Some academics think that reading a book just to identify with a character is self-centred and shallow. When you’re only reading for characters you can identify with, you’re projecting yourself onto the book. But Merve Emre thinks that’s unfair. Far from being shallow, who readers do and don’t identify with is a complex and nuanced question. Using examples from Freud to Fifty Shades of Grey, Merve shows how identifying with characters can reshape our sense of self and help us better understand the society we live in.
Bonus clip
Click here to listen to Merve discussing the unfair way that identification operated along gender lines in 2016 US elections.
Works mentioned
– Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
– Mary Gaitskill, In Charm’s Way: Gone Girl’s sickening worldview
– Henry James, The speech of American women
– Henry James, Daisy Miller
– Sigmund Freud, Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria
– Nicole Lapin, Boss Bitch
Further reading
Merve Emre at The Baffler – Better Management Through Belles Lettres
Anna North at The New York Times – When Novels Were Bad For You
Joan Acocella at the New Yorker – Turning the Page: How women became readers
Sarah Seltzer at The Nation – #MeToo Has Debunked the ‘Lean In’ Philosophy
Hannah Engler at Book Riot – “Jane the Virgin” and the Trope of the Woman Reader