Stories are much more than just accounts of events that have happened in the past. Stories are comprised of the narrator’s individual thoughts and perceptions formed into strands of words in order to draw out empathy or understanding from others. Every word within a story acts as a potential launching pad for the thoughts and emotions of the readers, causing no two encounters with the story to be alike. This lack of equality between individual readings separates the writer’s experience from the reader’s perception of the experience. In this way, stories impede readers’ abilities to gain an understanding of others. Ian McEwan’s Atonement illustrates the idea that stories, limited by language along with the reader-writer relationship, demote
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McEwan directly addresses this problem when he asks, in pondering the emotion of sadness, “how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy?” (109). With this, McEwan begins to explore the barrier, language, that prevents a full understanding of another’s emotions. He points out the ambiguity in the way that an emotion should be “put across” by asking for a set of guidelines. McEwan analyzes the idea that, in a story, an emotion must be presented in a way that it “could be felt” by the reader. With these observations, he alerts the audience to the many and varying methods which authors employ in order to convey the correct emotions to their audiences. He also points out that language is only the beginning to a reader’s understanding of the emotion, and that there is always a difference between individual interpretations. He uses the phrase, “lowering immediacy” to illustrate the way in which each reader construes the importance of something differently. Some readers may feel that sadness is the most important detail of a story, while others may believe that it is anger. This difference in interpretation leads to a decreased understanding of the persons in the story. This lack of understanding prevents readers from gaining empathy and understanding through the
McEwan directly addresses this problem when he asks, in pondering the emotion of sadness, “how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy?” (109). With this, McEwan begins to explore the barrier, language, that prevents a full understanding of another’s emotions. He points out the ambiguity in the way that an emotion should be “put across” by asking for a set of guidelines. McEwan analyzes the idea that, in a story, an emotion must be presented in a way that it “could be felt” by the reader. With these observations, he alerts the audience to the many and varying methods which authors employ in order to convey the correct emotions to their audiences. He also points out that language is only the beginning to a reader’s understanding of the emotion, and that there is always a difference between individual interpretations. He uses the phrase, “lowering immediacy” to illustrate the way in which each reader construes the importance of something differently. Some readers may feel that sadness is the most important detail of a story, while others may believe that it is anger. This difference in interpretation leads to a decreased understanding of the persons in the story. This lack of understanding prevents readers from gaining empathy and understanding through the