrandomhouse com/ books/ 557648/ the-price-you-pay-by-aidan-truhen/ 65 See Green et al , “Engaging with Stories”; and Daniel C Batson et al , “Empathy, Attitudes, and Action: Can Feeling for a Member of a Stigmatized Group Motivate One to Help the Group? ” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 12 (2002), 1666 66 Martha Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996), 10 See also ibid , “Exactly and Responsibly,” 4, 355 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 The Value of Literature for the ‘Extension of our Sympathies’ 95 conventions for directing readers’ sympathies, since this is a precondition for differentiating between works that foster proand anti-social characters and modes of thinking Such an analysis also has to consider what Martin Hoffman called “moral principles” 67 In order to extend our empathy and compassion in a responsible way, we need a framework of norms and values which enables us to decide where to expand and where to block feelings of sympathy Works of literature usually feature networks of norms and values that frame our ethical judgements of the characters’ deeds - but these networks are not always geared towards pro-social ends or are even stable 68 In the works of George Eliot and many other eighteenthand nineteenth century novels, one can find hierarchies of values that provide a consensus for evaluating the ethics of actions and characters Particularly in works featuring unreliable narrators, however, the framework of norms and values often remains ambivalent Such works are ethically challenging, and they can induce us to reflect on the underlying norms and values as well as on the question of when to foster and when to block feelings of empathy and sympathy Nonetheless, a broad range of fictional works, some of which are discussed in this volume, demonstrate the value of fiction for extending readers’ sympathies in a pro-social way Fictional stories can induce a feeling for the other, “an other-oriented emotional response congruent with the perceived plight of the person in need” 69 They thus evoke a feeling which is associated with altruistic behaviour. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that fiction can lower barriers against sociologically and ethnically dissimilar others and change readers’ attitudes with regard to ethnic or social out-groups The psychologist Dan Johnson has even suggested that there is “a direct link between reading narrative fiction, affective empathy, and helping behavior”. 70 In a time in which the divisions between social groups are growing and anger or even hatred have become common responses to alleged misdeeds of people one does not even know, the value of fiction for the extension of our sympathies is even more important than it was in the nineteenth century 67 Hoffman, Empathy, 15, et passim 68 See, e g , Vera Nünning, “Experiments with Ethics in Contemporary British Fiction: The Lack of a Stable Framework,” The Ethical Component in Experimental British Fiction since the 1960’s, eds Susana Onega/ Jean-Michel Ganteau (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2007), 210-231 69 Daniel C Batson, “Two Forms of Perspective Taking: Imagining How Another Feels and Imagining How You Would Feel,” Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, eds Keith D Markmann/ William M P Klein/ Julia A Suhr (New York: Psychology Press, 2009), 267 70 Johnson, “Reading Narrative Fiction,” 154 96 V era N üNNiNg 10.2357/ REAL-2021-0003 Works Cited Batson, Daniel C “Two Forms of Perspective Taking: Imagining How Another Feels and Imagining How You Would Feel ” Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation Eds Keith D Markmann/ William M P Klein/ Julia A Suhr New York: Psychology Press, 2009, 267-279 Batson, Daniel C / Nadia Ahmad/ David A Lishner “Empathy and Altruism ” Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology Eds Shane J Lopez/ C R Snyder Oxford: OUP, 2009, 417-426 Batson, Daniel C / Johee Chang/ Ryan Orr/ Jennifer Rowland “Empathy, Attitudes, and Action: Can Feeling for a Member of a Stigmatized Group Motivate One to Help the Group? ” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 12 (2002), 1656-1666 Batson, Daniel C / Marina P Polycarpou/ Eddie Harmon-Jones/ Heidi J Imhoff/ Erin C Mitchener/ Lori L Bednar/ Tricia R Klein/ Lori Highberger “Empathy and Attitudes: Can Feeling for a Member of a Stigmatized Group Improve Feelings Toward the Group? ” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72 1 (1997), 105-118 Booth, Wayne C The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1983 Bortolussi, Marisa/ Peter Dixon Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response. 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