I'll try to keep this short. I've noticed something when I'm reading books where if a character says something or does something that rubs me the wrong way, I get a bit wary about the author and their intentions. This will happen whether it's villains or heroes (especially if it's sort of morally grey 'heroes').
I'm struggling to grasp that an author is telling a story and not necessarily agreeing with what they write, what their characters say, etc. I think it's easier for me to do this with villains but not with who is usually in the hero slot. I think one of my issues is seeing it as hero vs villain instead of there simply being a protagonist and an antagonist.
I feel like my ability to analyze texts as a whole would improve if I could just break this weird reflex I have. Does anyone have any advice on essentially seperating the author from my mind while I'm reading a story? How can I get better at actually making sense of morally grey characters?
I'm trying to read literature I'm not used to and I'm weening off of YA (as a choice) where the morals are more black and white and easy to grasp. I think that's part of why I hesitate and instantly assume the characters align with the author's values. Which isn't something I want to do because I know it isn't always true, authors are capable of condoning and criticizing the same action in different scenarios, etc. and it really limits my understanding of multiple books if I can't analyze anything that is even somewhat grey.
by WanderingBadgernaut
2 Comments
I think you just have to expose yourself to those things that make you uncomfortable in order to grow as a reader. And just because you’re reading about ”bad” characters, ”bad” things, doesn’t exactly reflect on you as a person. Me reading about serial killers doesn’t make me one, and so on. It’s the same on the writing side. So keep reading I would say! It’s great you’re challenging yourself and exploring other genres/types of books.
It might help to think of analysis and understanding before judgement. This is hard – we are sometimes hardwired to form quick opinions and conclusions. It takes effort to first consider perspectives and alternatives.
We find it easy to make quick “A is good. B is bad” calls because it short circuits thinking. Once we are “satisfied” we have an “answer” then we no longer need to waste time understanding. Many times this kind of binary thinking comes about because we personalize things – “how would I react”, “what would I do”. We want to be the hero of our lives so we center things on ourselves so now rather than exploration it becomes self justification.