Activation of Empathy Feelings in Raymond Carver’s A Small, Good Thing

Abstract

Raymond Carver’s A Small, Good Thing portrays affective and cognitive empathy feelings between the characters. The narrative presents affective discourse in two situations. The protagonist Ann’s empathy with her husband and with a Negro family enables her to communicate with them through sharing their mental states. Likewise, the narrative represents two situations in which cognitive empathy is generated. Dr. Francis’s awareness about Ann’s mental state alleviates her suffering. Additionally, when, at the narrative’s end, Ann and her husband tell the baker the news of their son’s death and he tells them his own childless life story, they mutually show cognitive empathy toward each other through identification of their mental states. My essay argues that engagement with evoked cognitive and affective empathy feelings between the characters in Carver’s story is likely to generate narrative reader’s cognitive empathy. Carver’s narrative has the potential to elicit a reader’s cognitive empathy through manipulation of the narrative perspective and representation of a familiar emotion, sadness evoked by death, as well as anthropomorphic or human-like reactions to this emotion.

Keywords

• Narrative and emotion,empathy (affective and cognitive) / sympathy,reader,A Small,Good Thing,Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver’in A Small, Good Thing Adlı Hikâyesinde Eşduyum Duygularının Etkinleştirilmesi

Abstract

Raymond Carver’ın A Small, Good Thing adlı hikâyesi, karakterler arasındaki duyuşsal ve bilişsel empati duygularını betimler. Anlatı, duyuşsal söylemi iki durumda sunar. Öykünün baş kişisi olan Ann'in kocasıyla ve bir Zenci aileyle olan empatisi,  zihinsel durumlarını paylaşarak, onlarla iletişim kurmasını sağlar. Aynı biçimde anlatı, iki başka durumda da, bilişsel empatinin kurulmasını ortaya koyar. Dr. Francis’in Ann'in acı çeken zihinsel durumu hakkındaki farkındalığı, Ann’in acısını hafifletir. Bunun yanında, anlatı sonunda Ann ve kocası fırıncıya kendi oğullarının ölüm haberini verip, fırıncının da onlara kendi çocuksuz yaşam öyküsünü anlattığında, zihinsel durumlarını anlama ve farketme yoluyla birbirleri ile bilişsel empati kurarlar. Bu yazıda, Carver'ın öyküsündeki karakterler arasında tetiklenmiş bilişsel ve duyuşsal empati duygularıyla etkileşim kurmanın, anlatı okuyucusununda bilişsel empati oluşturacağı öne sürülmektedir. Carver'ın öyküsü, anlatı perspektifinin manipüle edilmesi ve tanıdık bir duygunun—ölümle tetiklenen hüzünlenmenin—sunulması yoluyla, okuyucunun anlatıdaki duruma karşı insani tepkilerini uyandırıp, onun karakterlerle bilişsel empati kurmasını sağlama potansiyeline sahiptir.

Keywords

• Anlatı ve duygu,empati (duyuşsal ve bilişsel) / sempati,okuyucu,A Small,Good Thing,Raymond Carver

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