This talk triggers more reflections and the possibilities that may be. The basic question that forms the platform for the talk is: What is our relationship with fictional characters? None of us believe these characters really exist and yet how do we associate with them?
If you wonder at the value of the question itself, Kathleen Stock answers emphatically, “Fiction is an immense source of valuable learning/knowledge/truth…a source of understanding the real world…why people may act in a certain way, and even understanding the self and preparing oneself if one should be in a situation as the character is in. Fiction has enormous cognitive value…”
The question becomes more specific when it asks whether the emotions that you experience while watching a movie or reading a book are real? How come then you can munch into caramel popcorn while watching a murder scene? Does that not mean the emotion of fear that you face in real life is quite different from a similar experience a fictional character goes through?
Kathleen Stock answers with an example, “My favourite book is ‘Jane Eyre’. In the first half of the book, it is harrowing for the reader for Jane goes through a tough time…If you find a person who responds to fear and pity in a fellow human in real life, but does not to Jane Eyre…that would something unimaginable…ordinarily, emotions with respect to people around us, not fictional characters, seem to exist with some properties…let us concentrate on fear and pity. When you fear something, characteristically you believe that thing exists and you believe that is threatening in some respect. So there is a rational basis for your emotion. Equally when you pity someone, you believe the situation exists, and you believe they are deserving of pity. So that is one characteristic that is absent in terms of fiction.”
So, says Stock, some philosophers say the emotions that we have when we read, are quasi emotions because they are not accompanied with the belief that the person really exists or the situation really exists. So it is not a real emotion. We take these genuine psychological feelings in response to imaginary situations and we construct a further imaginary game around them which is fictional that we are feeling real emotions…
Stock says, “Emotions seem to be connected to behaviour. Someone who is frightened will tend to act in a certain way. If one is frightened for oneself then one tends to flee from that situation. If one is frightened for another, one tends to want to intervene, to help. Pity has some characteristic responses...you want to help. These behavioural aspects are absent when we watch cinema or read…”
Stock adds that we pay to go watch a horror movie, would we every pay to go through a horror experience?
So even though the emotions we experience or seem to experience through fictional characters may not be “real”, Stock asks what about fears about the future? Are they not imaginary as well? Or recollecting a situation that could have been, like an accident. That shudder you have is real…or not? Stock goes even further, “When you read historical accounts of war, you feel pity and the person did exist, but you still cannot go out and help, you are not motivated to help because the person is no more. It is all history.”
Stock therefore, does not agree that our emotional responses to fictional characters are quasi emotions. She says they are real enough and by giving the example of melancholic situations says, “…some people like to be sad…there are many reasons why people seek out melancholy…fiction allows us to crystallise emotions…it makes us come into contact with emotions, forces its expression, to release them…”
So she says these emotions should be treated as real emotions and looked at as guides to us if and when we face such situations in real life.
The question that remains after listening to the talk is: Where do pseudo-modern reality shows fit into this scheme of understanding?
If one were to understand her in the context of reality shows or feature news footages, one tends to agree they are real emotions, for as Stock says we are helpless…But what are the shows successful in doing? Training our emotions or immunizing us?
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