Rainer 1

Macy Rainer
CLTR1120
Professor Robinson
23 April 2015
Literature and Moral Relativism
As a kid, I was always a bit of a loner. I wasnt great at making friends and sometimes got

bullied for being a little weird. Consequently, I stayed inside after school and nurtured the love

of reading my parents had instilled in me. Books proved to be the perfect friends. They were

wildly entertaining, always available, and entirely non-judgmental. In fact, they even seemed to

understand me, putting into words the thoughts and fears that plagued me, and that I had

previously thought were unique to me.

Unsurprisingly, I grew up to be a bit of a literary snob. Im bored by many books and

quick to find faults in them, much to the dismay of my high school English teachers. However,

once I dig into a book that meets my standards, I fall in love easily. And the only way I know

how to love a book is unconditionally. I will defend it passionately against its critics and

carefully underline the most poignant phrases, so I can easily flip back to them in the future

when I want to read something beautiful.

My favorite books tend to be extremely character-oriented. I love seeing the world

through someone elses eyes and learning why they act the way they do. The best book

characters feel alive to me, which is why it was strange for me to realize that I think about them

differently than I would a real person. In class we discussed moral relativism in terms of different

time periods of geographic locations, but I, and I suspect most other people, experience shifts in

moral judgements when the morals are those of a fictional character.

 Rainer 2

Perhaps the most striking example that I have of this idea is my experience with Vladimir

Nabokovs Lolita. My twelfth-grade English teacher worshiped Nabokov, and several of my

friends and I were inspired to read his most popular novel around the same time. My teacher was

right; I still havent read anything that rivaled Nabokovs prose. It was so heartbreakingly

beautiful that it was easy to forget that Lolita is the story of a pedophile and his victim. This is

not an accident. Nabokov knowingly writes in the preface to the book, You can always count on

a murderer for a fancy prose style.

My friends and I all had similar, surprising reactions to the story of Humbert Humbert.

We were all so taken with the elegant style that the plot didnt incite the feelings of horror and

disgust that one would expect. Despite the fact that my own sister was Lolitas age at the time, I

still couldnt resist audibly sighing at Humberts love poem for his victim. I remember one of my

friends suggesting that Lolita herself was really the instigator. We werent sociopaths who didnt

understand the idea of consent. But something had caused us to relax our normally rigid moral

standards when evaluating the actions of the fictional protagonist.

The easiest explanation is that people are able to understand the difference between a

fictional character and a real person. One could argue that my friends and I were fairly accepting

of Humbert because we knew that his actions existed only within the pages of the novel, and that

Lolita wasnt really hurt because she didnt exist. Certainly, if we had read the story in the

context of a news article, we would have experienced the anger and condemnation that is

normally reserved for pedophilia.

It can be frightening to consider the alternative: that we could be swayed to doubt our

moral convictions by a particularly eloquent writing style. Unfortunately, this is not unheard of.

Language has empirically been a strong tool of persuasion. The most influential people are so
 Rainer 3

often powerful communicators. A strong speech can inspire people to act and believe things that

they otherwise would not. I know that I can be guilty of this with certain topics. For example,

some of my favorite books (Brideshead Revisited, Anna Karenina) are about adultery. I am

morally opposed to infidelity and find it an incredibly cruel thing to do to ones significant other.

Yet I often find myself romanticizing it while Im reading, pulled in by the flowery language and

emotional appeals.

However, I think these moral shifts are attributable to more than just style, especially

when a characters supposed crimes arent fundamentally wrong. My alternative explanation is

that books offer us an insight that is difficult to find in day-to-day life. A well-written book offers

access to a persons entire thought process, allowing us to understand the characters motivations

and empathize with them. Consider J.D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye. Though the

protagonist Holden Caulfield has many critics, he remains one of the most well-loved characters

in literary history. Yet I suspect that if Holden existed as an acquaintance, most people would

find him disagreeable. He would probably come across as selfish and immature.

I believe Holden is popular because Salinger provides us with the information necessary

to understand Holdens actions and even find something about him relatable. The reader learns

that Holden is immature because he craves the childlike innocence his deceased brother once

embodied. And, though it seems silly in retrospect, most readers can remember feeling hatred

towards the phonies in their lives during their teenage years.

Essentially, Holden as a character is complex. He has thoughts and feelings and

experiences that are relatable to people. In many ways, Holden is more real to readers than most

people in their lives. We can accept Holdens flaws because we understand them. If we meet a

Holden on the street, though, we dont have the context necessary to understand their behavior,
 Rainer 4

and so we are much more likely to reject them. Real-world Holden is no longer interesting and

complicated; he becomes just another aimless, angst-filled teenager. I believe that, unfortunately,

empathy is difficult for most people. It would be exhausting to try to relate to and understand

every person that we come into contact with. We reserve our limited empathy for the few people

(both real and otherwise) that we choose to invest in, and reading a book is an investment.

Perhaps we should consciously choose to consider other people, even strangers, the way we

consider our favorite book characters.

Books are more than just a source of entertainment or a tedious homework assignment.

They help demonstrate some of our human flaws. Books are proof that language is powerful, and

we have to be mindful about how it affects us. Furthermore, they show that people can empathize

well with others, but that empathy is difficult. Its not wrong to treat a book character different

than a real person; they are different, after all. But it is important to be aware of just how

malleable our thoughts and morals can be.