ABSTRACT
The problem of fiction and negative emotions is most often referred to as the problem or the paradox of tragic pleasure. This terminology isn't entirely accurate. Tragedy raises the right questions about how and why it is we delight in fictions that arouse pity, fear, distress, and other unpleasant emotions, but the phenomenon occurs in the case of works other than tragedy. One way of examining the puzzle of people's dual reaction to tragic and suspenseful fiction is to explore the connection between the positive and negative emotional responses themselves. Adopting such a metaphor could explain more of what people want David Hume's account to explain without abandoning the destruction interpretation. The readiest explanation for the dual nature of people's responses to tragedy and horror and suspense is the simple claim that a duality of objects elicits a duality of responses.
