What joy from misery : the pleasures of horror
This thesis investigates the allure of narrative genres, such as horror, that have historically been viewed as philosophically (and often morally) problematic owing to their negative content and the painful emotional responses they elicit. It departs from the majority of classical and contemporary solutions to the alleged paradox posed by such genres, in that it does not attempt to render their pleasures explicable by appealing to their fictive status, thematic or ideological meanings or the more comprehensibly-pleasurable meta-responses they inspire. Rather, this account suggests that we choose to consume stories â fictional and factual â that depict violent or distressing situations and evoke discomforting emotions, for the same reason we choose to engage with less obviously conflict-filled narratives. Fictions compel our attention insofar as they resemble potentially salient information, appealing to a set of deeply ingrained and unconscious cognitive biases that prompt us to attend to certain kinds of stimuli. We are capable of finding narrative genres such as horror, tragedy and the âmisery memoirâ compelling â without, it is important to note, finding their content in any way pleasant â because
Allen, Katherine
What joy from misery : the pleasures of horror. This thesis investigates the allure of narrative genres, such as horror, that have historically been viewed as philosophically (and often morally) problematic owing to their negative content and the painful emotional responses they elicit. It departs from the majority of classical and contemporary solutions to the alleged paradox posed by such genres, in that it does not attempt to render their pleasures explicable by appealing to their fictive status, thematic or ideological meanings or the more comprehensibly-pleasurable meta-responses they inspire. Rather, this account suggests that we choose to consume stories â fictional and factual â that depict violent or distressing situations and evoke discomforting emotions, for the same reason we choose to engage with less obviously conflict-filled narratives. Fictions compel our attention insofar as they resemble potentially salient information, appealing to a set of deeply ingrained and unconscious cognitive biases that prompt us to attend to certain kinds of stimuli. We are capable of finding narrative genres such as horror, tragedy and the âmisery memoirâ compelling â without, it is important to note, finding their content in any way pleasant â because
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