Positive and Negative Empathy in James Hogg’s "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner"

Abstract

Is it possible to feel empathy for a murderous religious maniac? The answer may not be as simple as it seems. James Hogg’s "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" has been puzzling the general public since André Gide rediscovered it in the 1940s, more than a century after it was written. Many critics have focused on the supernatural presence of a diabolical being whose nature we never fully understand or on the real-life events that may have inspired some episodes of the novel. Nonetheless, besides considering these themes, the aim of this thesis is to analyse the presence of both positive and negative empathy in the novel arguing that, despite the obvious antipathy we feel towards the unsympathetic protagonist, his case, as he says, can really be considered “a pitiable one”, and the structure of the novel itself invites us to empathise and suffer with him. However, we should be very careful, because empathy is not always something we may wish to prove, especially in cases like this.