Why do we cry? - Spoiler Alert

If you watch Downton Abbey and haven't seen the second season, be warned; this blog contains a spoiler.  There are no details but I may still give things away.  So if you haven't heard of the series, keep reading.  If you have, proceed with caution.

A few nights ago I watched an episode of Downtown Abbey season 2.  I was comfortably wrapped up in my blankets on my bed watching a TV show that, after a hard few days work, I well-deserved.  I couldn't sleep so I decided to distract myself for awhile.  But poor unsuspecting me did know what was in store in this episode.

One of my favorite characters died in a most sudden and distressing way.  I may have been PMSing or something, but the next thing I know, I was crying--really crying.  Quiet sobs shook my body and tears were actually running down my cheeks.  Mucus started dripping from my nose; I had to run to the bathroom to clean up.

I watched the rest of the episode in tears and then lay down to sleep.  And as you might guess, sleep did not come quickly.  I was too distressed.  Why did they kill one of the sweetest girls on the show!?!?

While I waited for sleep to come, I wondered why I had cried.  I had no connection to this person.  She wasn't even real so why should I feel such emotions at her death. It's not like my mother just died.  I have a few theories, and I'm sure the book for my media class would have some more that might explain my despair.

As I watched the show, I became attached to the characters.  I felt and cared about their pain, their happiness, their anything.  I became virtual friends with these fictional characters. At this girls death, I experienced and saw the pain her family felt as she died.  The circumstances in which she died were heart-wrenching.  She died after childbirth, leaving behind a daughter, a husband, and a family who depended on her for her love.  Suddenly she was stripped away from them. Along with her family, I felt their pain.  I sympathized with them and put myself in their place.  If my sister had just died in childbirth, leaving behind a husband with a newborn daughter to raise, I would have cried just as much.  That small portion of pain I felt while watching this character's death would become full-fledged and real if it were in my own life.  Not only did I feel for the characters but also for my possible future pain.  Some strange, masochistic side of me wanted to live their pain, to pretend as if it had happened to me.  The way people think, the way people imagine, is sometimes perverse.  In my mind I was imagining something horrible;  I was purposefully causing myself pain.

I cried in empathy for the characters. 

I cried in sympathy for myself, for the human race, and our inevitable struggles and pain.