"The oral storyteller not only takes dvantage of our tendency to share feelings socially by doing the voices and facial expressions of characters, but also tacitly trains young children and members of the wider social group to recognize and give priority to culturally valued emotional states. This education does not create our feelings, but renders emotional states legible through their labels and activates our expectations about what emotions mean. Narratives in prose and film infamously manipulate our feelings and call upon our built-in capacity to feel with others."
-Suzanne Keen, Narrative Empathy