Why Do We Like Stories That Make Us Cry?
By Leighann on Nov 24, 2009 in Nothing Like a Good Book
It's so sad. But it's so good!
I posted this on my homeschooling list, and they were not impressed. 
Do you think I’m a heartless mother for letting my child read “negative, sad” stories? Or are “Where the Red Fern Grows”, “The Bridge to Terebithia” and other kids stories with sad endings beneficial?
My son (8 years old) finished reading “Where the Red Fern Grows” to himself a couple days ago. You know, typical boy and his dog story. One dog dies in the end, trying to save him from a mountain lion. The other dog dies from a broken heart. It’s a great story, but has a sad ending. He started crying at the bad part at the end, of course (everyone does! I remember reading this in 4th grade with a class full of tough guys. Every single one of us got up for tissues at the end of about chapter 18). My husband says “you knew the end was like that? And you let him read it?”
Meanwhile, my little boy is wailing “He died! Why did Old Dan have to die!”. We got him to settle down a bit, but here comes the next chapter. “Whaaa!!! Little Ann died too! Why did they have to die?” This was not sympathetic little tears rolling down cheeks. This was full-on sobbing like his real-life dog just died. It was heart-breaking, but also quite funny. It was all we could do to keep from cracking up. But I realized it was the first time he’s ever cried about a book he’s read. Movies, sure, but never a book. It’s a milestone.
I’ve been thinking. What is it about a good story that makes us cry? I asked him, are you sorry that you read it since the ending was so sad? No, he is very glad he read the book. He loved it. So how does that all work? I (and most women, I think) like the Nicholas Sparks novels and the movies like Legends of the Fall, City of Angels and Steel Magnolias. They make us cry, but still we read them and watch them. We recommend them to other people. I think sad movies often mean more to us that the happy ending ones. Why?
My high-school English teacher (my muse and inspiration, a lovely woman – Ms. Franks for those of you who know her) told us that any love story with a happy ending is unrealistic. If the boy and the girl end up together, it’s not for eternity! If they don’t fall out of love (or just grow indifferent) one will eventually die and they’ll be apart. Ergo, there is always a sad ending. We just sometimes cut the film before the end.
And it’s not just sad stories that make us cry. Sometimes we’re so overjoyed for the hero/heroine that we cry for joy. When reading The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, I had a combination of sadness for what was happening, and hope for the couple because the woman did occasionally remember some things. It was just a beautiful love. If it had wrapped up that she was miraculously healed, I wouldn’t have felt the same.
What do you think? Do you enjoy sad movies and books? Why or why not? What is the appeal? Have your kids had the sad story milestone yet? With what book?
Most people don’t like sad endings. I guess it is rooted on our nature of avoiding the uncomfortable reality of life. Sad endings has its beauty, we just need to appreciate it.
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Walter
| Nov 25, 2009 | Reply
Yes all happy endings are stories that just haven’t finished yet, true enough. But that isn’t the underlying reason, obviously, as to why people enjoy sad stories or why sad stories seem to resonate with us and ingrain themselves into our memories.
There’s a number of reasons for this. As you said, happiness seems artificial in substance because overall, every person experiences ups and downs like a perpetual emotional rollercoaster in their routine, daily lives. Nothing is ever just happy. The superficiality of a happy ending doesn’t go unnoticed. Sure, we might feel light-hearted and slightly inspired by a happy ending, but we aren’t capable of suspending our disbelief for very long. There’s always that voice in the back of our minds that reminds us of the starving children in third world countries, of child abuse, spousal abuse, hazing, harassment cases, of unrequited love, of injustice, of rejection, failure, and death. These “truths” are what, then, leave a hint of dissatisfaction at the end of a happy story. Why? because we aren’t moved, touched, we don’t feel compassionate. In truth, we might, instead, feel jealous, irritated, impatient, and disheartened by the pretenses behind these character’s obtaining that elusive, abstract thing we all strive for: happiness.
And more often than not, stories with happy endings usually don’t involve very complex, well-structured characters that we can relate to and sympathize with. Instead, like a commercial romance novel, the character’s tend to be type-casted, fitting a specific formula. The women are either feeble and needy or she-women who can withstand even kryptonite. The men are the stereotypical alpha males or the geeks. In short, they are not fully developed, “real” people to us, and so our emotions aren’t fully provoked.
This is never the case with story’s with sad endings because the author/director/screen writer absolutely MUST make the reader/viewer understand, relate to, and sympathize with the protagonist in order for the climax of the story to impact us the way it is intended. Consequently, the character’s are so well developed that they are like 3 or even 4 dimensional people, living and breathing on on the page/screen. We have all felt pain in one form or another and we all love the underdog, so we tend to emotionally attach ourselves to this character more so than one that will receive their happy ending, because we see more of ourselves in that person/character.
But this goes even beyond character development and story structure. Psychology also plays a role in this. With the way that society operates in most developed countries, people find themselves over-worked, over-stressed, pushed to the brink, without time for rest and relaxation, without time for self analysis and without time or the ability to release all of their repressed emotions of anger, frustration, depression, indifference, sadness, etc.
Men are bound even more than women to repress emotions because of the stigma attached to over-emotional behavior. Women, now trying to push further into the “man’s” world, are also beginning to feel the weight of these expectations as they juggle work, home life, family, and whatever else.
So they appreciate the sad endings because it liberates them from the perpetual strain of repressing their emotions on a daily basis. This too, has to do with our anatomy and the release of chemicals in our body when we cry or mourn. It relieves the pent-up stress that we contend with daily. (Though I am certainly not an expert on this and won’t argue this matter any further).
I think, too, that people don’t just read and watch movies to escape the monotonous and stressful routine of their lives, but to also seek out some sort of meaning to it all. Why they’re here. What their purpose is. Why they react/act the way that they do. Why people a better or worse than others. All of these “great,” and unanswerable questions are always in the back of our minds as we try to make sense of the world and our role in it. And more often than not, sad endings tend to offer theories on these questions, points to ponder, messages of morals and values. They make us think about the bigger picture and cause us to ponder; which is, ultimately, what we really want.
Life is a progressively evolving learning process for Humans. We never stop learning, even if we’re unaware of it. And we seek answers even if our conscious mind is distracted with something else. So sad endings often hold more substance to us, cause us to remember them longer, and recommend them to other people because they, somehow, in someway, forced us to face these questions. They inspire our inner curiosity and our hunger for knowledge and our need to feel emotion. And they, above all else, resonate with us on a deep level because, in some way, we relate to and become those characters. That ending is, or will one day be, our own, even if it varies slightly from the story.
We like these endings because they’re real to us and because they force us to think and feel in a day and age when emotion and thought are consider and preferred to be separate.
We are social creatures, we are emotional creatures, we are thoughtful creatures, and we want to be touched emotionally, spiritually, and cognitively by a story. And a sad story does this. It is sad because it is emotionally provocative in a way that forces us to relive our own pasts and fears. It’s sad because it is the human story, the story of a lifetime of struggling, a lifetime of pain, of good and bad experiences, of traumatizing events, or euphoric events, of learning experiences-both good and bad. It’s our story, and our story, as humans, is beautiful…its romantic..we are flawed, we are mortal, we are imperfect..but we keep TRYING to be better.
So, in summary, sad stories touch us more because they’re truer to life and truth. All sad stories reflect ourselves on some level, so, ultimately, it is us we cry for.
So for the long-winded response. I’m not talented at limiting my thoughts to a few words. But I thought I’d add my two cents because this article didn’t quite explain why to the extent that I thought it should have.
Cheers,
Mel W.
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Mel
| Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
People don’t like sad endings but they like sad stories. The ending, if it’s sad, is too reminiscent of daily life. So it depresses people, but at the same time, if the story was told well, was beautiful and insightful, it will inspire people.
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Mel
| Mar 31, 2010 | Reply