Why do we cry during sad movies like Philadelphia or Beaches? We know that the characters aren’t real and yet we get emotionally invested in the story lines.
This is one of the paradoxes we are studying in Book 1, Truth in Fiction, of my distance learning course with the OU. Plato in one of his dialogues with an actor called Ion described the audience’s outpouring of emotion as insane. But is it unreasonable to identify and empathise with a fictional character?
Art is said to hold a mirror up to the lives we lead, so it seems natural to imagine ourselves in similar situations to the story unfolding on screen. You would have to be hard hearted to have watched the TV series It’s a Sin and not felt sad at the ending.
odespinner 