Memorable, Meaningful, Pleasurable: An Exploratory Examination of Narrative Character Deaths

Abstract

The current manuscript presents a study that examines contextual factors that can explain two distinct types of viewer responses to death in narratives. Using procedures developed in past research, we explore why some narrative character deaths elicit poignant, eudaimonic responses while others elicit joyful, hedonic responses. We incorporate a control group to examine whether freely-recalled memorable deaths are more closely associated with feelings of meaning or pleasure. Results suggest that meaningful deaths lead to appreciation; befall liked, moral characters; and elicit mixed/negative affect, whereas pleasurable deaths lead to enjoyment; befall disliked, immoral characters, and elicit positive affect. In addition, freely-recalled character death is more closely aligned with meaningful death and its correlates than pleasurable death and its correlates. We conclude with a discussion of how the current findings can improve the use of mediated death in clinical settings, particularly as a strategy for approaching instances of disenfranchised grief.

Going off the rails with Sally Jones: Promoting literary understanding in character-focused read-aloud discussions

“…It follows that creative expression deserves a clearer place in the curriculum of Nordic countries (see Liberg et al, 2012;Gourvennec et al, 2020). Furthermore, while Sipe (2000) relates intertextual connections to a hermeneutic understanding of the text, the present study has showed the intertextual nature of the students' creative responses, building on narrative patterns of happy resolutions and pleasurable deaths of antagonists (e.g., Cox et al, 2005;Fitzgerald et al, 2020). Discouragingly, the soon to be implemented curriculum for Swedish language arts (Skolverket, 2021) do not contain the word creativity and refers to intertextuality only in relation to analytical practices in grades 7-9 ("analysis of texts in connection to other texts", see Skolverket, 2021, p. 4).…”

“…Such foregrounding of writing skills in relation to literature was also highlighted by Gabrielsen et al (2019). From the perspective of aesthetic responses (see below), a survey of Fitzgerald et al (2020) has shown that the death of an antagonist or other disliked character (justified deaths, see Cox et al, 2005) forms part of readers' pleasurable encounters with literature.…”

Humor and poignancy: Exploring narrative pathways to face death and bereavement

“…In Fitzgerald et al (2020), responses to narrative death scenes were found to be associated with distinct processes of narrative engagement and appraisal: meaningful death scenes were rated as being more engaging (i.e., through narrative transportation, Green and Brock, 2000;and character identification, Cohen, 2001; see supplemental analyses in Fitzgerald et al, 2020) compared to pleasurable death scenes. With regard to bereavement narratives, we would similarly expect that individuals transported in a story about death would be more open to accepting the notion that death is an inevitable part of life, if the story presents this perspective.…”

“…to think of death as a serious topic, it is often depicted in media entertainment in ways that are light, humorous, and hedonically enjoyed. In an exploratory study of death depictions in entertainment media, Fitzgerald et al (2020) found that death scenes can elicit both eudaimonic responses-characterized by poignancy-and hedonic responses-characterized by fun and pleasure. Participants were asked to think about a death scene in a narrative that they found particularly meaningful, pleasurable, or memorable (an added control condition; see footnote 1 regarding the use of the term "meaningful").…”

“…Communication scholars have long proposed that stories can provide safe and consequence-free realms for audiences to approach real-world topics, including those that are emotionally taxing (Mar and Oatley, 2008;Slater et al, 2014;Green and Fitzgerald, 2017;Menninghaus et al, 2017;Fitzgerald et al, 2019). A growing body of research has explored how narratives can offer opportunities for audiences to cope with the topics of death and grief (Cox et al, 2005;Rieger et al, 2015;Rieger and Hofer, 2017;Slater et al, 2018;Fitzgerald et al, 2020;Das and Peters, 2022). This research has primarily focused on eudaimonic media experiences such as self-transcendent narratives and how these experiences can help reduce the fear of death (Rieger et al, 2015), foster loss acceptance (Hofer, 2013;Slater et al, 2018), and increase feelings of connectedness with others (Janicke-Bowles and Oliver, 2017;Das and Peters, 2022).…”