why the protagonist wants what she wants, what it means to her, and what getting it will cost her. It’s this that we, as readers, “try on for size.” Cognitive psychology professor and novelist Keith Oatley puts it this way: “In literature we feel the pain of the downtrodden, the anguish of defeat, or the joy of victory, but in a safe space.… We can refine our human capacities of emotional understanding. We can hone our ability to feel with other people who, in ordinary life, might seem too foreign—or too threatening—to elicit our sympathies. Perhaps, then, when we return to our real lives, we
...more
