雅思课外读物--Why we care so much about fictional characters - 雅思(IELTS)-全程雅思学习-雅思中国网

摘要：雅思中国网雅思君今天分享的雅思阅读文章叫“Why we care so much about fictional characters?”why？最近一部剧特别火，叫《太阳的后裔》，多少少女败在了宋仲基撩妹的技能之下，大呼脑公！为什么迷他，我也不知道!看看这篇雅思阅读文章能不能找到答案吧！

But the furious response to storylines(故事情节) we dislike isn't new. In the 18th century, Vermeule says, the novelist Samuel Richardson was deluged with(向……涌来) letters of protest once readers realized that he "was going to allow his virtuous heroine Clarissa to die after being raped by the villain." In more recent history, she reminds us, "Sopranos(《黑道家族》) "fans have yet to forgive the show's creator, David Chase.

I asked Vermeule why we get so angry. Here's her answer: "Fiction rather uniquely primes our moral intuitions, our sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, of fair and not fair. When we suspect that justice is being thwarted(阻碍), we want to lodge a protest(提出抗议) -- and the protest is a deeply moral one, against the unfairness of outcomes."

We're so caught up in the narrative that we demand right outcomes, just as we do in life. We're not driven by affection for characters alone, but by our desperate need to see justice done ... somewhere. And, yes, we should be able to tell the difference between illusion and reality, and adjust our emotional involvement accordingly, but we can't:

"Again this is our emotional brain overriding our rational kill(joy) switch, appealing to the Ref(裁判) even when we know there is no Ref. All of these impulses can be seen in a pure form in children and to the extent that we have carried them into our adult lives, it is cause for celebration, to fight against what Wordsworth called the shades of the prison house that close upon the growing person."

Perhaps, then, we should be happy that we care so deeply. Whether we're furious about the fate of Beloved Character or demanding the truth about Jar Jar Binks, our anger about characters who don't exist isn't evidence that we're disconnected from reality. It's evidence that our moral sense is intact(完整的). In a world as complex as this one, that's surely a good thing.

Vocabulary

Intrigued:被……吸引住

Monograph:专著

Villains:反派角色

Fandom:影迷

beside the point:无关紧要

viscerally:发自内心地

virtual reality lab:虚拟现实实验室

simulator:模拟器

plank :木板

ravine:峡谷

override switch:人控开关