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Stephen King is a famous contemporary American writer who specializes in horror novels. Born September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine, King was only two years old when his father left home on the pretext of buying cigarettes, and he has been living with his mother and brother ever since. The King family relied on relatives for financial support during King’s childhood. They moved frequently and didn’t settle in Maine until King was 11. As a result of his childhood experiences, King develops an introverted personality and a very keen sense of observation. He has found Lovecraft’s The Lurker at the Threshold left by his father and can hardly tear himself away from the horror genre. King has loved reading and writing since he was young, and his love of horror fiction has grown with time.

Clearly, King’s works reflect his personal experiences, and the simple moments of daily life have provided him with inspiration for his novels. King once characterized his high school years in 1962-1966 as “completely unremarkable”, describing himself as “tall and awkward, overweight, with buck teeth and coke-lens glasses” (Magistrale, AS 3). The fact that he is tortured because of his appearance and sensitivity has always resulted in him revisiting a sense of being a pariah in his high school years. During King’s early period of writings, most of his protagonists are teenagers who are rejected or abandoned by their peers. For instance, the heroine in Carrie is ridiculed and bullied by her peers because of her first menstrual period. Likewise, in Rage, a student shoots his teacher and then takes the entire school hostage to oppose teenage oppression. After graduating from high school in 1967, King studied English at the University of Maine and worked in gas stations and laundry rooms in order to pay for his tuition. King’s work experience not only brings him writing inspirations shown in Maximum Overdrive and The Mangler, but also teaches him the value of money and dedicated work. Therefore, he frequently portrays pragmatic working-class protagonists such as Dolores Claiborne, John Smith and Red Redding.

1.2 Theories of Empathy

1.2.1 Theory Development

In general, empathy refers to a person’s emotional experience that is the same as that of the observed when observing others in a certain emotional state. By putting oneself in another’s shoes, it is a kind of alternative emotional response that involves observing, discerning, and experiencing the feelings and emotions of another person (Li 121). According to the Oxford English dictionary, empathy means the ability to understand another person’s feelings, experiences, etc. Research shows that empathy is the basis of human interaction and the core expression of all psychological phenomena. It is possible that there would be no communication between people, no understanding of others, and no harmony in society in the absence of empathy. Empathy is a concept shared by different disciplines such as aesthetics, psychology, philosophy, psychoanalysis and ethics. Although they are illustrated differently in theoretical contexts, they highlight commonality over indivi本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。