Joseph Conrad remains one of the few authors I bother to reread, as different things catch my attention with each new pass. Not only do his stories revolve around fascinating characters, settings, and subjects, but he uses all of them to seamlessly delve into complex and often dark themes. This is the stuff that brings me to the dance.
The above is a quotation from chapter five in Conrad’s 1907 novel, The Secret Agent, set in 1886 London and based loosely on an actual historical incident. Last summer, I listened to this audiobook as one of the books selected for “reading” during my endless hours on the tractor mowing the fields. While the novel itself is thought-provoking and surprisingly modern for something written over one hundred years ago, the highlighted part above, in particular, has stuck with me. I bookmarked it at the time and kept mentally returning to it.
I did so again after a sort of minor gruesome incident in my barn last week that made me think again of this scene. (What follows is kind of gross, so if you are feeling a bit squeamish, you might want to bail out now.)
There was a little mouse in the barn aisle when I went in to set up before bringing the horses in for the night. I turned on the lights, and my dog ran over to sniff it, but it never budged. This isn’t normal; it should have run off. It was alive, though not looking so good—just sort of huddled up in a ball, shivering. It was a cold, rainy day, and I assumed it was sickly, so I just let it be as I brought the horses in from the field, hoping it would scurry away when they started clomping by. It never did.
Hanz is always the last to come in, and I allow him to walk in on his own because he finds his own stall without a fuss. He’s also terrified of our mare Rosie, who chases him if he gets in her personal space, so, he’s in the habit of hugging the wall to avoid her jaws. Well, he didn’t see the tiny mouse and stomped on it. I never imagined that a five-inch hoof would find a three-inch target in all that vast space, but one did, and a little rodent doesn’t stand a chance against 1500 lbs. of Mecklenburger.
I wanted to be relieved that the sickly little mouse was finally out of its misery, but it upset me that it met such a violent and painful (if quick) end. Living on a farm, I have to set mousetraps from time to time, but I feel awful every time I empty one. I don’t bear the creatures any ill will.
I went to clean up the remains and discovered that the mouse was not just pancaked but had exploded under the pressure. I had to scrape the smooshed creature up with a shovel, and I still can’t get the horrible image out of my head.
I relate all this because, in the scene surrounding the above quotation, the Chief Inspector, who has been pursuing a group of anarchists, must attempt to identify the remains of an unknown person blown up in a suspected terrorist plot. These scanty remains are lumped on a table under a tarp after being scraped from the pavement with a shovel. It’s a gruesome scene to witness from the perspective of the uneasy lawman.
Chief Inspector Heat, at times quite zealous in his pursuit of the story’s anarchists, pauses here to reflect darkly on this horrific sight and refuses to allow himself the consolation of imagining that this individual enjoyed a quick and painless end. Not because some sense of vengeance or justice in him hopes the suspected terrorist suffered, but because his sympathy—his fear—has conveyed him into the dead man’s shoes long enough to imagine his “passing through the pangs of inconceivable agony.”
Is Conrad right about the nature of sympathy?
I’ll begin by saying that dictionary definitions don’t agree about the meaning of sympathy. In some, it’s essentially synonymous with pity; in others, it’s strictly a sort of human-to-human mind-meld. Definitions of pity suffer the same problem. While there may be some overlap in meaning between the two concepts, what the language seems to lack is a definitive word signifying some oxymoron or paradox of emotionally removed care or concern. For me, this is how I’ve always understood pity. We pity from afar, never getting our emotional hands dirty in the process. Pity is what we safely confer on others when whatever got them can’t touch us. There’s a hint of condescension in pity.
Sympathy, on the other hand, is deeper and darker. It’s what we feel when we know, on some level, that we could be the victim of whatever species of suffering or misfortune plagues another. We see ourselves in their eyes and envision ourselves in their unfortunate shoes. And while it may technically be possible to sympathize with another’s good fortune and joy, we’re seldom use the word that way because, why would we?—we’re not forced to confront happiness the way must fear. And misfortune is an infinite resource.
I’m not one who confines my sympathy to humans, as the suffering of innocent, powerless animals is often most affecting for me. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was a child and learned the truth about where meat came from—not on moral grounds, but sympathetic ones; animals were my dearest friends and companions, and seeing them suffer was—is—almost unbearable. What are often cast as moral arguments, I believe, turn out to be sympathetic ones rooted in some of our deepest-seated fears: weakness, vulnerability, exploitation, betrayal. Perhaps that’s all morality is: fear dressed up as principle.
Pity presents itself as pious (indeed, pity apparently derives from the word piety [see below]), but beneath the facade of virtue is a hollow core. It costs us nothing to toss a caring thought or word toward those less fortunate. Aw, what a pity, we tell ourselves and anyone who will listen. Our pious duty done, we can congratulate ourselves on being good, thoughtful humans. But while the troubles of others are cause for concern, their particular misfortunes do not necessarily trigger our terror tripwires.
Why all this hair-splitting?
The Etymology Online entry for pity included this gem about the differentiation between the various classes of concern:
It is some comfort to receive commiseration or condolence ; it gives one strength to receive sympathy from a loving heart ; it is irksome to need compassion ; it galls us to be pitied. [Century Dictionary, 1895]
Amen.
What of Sympathetic Characters?
We’re often told that, as writers, we should strive to create “sympathetic characters.” According to MasterClass.com, “sympathetic characters arouse the pity and care of readers and viewers.” Sympathetic, in this case, is a misnomer. MasterClass claims that characters can be “pitiable” simply because bad things have happened to them and advises writers that characters with aspirations, who exhibit emotional depth, experience some form of marginalization, are underdogs, or are lacking in social status are “sympathetic.” The site also says that antagonists can be sympathetic characters if they have redeeming qualities, though what these qualities might be, they don’t specify.
While I support giving protagonists goals and emotional depth, I’m not sure why these other traits make a character inherently sympathetic, though I’ve seen many an author employ them to throw a novel-length pity party.
I acknowledge we’re probably all working from slightly different definitions here. I might prefer relatable instead of sympathetic for these characters, as I’m not convinced that sympathy and pity are synonymous, and it seems from most of these guides that what’s really being delineated are pitiful characters. If we agree with Conrad (as I’m inclined to) that sympathy is a form of fear inspired by the suffering of others, it should be much harder to elicit or evoke genuine sympathy, which makes it a rarer and more precious sentiment when granted by readers. Pity, on the other hand, is a low-stakes emotion that requires little personal investment from a reader. This is not to say the concern associated with pity can’t be real or powerful. But it’s not sympathy. And I don’t want anyone’s pity—not for myself or my characters.
On pity porn
It used to gall us to be pitied. So, what changed?
People are usually willing to grant others their pity: it demonstrates concern (if unintentionally condescending) and is emotionally low-cost. But why would anyone elicit pity—in life or literature? I suppose because it’s better than nothing. But I might argue that soliciting pity is a bit like soliciting a prostitute: it’s a pale substitute for the real connection one craves. The result is we are now overrun with narratives that offer the literary and emotional experience celebrated by this activist’s sign:
Um, great? This, in my view, is un-sympathy. There can be no sympathy where there is no shared understanding. The Chief Inspector manages to find more common humanity with an anonymous pile of exploded goo than this sign is willing to admit can exist between fellow living beings. We now have entire swathes of literature premised on the notion that most readers will never be able to understand and shouldn’t even try. That sounds totally worthwhile! Where do I send my money? I mean, I’ll never personally know what it’s like to be a citizen of ancient Egypt, medieval France, or modern Mexico City, but none of that would stop me from reading—or writing—stories from these places in hopes of connecting with the history, culture, and people on some level (assuming they were good stories.) Will I ever 100% authentically understand what it’s like to be them? That’s stupid. I’ll never know what it’s like to be anyone but myself. But I understand what it’s like to be human.
Too many books lately (I’m looking at you, traditional publishing) have tried to convince me that my common humanity is not a valid passport for entry to their exclusive little world. And, frankly, if that’s not good enough, I’m not interested in whatever lies between their covers. I suspect many books today are flops because of this weirdly exclusive gatekeeping; authors and publishers are making the bet that the righteous fear informing niche social guilt is as profound as the primal fear informing sympathy. From what I’ve seen, it’s not even close—not in the private spaces where, for thousands of years, we have engaged with stories. Flaunting a vaunted book as a prop or status object is all well and good, but at the end of the day, we still want to delve into a good book like we do a medicine chest.
We may find characters interesting or entertaining in their own right or pity their specific marginalization or underdog status, but that doesn’t make them inherently sympathetic or worthy of anything. Sometimes, all they manage to do is make us voyeurs or give us front row seats to a freak show. Unless we recognize something of our own fears or struggles there, we’ll also struggle to give a shit. That doesn’t make us bad people or unenlightened consumers of literature; that’s just the mechanics of human nature. And art, for all the preening and posturing, is just there to hold up the mirror.
How does an author create sympathetic characters? I couldn’t say. But I suspect it’s not by telling readers that this character’s circumstances and experiences are so special or alien you’ll never understand them, so don’t bother trying. If those readers are anything like me, they won’t bother; they’ll toss the book in the trash.
I’m not sure whether my own characters are sympathetic, pitiful, or something else entirely. It’s never been something I considered before now or worked at intentionally. But that brief, tortured moment between Chief Inspector Heat and the gruesome remains on the table has managed to stay with me, as has Conrad’s comment on sympathy. He managed to convey more sympathy for an anonymous figure in a few short lines than some authors do with an entire novel.
Most of us find it difficult to admit our fears and even more awkward to indulge them. Fears don’t have a place in polite society. Luckily, sympathy does. It is the mask our fears can wear in the world, in relationships, and in art. Fear-as-sympathy is so compelling because it reassures us that, even when faced with our darkest dread, we are not alone. That’s the real power of a sympathetic character.
Such a great essay!
‘we’ll also struggle to give a shit.’ 😂 Yes, I think that’s it, Jacquie. There’s something oddly sacred in caring about fictional characters and I suspect, if they’re authentically drawn, poor old mousy will always be lurking somewhere underhoof.