In an essay for CrimeReads, John Copenhaver writes in praise of unlikeable characters.
“As a writer and enthusiastic consumer of unlikable characters, I’m often puzzled by viewers or readers who criticize a story for having these types of characters,” Copenhaver writes. “But if we only look to have our values reflected at us by the characters we consume, we may be participating in a kind of confirmation bias, limiting our worldview, instead of expanding it.”
By leaning into – instead of away from – unlikeable characters, Copenhaver says we use stories to help us engage our empathy. “Giving a character who does terrible things a degree of emotional appeal smudges the line between bad and good, offering us a complex human we must wrestle with and may even recognize in others or in—gasp!—ourselves,” he says.
Copenhaver examines allegedly unlikeable characters in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace; Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle; Patricia Highsmith’s Price of Salt; and Sarah Waters’ Paying Guests.
