Monday, November 16, 2009

Empathy!


Making a reader feel empathy is not an easy thing to do. Empathy is emotion, emotion creates empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Creating empathy is what makes a book exciting, and what makes a reader want to read more. Authors try and create a feeling of empathy in their readers. They do this in a way that the reader can relate their emotions to the characters. I think a way of adding empathy into a book is through the character, the character would have to be realistic, so that we can relate. There are many ways to create empathy including adding a lot of detail, using a great amount of powerful adjectives, and even writing in ways in which the reader is able to relate and understand in how the character is feeling.

For example in The Breadwinner there were many great examples of empathy one of my favourites was: "Then, late one afternoon, Parvana came home from work to find two men gently helping her father up the steps to the apartment. He was alive. At least part of the nightmare was over." In my mind that is a good example of writing. While reading it I could picture the scene clearly in my mind. I felt empathy for Parvana after reading it.

2 comments:

  1. This post is really good and you should be proud of it. I liked how in the first paragraph you explained how empathy is an emotion, and I defienetly agree with you. Also, I think when you were saying how you could create empathy, you described some very good tactics. And I liked the way you finished off your post with an example of empathy writing.
    Keep up the great posts!!!!:)

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