Topic: why some people like narratives about miserable people. A variation on why people like tragedy–as, on the surface, they should not, if my claim that the object of art is to give pleasure is true.
1. The standard answer: one experiencing the narrative experiences the beauty of the ugly material’s aesthetic expression. The artist provides a taming order to horror, and pleasurable details, for instance, as with Macbeth’s famous “sound and fury.”
2. A simple psychological answer: it results in an “Ah, I’m not alone!” for someone empathetic who is exposed to it.
3. Another obvious one: it produces in the person experiencing it the kind of happiness one gets from looking through a window of a snug, secure house at a blizzard.