Potentials of Empathetic Stimuli in Creative Nonfiction: Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect and Danner’s Torture and Truth

Abstract

ABSTRACT The cognitive potentials of creative nonfiction in achieving narrative empathic engagement have not received due attention from previous researchers. Therefore, this study aims at exploring the literary attributes and narrative elements which render creative nonfiction as effective as fiction in the promotion of the reader’s empathic response. Drawing on implications from narrative theory and cognitive studies, it stresses how the inherent constituents of creative nonfiction, merging true stories into a literary template, process in guaranteeing profound empathic engagement with the text. This paper also includes a comparative study, analysing two creative nonfiction works, Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect and Danner’s Torture and Truth, and revealing how the potentials of CNF enable the two writers to utilise literary devices in an empathetically appealing narrative and tackle the same true human issue from different perspectives.