Literary Fiction & Empathy

Reading fiction can help you understand people by helping the reader notice the way the character acts and comparing that to the way that the character is feeling. By doing this the reader is able to do this better in real life situations. It also makes you use your imagination more and think more about what might be happening in real life situations. From Hamlet, you can take away that even when people seem like they are okay they may in fact be hiding something that they are feeling. You can infer that it may be important to ask other people how they are feeling frequently to know what is truly on their minds.