So far in our mini series on ‘Why Reading Matters’ I’ve covered imagination, mental health, and today I’m continuing with empathy.
Before we get into it, a short story:
‘The assignment’
Sophie took a step back, hand on her hip. Her notebook, now covered in neat line after neat line of joined-up curvy blue text, was open on the table. She smiled. It was perfect. A ripped off page-corner hinted at the anxious energy she had pored into this latest writing assignment.
This time, she was sure Mr Faraday would be pleased.
The next day, Sophie left her breakfast untouched and quickly packed her school bag. In the excitement she almost forgot the notebook, scrambling back inside at the last moment to grab it from the table where it still lay open. Her school (Saint Germintrudes for Exceptionally Able Girls) was not far from home, but it usually took Sophie a long time to get to as her feet didn’t much want to take her there.
Today, though, she skipped, jumped over a puddle, ran a short distance, and then skipped again, all the while gripping her notebook firmly in her hand. If she was the sort of girl who did that sort of thing, she might have even broken into a song.
Only as she turned the final corner and saw the grim old school turrets looming above her did her feet slow their erratic patter, from a skip to a walk to a trudge. She walked through the gates, and as she rounded the corner, walked hard into Meredith, one of the power-hungry prefects (imperfect prefects, she sometimes thought of them).
“Oi! Watch it, Sad-face,” Meredith said, slapping her hand down and knocking the rolled up notebook right out of Sophie’s hand. Sophie scrambled down to pick it up, but the book had fallen, pages open, directly into a puddle. Water flew off as she desperately shook the book. Eyes welling up, hands shaking, and lips pressed firmly together, she looked up into Meredith’s toothy smile. Sophie’s head dropped as she pushed past Meredith, shaking the dripping book as she went.
Just another day like the rest, then.
It was no use. Once Sophie had arrived in class (first to her desk, as always), she tried, unsuccessfully, to prise the pages apart. Inky blue splotches rolled down the page, blurring the previously regimented lines together. On some pages, whole sections of the page were a wash of faint blue, and the words had vanished.
She despaired, but in the final moments before Frightful Mr Faraday arrived, Sophie attempted to fill in some of the blanks, desperately trying to recall words that had come to mind so easily over the weekend. Then, he arrived.
You could tell Mr Faraday was approaching the classroom by the sound of his smartly clicking heels (paced at a military regulation one-twenty-steps-per-minute), mixed with his creaking knees. The combination was like a machine that sorely needed oiling (with a small, ginger moustache slapped on for good measure). He swept into the classroom, slamming the door hard behind him and smirking at a couple of unprepared classmates who almost fell off their chairs with fright. The frosted glass in the door wobbled as he rocked on his feet.
Sophie was gripping her desk tightly while Mr Faraday paced about, taking the register and gave them a dull notice about running in the playground (no longer allowed due to Health and Safety Concerns).
She wasn’t listening, and didn’t even hear her name until he strode over to her desk and barked it at her a second time, slamming his fist on the desk. She stood quickly, chair clattering backwards. He reached down and lifted the open notebook gingerly from one corner, inspecting the blue streaked pages as though made of something poisonous. He wrinkled his nose, and a smirk twitched in one corner of his normally downturned mouth, which quickly vanished.
Sophie’s knees trembled as she watched him march to the front of the classroom holding the book aloft.
“Pay attention, girls,” he said, “Sophie is going to read her assignment to you. This should be… enlightening.” Nervous giggles erupted around the classroom as Sophie shuffled her way forwards. She wiped sweaty palms on her school jumper.
“Go on, Sophie, read to the class what you’ve written,” said Mr Faraday, in a low voice that somehow reminded her of a tiger in the zoo.
She stood as straight as she could. Looking around the class, blinking away tears, she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She took a big breath.
“There once was a petty teacher,” she began, “a spiteful little man, who enjoyed nothing more than tormenting the children under his authority and care.”
She spoke of the silly little ginger moustache, the silly shiny shoes, the silly squeaky knees, all the while waiting for a sharp thump across the side of the head. But it never came. One by one the children looked at each other, wide-eyed. One or two gasped. One laughed, then started crying. Sophie turned around to look, trailing off mid-sentence. Mr Faraday was sat in his chair, blinking but unseeing, muttering quietly to himself.
Later that day, Mr Faraday was taken to an institution where he lived out the rest of his life. He annoyed the other inmates (most of whom used to be cruel teachers, too) and could be heard repeating, again and again, “silly little moustache!”
And Sophie? Well, Sophie had discovered the power of stories.
Back to reality
Still with me? I wrote this silly story to illustrate narrative empathy (empathy provoked by reading). All being well, you may have experienced a sense of ‘fellow-feeling’1 or ‘feeling with’2 Sophie — experiencing some of her joy and pain throughout the story.
Or, you might have just found it a tedious waste of your time, in which case, I apologise.
Empathy (I feel your pain) is distinct from sympathy (I feel pity for your pain). There are numerous ways we can experience empathy:
Empathy… can be provoked by witnessing another's emotional state, by hearing about another's condition, or even by reading.3
Fiction readers encounter characters who may be similar to them, or whose lives may be utterly detached from theirs. They might not even be the same species. However (dis)similar, the reader will experience a degree of empathy for characters they read about and begin to understand, feeling their joy or pain. Reading about children like Sophie standing up to wicked adults, can give us delight, whether we have experienced wicked and cruel adults for ourselves. (If not, perhaps you might take a moment to consider whether in fact, you are not the cruel adult).
Empathy can emerge from a better understanding of experiences, rather than from relating to a familiar character, or a character in a familiar situation.4
The quality and nature of the writing makes a difference, too. Without emotionally ‘transporting’ the reader, they will experience less empathy for the characters within.5
Reading descriptions of their lives, we come to identify with fictional characters in much the same way that we identify with real people. This identification with fictional characters is, I believe, an essential background condition that must be present if reading about their emotional states is to trigger our empathy.6
There’s far more ground to cover on empathy, and I can’t do it justice in a daily article like this. I’ll continue this research in the background, as I’m particularly interested in recent neuroscience results that show people who score high on empathy tests apparently have especially busy ‘mirror neuron’ systems in their brains. Interestingly enough, fiction writers are likely to score highly on these empathy tests.7
So watch this space for more on the relationship between narrative and empathy, but tomorrow we’ll continue with our series on ‘Why Reading Matters’.
As always, thank you for reading. Please drop me any thoughts in the comments on Substack or just send me a reply to the email.
Graham
Gadamer and Aristotle’s definition of empathy
Nancy E Snow’s definition of empathy
A Theory of Narrative Empathy - Suzanne Keen, Narrative, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Oct., 2006), pp. 207-236
Reading Stories, Reading (Others') Lives: Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Narrative Understanding - Ritivoi, Andreea Deciu, StoryWorlds, 2016-07, Vol.8 (1), p.51-75
How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation
Empathy - Nancy E. Snow, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 65-78
A Theory of Narrative Empathy - Suzanne Keen, Narrative, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Oct., 2006), pp. 207-236