Document Type : علمی- پژوهشی
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Science and Literature, Ibrahim Chechen Aghri University, TurkeyUniversity, Turkey.
2 Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Science and Letters,, Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University,
Abstract
Emotion is one of the shared properties between fictional characters and real people. The manner and extent of representation of emotion in narrative affects the extent to which readers relate to the storyworld and determines their interpretation of the narrative meaning. In realist fiction, emotions plays a decisive role in narrative characterization. Fariba Vafi’s After the End is one of the examples. The plot in Vafi’s narrative is primarily based on the role of a sense of intimacy or empathy in how friendships between the main characters begin and end. By using a retrospective narrative method, Vafi’s novel narrates the process of the narrator’s introspection in relation to the reasons for the breakdown of her relationship with an old friend. Thus, the narration of the first person singular in Vafi’s novel can be considered as the narrator’s account of the evolution of her feelings and attitudes in regard to a past relationship. Drawing on the interdisciplinary approach of the emotion and narrative, which is a sub-branch of postclassical narratology, this paper examines the role of emotion, especially the role of intimacy or empathy in After the End. The essay has reached the conclusion that the narrative plot in Vafi’s novel is based on representation of human-like emotions such as intimacy and/or empathy. Such a familiar feature expands the reader’s feeling of empathy with the two central characters and also increases the narrative impact on the reader by facilitating his closer connection with the represented events and situations.
Highlights
The Role of Empathy and Its Impact on Reader in
Faribâ Vafi’s “After the End” [1]
Introduction
Emotion is one of the shared properties between fictional characters and real people. The manner and extent of representation of emotion in narrative affects the extent to which readers relate to the storyworld and determines their interpretation of the narrative meaning. In realist fiction, emotions play a decisive role in narrative characterization. Faribâ Vafi’s After the End is one of the examples. The plot in Vafi’s narrative is primarily based on the role of a sense of intimacy or empathy in how friendships between the main characters begin and end. By using a retrospective narrative method, Vafi’s novel narrates the process of the narrator’s introspection in relation to the reasons for the breakdown of her relationship with an old friend. Thus, the first person narrator’s account in Vafi’s novel can be considered as her report on the evolution of her feelings and attitudes in regard to a past relationship.
Goal of the Study
Research on Vafi’s After the End does not mention the role of emotion, especially the function of empathy and intimacy, in the represented relationships in this novel. By examining the role of emotion in the main relationships, the present essay highlights the impact of such a narrative feature on the reader’s relationship with the story world. As Rooya and Manzar reveal during their journey, the quality of each of these characters’ relationships with the others reflects the difficulty of establishing an empathetic or intimate relationship. However, each of them revives their sense of empathy in the light of their new experiences during travelling. Drawing on the interdisciplinary approach of the emotion and narrative, which is a sub-branch of postclassical narratology, this paper examines the role of emotion, especially the role of intimacy or empathy in After the End. The essay has reached the conclusion that the narrative plot in Vafi’s novel is based on representation of human-like emotions such as intimacy and/or empathy. Such a familiar feature provokes the reader’s feeling of empathy for the two central characters and also increases the narrative impact on the reader by facilitating his close involvement in the represented events and situations.
Method
Examining the relationship between emotion and narrative is one of the branches of postclassical narratology. The main purpose of this interdisciplinary approach, on the one hand, is to study how emotions and feelings are represented in narrative. On the other hand, it examines the impact of represented emotions on evoking narrative readers’ emotional reactions. This approach is based on the hypothesis that narratives are made of emotions and without them it is impossible to create, understand, or interpret any narrative.
According to most theories of narrative and emotion, “empathy can be transacted accurately from author to reader by way of a literary text” (Keen, 2007: 130). Empathy, as defined by Suzanne Keen, is “a vicarious, spontaneous sharing of affect, can be provoked by witnessing another’s motional state, by hearing about another's condition, or even by reading” (2006: 208). The reader’s involvement in the rising process of a feeling of empathy between the main characters in After the End increases the possibility of his participation in this experience too. According to Howard Sklar, readers’ emotional responses to fictional characters depend their “prior experience with people.” Thus, “the emotions that readers experience while reading fiction, rather than ‘simulated’ or imitated, are more akin to what we feel in ordinary situations” (2013: 11, 23). In other words, readers, as Keith Oatley argues, are instinctively endowed with the ability to identify emotional situations in the narrative and therefore already “know how each kind of event would strike the character it affects. Thereby, we know the motion the character would be likely to feel, and we can also feel sympathy for that character in his or her predicament” (2012: 30-31).
Conclusion
The narrative structure in Faribâ Vafi’s After the End relies on the narration of the interrelationships between the main characters. Each of the retrospective stories more or less reflects the characters’ inability to establish a close friendship based on intimacy or empathy. The seemingly random encountering between Rooya and Manzar at the beginning of the narrative is the focus of Vafi’s novel. Their companionship not only causes them to interact with each other in the process of reviewing their past personal relationships, but also leads to a relationship based on intimacy and empathy between them. Their journey is used as a narrative technique to make it possible for them to re-experience their past lives with the help of each other, which allows for a critical review of their past relationship from their now broader perspective or altered consciousnesses. The entry of each of them into the privacy of the other, in spite of the differences that they seemingly have with each other, makes possible the establishment of a deep and sincere friendship between them. Such an experience, on the one hand, leads to the improvement of their broken relationships in the past. On the other hand, it gives rise to the establishment of a new relationship based on intimacy and empathy. What makes After the End a worthwhile narrative is also the fact that intimacy and empathy can encourage people to accept the facts about themselves and the others and is potential to eliminate the barriers to communication among people. The reader’s participation in such a process is possible due to the potential power of the narrative text and its impact on arousing the reader’s sense of empathy with the characters and the narrative events and situations. Similarly, according to the emotion-based approach to literary texts, representation of the emotional aspects of the fictional characters in pseudo-human situations leads to a better experience and a deeper understanding of the storyworld and its events by the reader.
Keywords: Emotion and Narrative, Intimacy/Empathy, Reader, After the End, Faribâ Vafi
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[1] Karam Nâyebpur, Associate Professor of Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University, Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of English Language and Literature, knayebpour@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0001-8533-6555.
Naqme Varqaiyân, Assistant Professor of Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University, Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of English Language and Literature, naghmeh.varghaiyan@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-6838-7876.
Keywords
Main Subjects
University Press.
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