This is made in

This is Aesthetics Bites, a series for philosophy bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds

Aesthetics Bites is made in association with the London Aesthetics Forum and made possible by a grant from the British Society of Aesthetics.

We respond emotionally to characters in novels, but how can we make sense of this? How can we pity a fictional character?

How can we be frightened for a character?

After all, we don't believe these characters really exist.

So are the emotions we have towards fictional characters of a different sort to those

we have towards real people in real life? Here's the real Kathleen Stock.

Kathleen Stock, welcome to Aesthetics Bites.

Hello.

The topic we're going to focus on is fiction and the emotions.

Now, let's get specific, we're going to be talking about emotions that readers feel towards

fictional characters.

Could you begin by giving an example of the kind of thing that people feel?

Sure, so one of my favorite books is Jane Eyre,

and the first half of that book is rather harrowing for the reader

because Jane is, as a young girl, first

in a terrible situation with her family, She's been orphaned and she's farmed out to

relatives that really don't like her and are horrible to her. And then she's sent to an orphanage

called Lowwood where life gets even worse.

So as you read those sections of the book,

characteristically the reader feels pity for Jane,

...