Empathic Sadism: How Readers Get Implicated

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Date
2015
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Oxford University Press
Abstract
A good book draws you in, makes you feel involved in the story, makes you care about the characters. It’s a sign of a successful story when the struggles of the characters affect you—but do readers always feel the same emotions as the characters they are reading about? Of course not. For one thing, readers often know more or less than characters. They see the danger lurking while the character is still perfectly happy, or they are in the dark about a characters happy thoughts. Readers will react to the behavior of the character.
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Post-print of book chapter from Oxford Handbook for Cognitive Literary Studies
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“Empathic Sadism. How Readers Get Implicated,” in: Lisa Zunshine, Ed., Oxford Handbook for Cognitive Literary Studies, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015, 440-462.
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Book chapter
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