Tenth of December

The stories in Tenth of December suggest that many of the ways Americans conceive of empathy are hollow, misunderstood, or even actively harmful. What Saunders presents, through characters that are capable of true empathy and characters who aren’t, is that empathy is much more difficult than people believe, but that arriving at a real, purposeful empathetic stance toward others is the only way to do meaningful good in the world. The empathy that Saunders focuses on can be explained through Edward Said’s concept of problem between the Self and the Other: In his seminal work of postcolonial theory Orientalism (which is focused on empathy across cultures but could be considered for any Self relating to any Other), Said puts forward the idea that most understanding of the Other is actually self-reflexive. That is, it’s based on preconceived notions or established values rather than on true engagement with a person outside of the Self. Instead of seeing the Other for who they truly are, a person sees the idea of the Other that they’ve created for themselves.

This is a key problem for many characters: The kidnapper in “Victory Lap” can only see Alison as a conquest to alleviate his own insecurity; Marie in “Puppy” cannot recognize value in a version of parenting that doesn’t mirror her own; the narrator of “The Semplica Girl Diaries” cannot fathom why a Semplica Girl would run away rather than serve as a living decoration if it is financially advantageous; Al Roosten cannot see beyond his own self-loathing to comprehend the humanity of the people around him. In each instance, the problem isn’t necessarily that the characters don’t want to have empathy, it’s that they think they either don’t need to have it or think that they already have arrived at their most empathetic, enlightened state. Often, these shortcomings are based on a desire to fit into an accepted cultural or socioeconomic mold or are a defense mechanism against engaging with a situation with vulnerability and honesty. In some stories, the lack of empathy is imposed on characters by corporate forces.

Saunders presents several characters who are able to cross the threshold and enter into genuine empathy, often at great risk or consequence to themselves. Jeff in “Escape from Spiderhead” is the most cogent example, as he is forced into a position of seeing empathy as a matter of philosophy, not emotion (though Kyle Boot is put in a similar position). In other stories, characters become aware of how desperately they need empathy from others, such as when Mikey cuts through the repeated expressions of gratitude for his service and sees how he is cut off from the people he needs. Throughout the collection, each character’s ability to grow stems from their ability to focus on their connection to others rather than on their own egos. Even as their circumstances often become much worse, Saunders frames finding empathy as a triumph of morality and humanity. In the title story, Don Eber even sees that empathy is mutually beneficial: It is a gift both given and received. In this way, Saunders advocates for a need to connect to each other in spite of the impediments while acknowledging that the barriers to empathy are staggering in the modern world and impossible to overcome for some.