PERCEPTION, EMPATHY AND THE ISSUE OF CREDIBILITY OF LITERARY CHARACTERS

Abstract

This paper explores the premises of textual (literary) persuasiveness of identity of characters
within the textual world of Krleža’s play In Agony across the articulation of their mutual relations,
their appeal to the recipients and the concept of self-understanding. Keys to the described textual verification are found in perceptive aspects of identity construction (perception; denaturalised perception; historicised perception) and within the realm of empathy, seen as a process of thinking, which is analysed from the point of view of characters and from the broader standpoint which takes into account the phenomenon of literary reception.