Components for Creating Empathy for a Negative Character (On the Example of «the Secret History» of Donna Tartt’s)

The present article explores the phenomenon of creating empathy within a literary context, analyzes causes and how it is implemented negative literary characters. The article also examines personal involvement of both author and reader in shaping the imaginative world of fiction. The article traces the formation of the empathycomponent, which constitutes the emotional-intellectual dominant in the psychological sphere of the reception process. The present article proposes a unique classification ofauthorial techniques by which writers achieve this effect and create reader‘s engagement. All techniques are grouped into four categories: external, internal, social, and unique. The variablecombination of these methods helps to reveal characters’ psychology more deeply, making them closer and easier to understand by their readers. The system’s componentswork in an integrated manner, and for any character, techniques from all four categories are applied. Thus, the key components of creating empathy are investigated in the example of Henry Winter,one of the main characters in Donna Tartt’s „The Secret History“. The history of forming the literary antihero archetype capable of eliciting audience sympathy is examined, too. It is determined that empathy is acomplex process of perceiving, developing, and reproducing the emotional state of another character.