Juno Diaz’s &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; and the Narration of Empathy

Rania Samir Youssef

doi:10.4236/als.2022.101002

Abstract

Readers according to Virginia Woolf are co-creators of the text with writers. Reading requires letting imagination loose in order to become transported into a text, thus, eliciting cognitive empathy. Empathy has become recently a field of interest in several disciplines, among which is fiction. Empathic emotions can be elicited in readers, according to Keith Oatley, while reading fiction. This elicitation can be achieved through certain narrative techniques that mostly focus on identification with fictional characters. Using Suzanne Keen’s theory of narrative empathy and the theory of mind, adopted from Cognitive Psychology, this study will attempt to examine how Junot Diaz, in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, utilizes narration of empathy that relies on alteration in narrative voice and authorial point of view, shifts in narrational focalization and other narrative and linguistic devices to immerse the reader in the story world of his novel. The study aspires to be an addition to the new branch of Cognitive Literary Studies that investigates literature through the focus of brain science and by extension the usefulness of Cognitive Studies to Literary Studies and vice versa.

Highlights

Empathic emotions can be elicited in readers, according to Keith Oatley, while reading fiction. This elicitation can be achieved through certain narrative techniques that mostly focus on identification with fictional characters
Using Suzanne Keen’s theory of narrative empathy and the theory of mind, adopted from Cognitive Psychology, this study will attempt to examine how Junot Diaz, in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, utilizes narration of empathy that relies on alteration in narrative voice and authorial point of view, shifts in narrational focalization and other narrative and linguistic devices to immerse the reader in the story world of his novel
Virginia Woolf (1926: p. 40) states that the study of emotions requires some effort on the part of the reader; he/she is a co-creator of the text with the writer

Summary

Introduction

Virginia Woolf (1926: p. 40) states that the study of emotions requires some effort on the part of the reader; he/she is a co-creator of the text with the writer. 40) states that the study of emotions requires some effort on the part of the reader; he/she is a co-creator of the text with the writer. In her view, the reader should “be capable of great fineness of perception, but of great boldness of imagination”. The reader should “be capable of great fineness of perception, but of great boldness of imagination” She adds that writers are not as “professional” as the reader might think for they might not know more of their characters than the reader. The study of emotions does not solely depend on how the writer presents emotions during the act of writing, but how the text evokes emotions in readers as well

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion