摘要：雅思中國網雅思君今天分享的雅思閱讀文章叫“Why we care so much about fictional characters?”why？最近一部劇特別火，叫《太陽的后裔》，多少少女敗在了宋仲基撩妹的技能之下，大呼腦公！為什么迷他，我也不知道!看看這篇雅思閱讀文章能不能找到答案吧！

今天帶給大家的雅思課外閱讀文章題目叫“Why we care so much about TV and movie characters”，為什么我們對電視電影角色那么入迷？關于這個問題，我的理由簡單粗暴：因為他們長得帥！本文作者的觀點是我們為什么會對虛構人物的命運如此關心，為之哭泣，為之歡喜，為之吶喊，為之憤怒?一方面是因為我們投入了情感，另一方面是我們希望人物得到公正，就像在現實中一樣。我們能夠將理智和情感投入到虛構世界中，表明我們的認知能力是完整(intact)的。一起來看看這篇精彩的文章吧！

Ever cry over the death of a TV character? Here's why.

I admit it: I'm the sort of "Star Wars" geek(對......癡迷的人，傻子) who's intrigued(被……吸引住) by the suggestion sweeping the Internet that Jar Jar Binks might have been the secret bad guy. The theory began in a complicated Reddit post, and has since gone mainstream.

Why am I so intrigued? Why are fans of "Game of Thrones" so angry at the thought that Jon Snow might actually be dead? Why are fans of "The Walking Dead" beside themselves(瘋狂的) over the apparent demise(死亡) two episodes back of Beloved Character Whom We Won't Spoil Things by Naming?(為什么《行尸走肉》的粉絲們會因為那些他們鐘愛卻被寫死的角色那么瘋狂--為防劇透，在這我們不說出這些角色的名字?) None of these people exist. Why, then, do we become so emotionally engaged in their fates?

To help answer the question, I went to Blakey Vermeule of Stanford University, a professor of English and author of the excellent monograph(專著) "Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?" There Vermeule combines cognitive theory, history, social psychology and a touch of Darwin to suggest that without fiction, we would have trouble making sense of the world. Narratives bring order to what we see around us, and characters put faces to what we learn.

To be sure, the stories Vermeule has in mind are mostly classic literature. Still, she was kind enough, via e-mail, to answer a few questions, and she provides a truly intriguing theory:

"I think this widespread fascination with fantasy shows that we do not in fact live in a secular(世俗的) age, rather we live rather amazingly in an age of shimmering(閃爍的) enchantments(迷幻), of heroes and villains(反派角色) and Gods and monsters."

She's noticed, in other words, that fandom's(影迷) deepest engagement seems to be with characters facing zombies and Sith Lords. She adds: "That these worlds are fictional and that we know them to be fictional is quite beside the point(無關緊要): the human brain is extremely easily fooled into believing things are true, often viscerally(發自內心地), even when we know in some rational sense that they are not."

Lest one think that she is here speaking only of the effect of fiction on our brains, Vermeule provides an example that should leave us uneasy: "A friend reports that he recently toured a virtual reality lab(虛擬現實實驗室) at Stanford. The simulator(模擬器) made him think he was standing on a plank (木板)over a ravine(峽谷) -- nothing he could say to himself could convince him to step off the plank, even though he knew perfectly well he was standing on carpet in a lab."

Why does it matter what clever cognitive scientists can fool our brain into thinking? Because scientists are not the only ones who can do it: "Fiction makers have gotten astonishingly good at defeating our rational override switch(人控開關)."

They can pull this off, says Vermeule, because their creations "prime some deep religious intuitions and give them a habitation in a world that has grown so deeply skeptical and materialistic and wary of ideals(Vermeule說，他們能夠拉下我們的理性控制開關，因為他們的創造 “可以激起深藏內心的某些宗教直覺，并幫它們在這個世界中找到棲息地，這個世界如今已變得如此不可知、如此物質化、如此不相信理想。")

In her book, Vermeule contends that even stories we know to be invented help fulfill a need for narrative connection that may be wired into us(在她的書中，Vemeule認為，即使我們知道那些故事是虛構的，但那些故事仍然滿足了根植于我們內心對敘事聯系的需求。). We can understand the world better when we can embed(嵌入) its various characteristics in a tale. But the tale, to work, has to offer personification. This was true in the days of ancient myth and is true now. It may be that our identification with the characters leads us to believe we're on the track of important truths.(也許是這樣的：與人物認同讓我們相信，我們正通往重要真理的路上。)

So in our encounters with fiction, we're nevertheless searchers. We spend emotional energy on characters because we can pursue these deep truths even if they're absent from our reality. This, says Vermeule, is a good thing: "We should absolutely delight in the power that fiction makers (in any medium) have to transport us into other worlds and involve us so mightily."

We should. The problem is, too often we don't absolutely delight. Instead, we absolutely lose our tempers. "Game of Thrones" fans are angry at the thought that Jon Snow might be dead, and desperate for evidence that he isn't. "Walking Dead" fans feel the same way about Beloved Character. And "Star Wars" fans -- well, that's an often eccentric(古怪的) group that cares so intensely that every line of dialogue is worth parsing(剖析) to get the answer.

               
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