When the protagonist of Dune, Paul Atreides, died in the Dune series, the memory of the sacred legend was buried in the desert sand for the rest of eternity (Herbert). Similarly, Melanie Wilkes’ life ended in Gone with the Wind when the blazing wind of Atlanta scorched the last petal of the chastest narcissus in the Southern US (Mitchell). Heathcliff’s death at the end of Wuthering Heights marked the fading of the most resilient and defiant heather in the wuthering mistral of Northeastern England (Bronte). Lastly,Leo Silvera died in the last chapter of Slayer, taking the night’s velvet secret away from the world permanently (White). 

Ending a book with the death of a favorable character seemed common in famous literature pieces, and these tragic endings appealed to the audience emotionally by triggering their fear and grief. In creative writing, pathos is a significant element. Authors use tragic endings partly because this appeals to the audience emotionally. To illustrate, in Doris Lessing’s short fiction piece, Through the Tunnel, she repeatedly described the physical damage caused by the protagonist’s persistent effort to reach his goal while being courageous in facing his internal fear, using fear to create high stakes in her story. However, young readers who are attached to certain characters could develop negative emotions toward tragic deaths, including grief or anger.

Fiction characters like Paul Atreides and Melanie Wilkes were vividly portrayed in books, as if they were as real as people sitting next to you. Admittedly, it would be beneficial for the authors to make their fictional characters as realistic as possible to enhance the reader’s relationship with them. For instance, Diana Wynne Jones’ fantasy characters “[were] so vivid and fully realized that they [seemed] to live lives [independently] of the page” (Cart 41). As a result, readers could image the fantasy characters in alternative scenarios or even daily life situations, making the characters even more memorable. Yet, the downside of this is that it would be more difficult for readers to have the courage to accept the death of their beloved characters in fiction due to the strong emotional connection that was fostered between them.

Interested in investigating how readers apply neural networks to understand fictional characters, psychology researchers Annabel Nijhof from Ghent University and Roel Willems from Radboud University used fMRI to unveil the neurocognitive mechanisms behind fiction comprehension. They found that readers live, think, and feel along with the characters, suggesting that fiction readers can even anticipate events in the plot due to the activation of their anterior medial prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our “[daily] decision-making [and] reward and emotion processing” (Nijhof and Willems 1; Samara 2941-60). Nijhof and Willem’s study included participants’ reliance on “mentalizing or motor simulation during fiction comprehension,” indicating that readers are active participants in relationship formation during the reading process (11). Thus, developing close and intimate relationships with fictional characters would be inevitable for these readers.

A problem arises based on readers’ participation and fondness of fiction: they are highly concerned about the characters’ final fate and therefore have extreme difficulties with accepting a character's death. Before J.K. Rowling published the last installment of the Harry Potter series, fans were extremely concerned about whether Harry was going to die in the end. This was unsurprising, as “fans [were] more than enthralled with his adventures,” according to Brian Bethune from the University of Tufts and royal specialist Patricia Treble (62-8). A great percentage of fiction readers are highly concerned about characters’ destinies, to the point of worrying about them to an extreme degree.

Jocelyn M. DeGroot, a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Ohio University, conducted research with similar findings. DeGroot reported that fans of the hit TV series House M.D. experienced extreme grief following Lawrence Kutner’s suicide. DeGroot explains,

A thematic analysis of fan postings on Kutner’s Facebook memorial page revealed evidence of people experiencing parasocial grief as they displayed emotional expressions of grief, reminisced, and advocated for Kutner (199). 

DeGroot’s study showed the possibility of parasocial grief following by the death of a fictional character. Therefore, the negative impact caused by fictional deaths is significant and sometimes highly influential on readers’ daily lives. 

Literary critics differ from readers in the sense that they sometimes argue that death is perhaps the best ending for a character. Even Marcus Tullius Cicero once said that “the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” In contrast, young readers might wonder how literary critics could be so brash in saying that. Although it is generally understood that death is a natural part of life, the feeling of loss, grief, and anger does not go away with a simple explanation of death. The accumulation of such negative emotions leads to impaired mental health among teenage readers, which might even lead to poor academic performance. 

Researcher Tianshu Chu from Stanford University and his co-workers studied the relationship between mental health and academic performance. They concluded that “impaired mental health status in the first semester significantly predicts an increased incident risk of poor academic performance during the undergraduate period” (Chu et al. 1). Severe difficulties in accepting characters’ deaths in fiction would cause psychological problems, even psychological disorders, like depression perhaps due to empathy toward certain fictional characters, consequently leading to poor academic performance. The occurrence of poor academic performance would potentially worsen an individual’s social relationships. For instance, if an adolescent’s parents are highly concerned about their child’s academic performance, conflicts could arise when parents express their disappointment to them.

Positive family relationship helps with teenage readers’ psychological difficulties in accepting characters’ deaths in fiction because the positive psychological effect that intimate family relationship brings improves general mood and deepens teenagers’ perception of the world from more experienced individuals’ perspectives. Specifically, from a psychological perspective, the maternal relationship, specifically, has a positive impact on teenagers’ psychological health. For instance, according to a study examining motherhood’s utilization of mental health treatment for adolescent depression, psychiatrist Dr. Sherman and general surgeon Dr. Ali concluded that barriers to adolescent mental health treatment may be lower when mothers participate (2786). Sherman from Albert Einstein College of Medicine claims that there is a close association between mothers and adolescents’ mental health (2767). However, due to the underdevelopment of the prefrontal lobe regions and the amygdala of adolescents’ brains, “adolescents often react more impulsively than adults,” and are sometimes “extremely sensitive” (Dell 99). Consequently, certain obstacles remain on the path aiming to develop and maintain a stable yet intimate relationship between adolescents and their parents since parents would need to be careful considering their children’s sensitive mental state. The relevant solution to parent-adolescent conflict includes the application of an authoritative style of education (Low 13). With the development of intimate relationships between parents and teenage readers, the negative mental effects characters’ death in fiction brings would be helped with the communication between parents and adolescents, therefore mitigating adolescents’ difficulty in accepting fictional characters’ deaths. 

Developmental and educational psychologists suggest that social connection plays a generally significant role in adolescents’ daily lives, while family relationships are only a single factor influencing adolescents’ mental health (Lombardi 91). Dr. Caitlin Lombardi and her co-workers examined three primary social contexts influencing adolescents most in a study, which are families, friendships, and schools (99). They eventually concluded that social norms and social connections, in other words, social networks, is correlated with female and male adolescent health (Lombardi 98). However, the measure of social connections in the study depends on measures of structural connection according to both friends’ and parents’ perspectives. Additionally, the “negative link between mental and physical health and extensive social media use” and social isolation due to social networks would bring negative effects on adolescents (Purdy). The shortcomings of social networks mean that although relatively difficult to develop, the benefit that intimate relationship between adolescents and parents brings could be considered a better solution for adolescent readers’ difficulty in accepting characters’ deaths in fiction. 

From a social development perspective, the intimate relationship enhances teenagers’ appreciation of their surrounding environment from a more experienced perspective due to adults’ age advantage. Adolescents’ cognitive and psychological abilities have been scientifically assessed by psychologists and neuroscientists. Doctor Grace Icenogle from the University of California, Irvine confirmed the cognitive immatureness of adolescents and supported setting different age boundaries for different legal purposes because “one for matters in which cognitive capacity predominates, and a later one for matters in which psychosocial maturity plays a substantial role” (69). In her study, Icenogle pointed out that young people’s psychosocial maturity would not reach adulthood until the 20s (92). Obviously, the idea that establishing an intimate relationship between parents and adolescent readers brings benefits is based on the assumption that those parents have a basic understanding of fiction and, therefore, would have patience in communicating about fictional characters with their children. The establishment of intimate relationships between parents and adolescent readers enables a deeper understanding of their surrounding world for teenagers along with a better understanding of death from a more experienced perspective, mitigating adolescent readers’ difficulties in accepting characters’ death in fiction. 

Sociologists and psychologists state that peer influence plays a major role in adolescent development (Veenstra 1). Professor Veenstra from the Department of Sociology of the University of Groningen and researcher Lydia Laninga-Wijnen from the University of Turku propose that “peer relationships are prominent when children move into adolescence” mainly because “adolescents seek autonomy from authority figures, such as parents or teachers, and spend increasingly more time with their peers than with adults” (1). Indeed, teenagers normally spend more time with their peers compared with their parents: therefore, teenagers’ peers would have more influence on them considering the time teenagers spend on their peers. More time available means more opportunities for communicating, and more communication means higher chances for the establishment of intimate relationships, and more intimate relationships mean more bilateral influence. Thus, arranging teenagers with similar problems could be helpful for those teenagers since they could communicate their common problems together. Compared with communicating with their parents, teenagers’ peers could have a better understanding due to similar age and cognitive abilities. Similar methods have been applied in treating psychological disorders. This method is well known as the group method. Psychiatrist Andrew Smolar confirmed the benefits of group therapy after a research study focusing on combining psychoanalysis and group therapy to treat psychological disorders, which include “providing therapist and patient a transitional experience of the outside world, and a post-termination experience with the analyst still present as group therapist” (376). 

Admittedly, arranging group discussions for young readers who are facing similar problems related to fictional characters’ deaths is beneficial for teenagers to open themselves and communicate with others would therefore result in viewing their internal obstacles in different ways. Meanwhile, developmental psychologist Dustin Albert from Bryn Mawr College suggests that “when individuals spend an increasing amount of time with their peers, peer-related stimuli may sensitize the reward system to respond to the reward value of risky behavior” (114). Consequently, by applying group discussions in teenagers, there is a potential trend for maladaptive behavior development. The shortcomings of group discussion mean that although with limitations, the benefit that an intimate relationship between adolescents and parents brings could be considered a better solution towards adolescent readers’ difficulty in accepting characters’ death in fiction compared with arranging group discussions for teenage readers with similar age. 

The psychological effects that having difficulties in accepting fictional characters’ death for teenage readers can negatively affect their academic performance and their mental health. To minimize these negative effects, developing intimate relationships between young readers and their parents could be considered an effective solution since the positive psychological effect that intimate family relationship brings improves general mood and deepens teenagers’ perception of the world from a more experienced perspective.  

Works Cited

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Bethune, Brian, and Patricia Treble. “But She Can’t Kill Harry!” Maclean’s, vol. 120, no. 26/27, July 2007, pp. 62–68. EBSCOhost, https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=ef748e56-089f-3c66-bf9c-013f82b95255.   

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. London, Penguin UK, 2012.   

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