1 We are moved by the fate of the characters in the play.
2 We know that the characters in the play do not exist.
3 We are moved only by that which we believe to exist.
To say that these three cannot be true together is to say that they
cannot be true in such a way that we are perfectly consistent or rational.
One response, then, is simply to accept all three claims and accept,
therefore, that we aren’t rational: sometimes we do things that we know
to be irrational; one of these things might be weeping over the fate of
fictional characters. Hence Radford concludes, from his discussion, that
the way we respond emotionally to artworks‘involves us in inconsistency
and so incoherence’–but no more so than fearing death when we believe
it to be a‘dreamless sleep’.^8 Radford’s claim is appealing in many ways.
But we can probably admit that if there’s a simple explanation of my pity
for Vanya, which doesn’t make me fundamentally irrational, then that’s the
explanation I would prefer to go for. Responses that seek to avoid irra-
tionality may be broadly divided into those that aim to deny or modify
thefirst, second or third claim, such that all three sit nicely together (and
also do justice to the phenomena). We shall look at each in turn.
Denying 1: we are not moved
Translation
Looking back to the description of my response toUncle Vanya,it’s clear
that plenty of other things move us, which have nothing to do with the
characters. One thing (amongst many others) that Chekhov is doing with
his play is drawing our attention to a set of concerns that, quite simply,
bother us: can we get meaning or fulfilment from our lives? If we feel
emotional about these concerns, it is nothing to do with Vanya or Sonya
in particular; perhaps we simply see them as media, as messengers who
pass these concerns from Chekhov to his audiences. We don’t care about
them as such; we care about the questions they raise. And because the
questions they raise are all too real, there is no problem reconciling this
with the second and third claims, above. But this won’t quite do.
Nobody, I think, would deny that these general kinds of question can stir
us as part of watching a play. Furthermore, the distinction between what
I feel specificallyfor Vanyaand what I feel (say) for myself is always going
to be blurry. But, in order for this to be a successful resolution of the
problem, it’s not enough to say that the emotions stirred up by the play
are often connected with real-life concerns. To resolve the problem, one
must also deny that weeverfeel for the characters. After all, I might well
Emotions 131