Moral Change

This chapter engages the question of how fictions can change the moral feelings of spectators. Fictions, of course, can activate and reinforce existing emotions. But given that function, how can they also change sentiments, especially moral sentiments? This chapter attempts to partially answer that question by explaining how imagery of the family can be a powerful rhetorical lever for altering affective commitments. The novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the movie Philadelphia are introduced as primary examples of this process.