Reading Fiction And Empathy Essay

Opinions are everywhere, some true, some are actual opinions and not just plain facts being spewed out of a person’s mouth, and others are just plain wrong or completely biased. Opinions can divide a group of people and start fights. With the internet growing, people are spreading their opinions everywhere and debating or arguing why their opinion is right, while anything else that is the opposite is wrong. Sometimes, the reasons can be false without either side knowing about it. If a person doesn’t agree on another person’s opinions, they would trash it and call it propaganda or spew out threats, especially on the internet. People lack empathy and the understanding of one’s culture. If they did have empathy, people will understand the person’s
Fiction improves empathy by allowing the reader to imagine what the characters are experiencing. Gaiman talks about “how you’re being someone else and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed”. This means that when someone reads, they are essentially being someone else and imagining the types of activities and events that they go through. And when they stop reading, they have different views thus changing their opinions about something. So by being someone else, readers can improve their empathy and help them view things differently. Another thing that reading fiction can do is that reading fiction can help improve theory of mind. Theory of mind is thinking what another person may be thinking based on the situation at hand, similar to empathy. Bergland knows this because he realizes that “the imaginative and cognitive benefits of children losing themselves in a good story and learning to empathize with a fictional character”. Once again, readers reading fiction can empathize with the character and a reader who can empathize with a fictional character can improve theory of mind. By improving theory of mind, people can imagine and think what people the other person may be thinking and as a result, they can change a person’s view on another person. Since reading fiction improves theory of mind and empathy, it can help change views about people and their