Growing up, I always believed fiction had one role: Entertainment. However, I was unaware that the Saturday morning cartoons and bedtime stories in my childhood would influence the person I am today. These stories could vary from a knight in shining armor saving a damsel in distress, to a story of a character’s tragic flaw leading to their fatal end. These fictional stories illustrated valuable lessons that can inspire someone like myself, and can be used as a foundation to guide one’s life, no matter how simple the idea is. The fiction genre increases human understanding of life by educating people about morals, culture, and themselves.
Isolation and archetypes can be seen throughout fiction to educate people about basic human morals. Morals
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The fictional characters give the readers “hope, pieces of advice, criticism and self-confidence” ( Nagayach). In certain works of fiction, the reader treats the character as a role model and is able to connect to them. As a result the reader gains an understanding of himself through fiction’s use of character development and depiction. The Ohio State University examined “what happened to people who, while reading a fictional story, found themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own”(Grabmeier). Readers discover new characteristics about themselves as they reflect a fictional character. The admiration for the character causes the reader to subconsciously imitate them. Furthermore, readers can be inspired to find solutions to their own problems by mimicking a character. For example, in the popular anime Naruto, Naruto is a hero that works hard every day to attain power that can be used to save his friends, and become the strongest ninja. As a child, watching this show can cause the child to gain the same attributes that Naruto has and build a strong connection to him. Naruto’s hard work gets him though all his struggles and he’s able to find solutions to all his problems. This influences the reader to work hard and find solutions to personal problems. I personally was heavily impacted by this show as a child. Naruto taught me that anything was possible through hard work and determination, and I was able to overcome a bully because of this. Naruto can influence a whole generation of children positively. Due to connections with fictional characters, viewers are able to grow as a person and understand more things about