By GIRLIE CASTILLO-JIMENEZ

My teacher in grade 2 was a very good story-teller. When we enter her class after lunch, she would sit and we would flock around and listen to her intently. Her stories are not very interesting but every one of us would listen as if it would be the last story we would ever hear. Anyhow, I adored her and I guess most of us did.

After 22 years, I realized that aside from the fact that children really love listening to stories back then, I believe that it was a way to relax and somehow forget the many tasks at home and even in school. It was a very good form of entertainment.

Dharmbir Sharma, an Indian blogger introduced his essay by stating man’s needs of diversion to get away even if for a few moments from the humdrum of life and thus fiction plays an integral part of human life. Indeed, if students areasked why they pretend to be listening to the teacher while they intently read their ‘textbooks’ with hidden ‘Precious Romances’ inside or why fans spend some time to watch Jackie Chan in his final action movie Chinese Zodiac or why miners and farmers take some break to listen to ‘Kapitan Enteng and Kuarog’ over the radio, most would say that they need some break.

Fiction as Shamra said is unreal because it is a product of the author’s imagination but this imagination is based on reality. That is the reason why readers, viewers and listeners are able to relate to ‘Edward’ or to ‘Jacob’, and to the other characters of the fiction they read, watch or hear.

One issue however is the relative definition of reality. Shamra mentioned two opposing definitions of reality coming from the materialist and the spiritualist. While the materialist says that for something to be real should be perceived by the senses, the spiritualist says that reality is only based on one thing and that is God and the rest just follows and are merely illusions. I say that regardless of how we define reality, it is still undeniable that in the end, we read or watch fiction not because of their being real or unreal.

Another issue is why we show emotional responses to the events depicted in the fiction just as in real life. This fact presents an irony of life. We easily get emotional attachments to the characters of these fiction stories by merely reading and watching them. We easily love protagonists and hate antagonists though we are not even sure if that is their true character in real life.

The knowledge of these characters or stories as unreal and imaginary is actually what makes us get attached to them easily. Unlike in real life, our expectations of the fictional characters are quite lesser. Emotional attachment is definitely more serious in real life. We don’t see and even like to see the bad side of a well-liked character or the good side of a bad character unless it is presented by the author. Most of the time, these fictional characters are placed in a box with limited traits and we like it that way.

Nevertheless, we relate to these fictional characters because the author who created them shows life itself. Thus, we learn from them and even try to be them to end up like them (those who end up happily). Freud says that dreams are the realizations of man’s hidden desires. In the same manner, we attain some of our unrealized hopes and desires in the characters we encounter in these fictional stories. Therefore, though fiction is literally unreal, it becomes real in our own hopes, desires and experiences. # nordis.net