How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina? Author(s): Colin Radford and Michael Weston Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 49 (1975), pp. 67-93 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Aristotelian Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106870 Accessed: 06/12/2010 06:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black. 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That men feel concern for the fate of others, that they have some interest, and a warm and benevolent one in what happens to at least some other men, may be simply a brute fact about men, though a happy one. By this I mean that we can con- ceive that men might have been different in this respect, and so it is possible for us to be puzzled by the fact that they are not different. In a situation where men did not feel concern for others, children might be nurtured only because mothers could not stand the pain of not feeding them, or because it gave them pleasure to do this and to play with them, or be- cause they were a source of pride. So that if a child died, a mother might have the kind of feeling the owner of a car has if his car is stolen and wrecked. He doesn't feel anything for the car, unless he is a sentimentalist, and yet he is sorry and depressed when it happens. Of course there may be good biological reasons why men should have concern for each other, or at least some other men, but that is not to the point. The present point, a conceptual one, is that we can conceive that all men might have been as some men are, viz., devoid of any feeling for anyone but themselves, whereas we cannot conceive, e.g., that all men might be what some men are, chronic liars. 2. So concern and related feelings are in this sense brute. But what are they? What is it to be moved by something's happening to someone? Anything like a complete story here is a very long one, and in 67 68 I-COLIN RADFORD any case I have a particular interest. Suppose then that you read an account of the terrible sufferingso f a group of people. If you are at all humane, you are unlikely to be unmoved by what you read. The account is likely to awaken or reawaken feelings of anger, horror, dismay or outrage and, if you are tender-hearted,y ou may well be moved to tears. You may even grieve. But now suppose you discover that the account is false. If the account had caused you to grieve, you could not continue to grieve. If as the account sank in, you were told and believed that it was false this would make tears impossible, unless they were tears of rage. If you learned later that the account was false, you would feel that in being moved to tears you had been fooled, duped. It would seem then that I can only be moved by someone's plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or what- ever, I cannot grieve or be moved to tears. It is not only seeing a man's torment that torments us, it is also, as we say, the thought of his torment which torments, or upsets or moves us. But here thought implies belief. We have to believe in his torment to be tormented by it. When we say that the thought of his plight moves us to tears or grieves us, it is thinking of or contemplating suffering which we believe to be actual or likely that does it. 3. The direction of my argument should now be fairly clear. Moving closer to its goal: suppose that you have a drink with a man who proceeds to tell you a harrowing story about his sister and you are harrowed. After enjoying your reaction he then tells you that he doesn't have a sister, that he has invented the story. In his case, unlike the previous one, we might say that the 'heroine' of the account is fictitious. Nonetheless, and again, once you have been told this you can no longer feel harrowed. Indeed it is possible that you may be embarrassedb y your reaction precisely because it so clearly indicates that you were taken in-and you may also feel embarrassedf or the story- teller that he could behave in such a way. But the possibility of your being harrowed again seems to require that you believe that someone suffered. Of course, if the man tells you in advance that he is going to THE FATE OF ANNA KARENINA 69 tell you a story, you may reach for your hat, but you may stay and be moved. But this is too quick. Moving closer still: an actor friend invites you to watch him simulate extreme pain, agony. He writhes about and moans. Knowing that he is only acting, could you be moved to tears? Surely not. Of course you may be embarrassed,a nd after some time you may even get faintly worried, 'Is he really acting, or is he really in pain? Is he off his head?' But as long as you are convinced that he is only acting and is not really suffering, you cannot be moved by his suffering, and it seems unlikely as well as-as it were-unintelligible that you might be moved to tears by his portrayal of agony. It seems that you could only perhaps applaud it if it were realistic or convincing, and criti- cise if it were not. But now suppose, horribly, that he acts or re-enacts the death agonies of a friend, or a Vietcong that he killed and tells you this. Then you might be horrified. 4. If this account is correct, there is no problem about being moved by historical novels or plays, documentary films, etc. For these works depict and forcibly remind us of the real plight and of the real sufferings of real people, and it is for these persons that we feel.' What seems unintelligible is how we could have a similar reaction to the fate of Anna Karenina, the plight of Madame Bovary or the death of Mercutio. Yet we do. We weep, we pity Anna Karenina, we blink hard when Mercutio is dying and absurdly wish that he had not been so impetuous. 5. Or do we ? If we are seized by this problem, it is tempting for us to argue that, since we cannot be anguished or moved by what happens to Anna Karenina, since we cannot pity Madame Bovary and since we cannot grieve at the marvellous Mercutio's death, we do not do so. This is a tempting thesis especially because, having arrived at it, we have then to think more carefully about our reactions to and feelings about, e.g., the death of Mercutio, and these investigations reveal-how could they do otherwise?-that our response to Mercutio's death differs massively from our response to the untimely death of someone we know. As we watch Mercutio die the tears run down our cheeks, but as O.K. Bouwsma has pointed out,2 the cigarettes and chocolates go in 70 I-COLIN RADFORD our mouths too, and we may mutter, if not to each other, then to ourselves, 'How marvellous! How sublime!' and even 'How moving!'. 'Now', one might say, 'if one really is movedo, ne surely cannot comment on this and in admiring tones? Surely being moved to tears is a massive response which tends to interfere with saying much, even to oneself? And surely the nature of the response is such that any comments made that do not advert to what gives rise to the feeling but to the person experiencing it tend to suggest that the response isn't really felt? Compare this with leaning over to a friend in a theatre and saying "I am com- pletely absorbed (enchanted, spellbound) by this!"' But although we cannot truly grieve for Mercutio, we can be moved by his death, and are. If and when one says 'How moving' in an admiring tone, one can be moved at the theatre. One's admiration is for the play or the performance, and one can admire or be impressed by this and avow this while being moved by it. 6. So we cannot say that we do not feel for fictional charac- ters, that we are not sometimes moved by what happens to them. We shed real tears for Mercutio. They are not crocodile tears, they are dragged from us and they are not the sort of tears that are produced by cigarette smoke in the theatre. There is a lump in our throats, and it's not the sort of lump that is produced by swallowing a fishbone. We are appalled when we realise what may happen, and are horrified when it does. Indeed, we may be so appalled at the prospect of what we think is going to happen to a character in a novel or a play that some of us can't go on. We avert the impending tragedy in the only way we can, by closing the book, or leaving the theatre. This may be an inadequate response, and we may also feel silly or shamefaced at our tears. But this is not because they are always inappropriate and sentimental, as, e.g., is giving one's dog a birthday party, but rather because we feel them to be unmanly. They may be excusable though still embarrassingo n the occasion of a real death, but should be contained for any- thing less. Of course we are not only moved by fictional tragedies but impressed and even delighted by them. But I have tried to explain this, and that we are other things does not seem to the THE FATE OF ANNA KARENINA 71 point. What is worrying is that we are moved by the death of Mercutio and we weep while knowing that no one has really died, that no young man has been cut off in the flower of his youth.3 7. So if we can be and if some of us are indeed moved to tears at Mercutio'su ntimely death, feel pity for Anna Karenina and so on, how can this be explained ? How can the seeming incongruity of our doing this be explained and explained away ? First solution When we read the book, or better when we watch the play and it works, we are 'caught up' and respond and we 'forget' or are no longer aware that we are only reading a book or watching a play. In particular, we forget that Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Mercutio and so on are not real persons. But this won't do. It turns adults into children. It is true that, e.g., when children are first taken to pantomimes they are unclear about what is going on. The young ones are genuinely and unambiguously terrified when the giant comes to kill Jack. The bolder ones shout 'Look Out!' and even try to get on the stage to interfere. But do we do this ? Do we shout and try to get on the stage when, watching Romeoa ndJ uliet, we see that Tybalt is going to kill Mercutio? We do not. Or if we do, this is extravagant and unnecessary for our being moved. If we really did think some- one was really being slain, either a person called Mercutio or the actor playing that r61le,w e would try to do something or think that we should. We would, if you like, be genuinely appalled.4 So we are not unaware that we are 'only' watching a play involving fictional characters, and the problem remains. Seconds olution Of course we don't ever forget that Mercutio is only a character in a play, but we 'suspend our disbelief' in his reality. The theatre management and the producer connive at this. They dim the lights and try to find good actors. They, and we, frown on other members of the audience who draw attention to themselves and distract us by coughing, and if, during a scene, say a stage hand steals on, picks up a chair that should have 72 I-COLIN RADFORD been removed and sheepishly departs, our responsei s destroyed. The 'illusion' is shattered. All this is true but the paradox remains. When we watch a play we do not direct our thoughts to it's only being a play. We don't continually remind ourselveso f this-unless we are trying to reduce the effect of the work on us. Nonetheless, and as we have seen, we are never unaware that we are watching a play, and one about fictional characters even at the most exciting and moving moments. So the paradox is not solved by invoking 'suspensiono f disbelief', though it occurs and is connived at. Third solution It's just another brute fact about human beings that they can be moved by stories about fictional characters and events. I.e., human beings might not have been like this (and a lot of them are not. A lot of people do not read books or go to the theatre, and are bored if they do). But our problem is that people can be moved by fictional suffering given their brute behaviour in other contexts where belief in the reality of the suffering described or witnessed is necessary for the response. Fourth solution: But this thesis about behaviour in non-fictional contexts is too strong. The paradox arises only because my examples are handpicked ones in which there is this requirement. But there are plenty of situations in which we can be moved to tears or feel a lump in the throat without thinking that anyone will, or that anyone is even likely to suffer or die an untimely death, or whatever. But are there ? A mother hears that one of her friend's children has been killed in a street accident. When her own children return from school she grabs them in relief and hugs them, al- most with a kind of anger. (Is it because they have frightened her ?) Their reaction is 'What's wrong with you?' They won't get a coherent answer perhaps, but surely the explanation is obvious. The death of the friend's child 'brings home', 'makes real', and perhaps strengthens the mother's awareness of the likelihood of her own children being maimed or killed. We must try another case. A man's attention wanders from the paper he 73 THE FATE OF ANNA KARENINA is reading in his study. He thinks of his sister and, with a jolt, realises that she will soon be flying to the States. Perhaps be- cause he is terrified of flying he thinks of her flying and of her 'plane crashing and shudders. He imagines how this would affect their mother. She would be desolated, inconsolable. Tears prick his eyes. His wife enters and wants to know what's up. He looks upset. Our man is embarrassedb ut says truthfully, 'I was thinking about Jean's flying to the States and, well, I thought how awful it would be if there were an accident-how awful it would be for my mother.' Wife: 'Don't be silly! How maudlin! And had you nearly reduced yourselft o tears thinking about all this? Really, I don't know what's got into you, etc., etc.' In this case the man's response to his thoughts, his being appalled at the thought of his sister's crashing, is silly and maudlin, but it is intelligible and non-problematic. For it would be neither silly nor maudlin if flying were a more dangerous business than we are prone to think it is. Proof: change the example and suppose that the sister is seriously ill. She is not suffering yet, but she had cancer and her brother thinks about her dying and how her death will affect their mother. If that were the situation his wife would do well to offer comfort as well as advice. So a man can be moved not only by what has happened to someone, by actual suffering and death, but by their prospect and the greater the probability of the awful thing's happening, the more likely are we to sympathise, i.e., to understand his response and even share it. The lesser the probability the more likely we are not to feel this way. And if what moves a man to tears is the contemplation of something that is most unlikely to happen, e.g., the shooting of his sister, the more likely are we to find his behaviour worrying and puzzling. However, we can explain his divergent behaviour, and in various ways. We can do this in terms of his having false beliefs. He thinks a 'plane crash or a shooting is more likely than it is, which itself needs and can have an explanation. Or his threshold for worry is lower than average, and again this is non-problematic, i.e., we understand what's going on. Or lastly, we may decide he gets some kind of pleasure from dwelling on such contingencies and appalling himself. Now this is, logically, puzzling, for how 74 I-COLIN RADFORD can a man get pleasure from pain? But if only because traces of masochism are present in many of us, we are more likely to find it simply offensive. The point is that our man's behaviour is only more or less psychologically odd or morally worrying. There is no logical difficulty here, and the reason for this is that the suffering and anguish that he contemplates, however unlikely, is pain that some real person may really experience. Testing this, let us suppose first that our man when asked 'What's up' says, 'I was thinking how awful it would have been if Jean had been unable to have children-she wanted them so much.' Wife: 'But she's got them. Six!' Man: 'Yes, I know, but suppose she hadn't ?' 'My God! Yes it would have been but it didn't happen. How can you sit there and weep over the dread- ful thing that didn't happen, and now cannot happen.' (She's getting philosophical. Sneeringly) 'What are you doing? Grieving for her? Feeling sorry for her?' Man: 'All right! But thinking about it, it was so vivid I could imagine just how it would have been.' Wife: 'You began to snivel!' Man: 'Yes'. It is by making the man a sort of Walter Mitty, a man whose imagination is so powerful and vivid that, for a moment anyway, what he imagines seems real, that his tears are made intelligible, though of course not excusable. So now suppose that the man thinks not of his sister but of a woman . . . that is, he makes up a story about a woman who flies to the States and is killed and whose mother grieves, and so on, and that this gives him a lump in his throat. It might appear that, if my thesis is correct, the man's response to the story he invents should be even more puzzling than his being moved by the thought of his sister's not having children. 'Yet', one who was not seized by the philosophical problem might say, 'this case is really not puzzling. After all, he might be a writer who first gets some of his stories in this manner !' But that is precisely why this example does not help. It is too close, too like what gives rise to the problem.5 Fifth solution: A solution suggested by an earlier remark: if and when we weep for Anna Karenina, we weep for the pain and anguish that a real person might suffer and which real persons have suffered, THE FATE OF ANNA KARENINA 75 and if her situation were not of that sort we should not be moved. There is something in this, but not enough to make it a solution. For we do not really weep for the pain that a real person might suffer, and which real personsh ave suffered,w hen we weep for Anna Karenina, even if we should not be moved by her story if it were not of that sort. We weep for her. We are moved by what happens to her, by the situation she gets into, and which is a pitiful one, but we do not feel pity for her state or fate, or her history or her situation, or even for others, i.e., for real personsw ho might have or even have had such a history. We pity her, feel for her and our tears are shed for her. This thesis is even more compelling, perhaps, if we think about the death of Mercutio. But all over again, how can we do this knowing that neither she nor Mercutio ever existed, that all their sufferings do not add one bit to the sufferingso f the world? Sixth solution: Perhaps there really is no problem. In non-fictional situations it may be necessary that in order for a person to be moved, he must believe in the reality of what he sees or is told, or at least he must believe that such a thing may indeed happen to some- one. But, as I concede, being moved when reading a novel or watching a play is not exactly like being moved by what one believes happens in real life and, indeed, it is very different. So there are two sorts of being moved and, perhaps, two senses of 'being moved'. There is being moved (Sense i) in real life and 'being moved' (Sense 2) by what happens to fictional characters. But since there are these two sorts and senses, it does not follow from the necessity of belief in the reality of the agony or whatever it is, for being moved (S. I), that belief in its reality is, or ought to be necessary for 'being moved' (S. 2). So I have not shown that there is a genuine problem, which perhaps explains why I can find no solution. But although being moved by what one believes is really happening is not exactly the same as being moved by what one believes is happening to fictional characters, it is not wholly different. And it is what is common to being moved in either situation which makes problematic one of the differences, viz.,