Reeling in the Tears

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Parts of some novels make you cry. It could be tears of sorrow when a character (human or animal) dies or gets severely injured or there’s an unrequited-love situation, tears of happiness when there’s a long-delayed reunion or a character gets long-delayed justice or appreciation, etc.

If the author handles such scenes right, reader weeping is often a good thing. Our emotions have been engaged — to the max. One of the reasons why we love literature.

I thought about this last week while blubbering through the final chapters of Kristin Hannah’s superb 2018 novel The Great Alone, about a family that moves to a remote section of Alaska in the 1970s as the father tries to deal with trauma from being a prisoner of war in Vietnam — only to continue traumatizing his wife and teen daughter with physical and mental abuse. The whole book is emotionally intense, but the wrap-ups of two major story lines in the last few dozen pages are even more so.

The death of a major, kind-as-could-be supporting character in Anne of Green Gables? Devastating for Anne and others in L.M. Montgomery’s 1908 classic, and for readers. Montgomery later said she regretted having that death happen, but, as in many other novels, a demise does have importance for the plot and for the subsequent lives of the survivors.

Also emotionally intense is George Eliot’s outstanding 1876 novel Daniel Deronda, in which the title character goes through some major things, we see a drowning and a near-drowning, and there’s an agonizing case of unrequited love. More tears in this novel than in the four other Eliot novels I’ve read — and that’s saying something, because the author can definitely evoke VERY strong feelings.

The choice in William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice? That would bring any reader to tears (and fury). Not to mention the aftermath of that choice. Of course, the atrocities that marked so much of World War II mean heartbreak in various novels — including Erich Maria Remarque’s A Time to Love and a Time to Die, about a new couple who have only a short time to experience happiness.

A novel of course doesn’t have to be exceptionally literary to cause a reader to cry. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, about the romance of two teens with major health issues? Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember, featuring a terminally ill teen? Get the tissue boxes ready.

Thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about Juneteenth, July 4th, and more — is here.

110 thoughts on “Reeling in the Tears”

  1. Hi Dave, a great post. I have read some of these books including the traumatic Sophie’s Choice. The book that made my cry was A Farewell to Arms. The death of Catherine and the baby completely unraveled me. I never cry over books so it was unusual.

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  4. Beth ? Sad, but also 19th C normal. Unlike the Brontes, three of them lived.

    Trying to write, even then, tears of fury over what Amy did to Jo’s book. Unforgiveable.
    Amy nearly drowning later doesn’t change that.

    Lady Deadlock’s guilt, shame, loss of her daughter – just because she had a child with the man she loved ? Heartbreaking.

    Little Nell ? Dissent, possibly bordering on heresy, but Oscar* would say (and plagiarise) anything for effect. Tragic story, and like Beth March, 19th C real too. We’re not used to children and teens dying. Given high child mortality, interesting that Dickens sees tragedy, rather than just 19th C normal.

    * One of my lifelong favourite writers.

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    • Thank you, Esther! Very true about child mortality being so much higher in the 19th century than today, though there’s still too much today — especially in poorer places. Many 19th-century readers could of course personally relate to losing a child, which might partly explain the strong reaction to depictions of that in literature — whether the depictions made that seem “normal” or not.

      I agree that what was done to Jo March’s manuscript was unforgivable.

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  5. Likely attributable to age as much as any heightened sensitivity, but lately I find myself tearing up on cue during swelling moments of blockbuster movies like one of Pavlov’s trainees. And all kinds of music, less surprisingly, given my lifetime fascination, gets at the heartstrings– Art Pepper playing “What’s New?” the other day made my face wet.

    But I cannot recall any recent encounters with tears over a book, though I read a bit daily. In fact, the last time I can be certain of such readerly response was when I read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the dark around age 17. Should have been working steadily at it, of course, but of course I had not, so the night before I was meant to be done I had hundreds of pages before me. I read after I was supposed to be asleep with a flashlight under the covers for hours– till sunrise. A few times, when Eliza was crossing the ice, when Little Eva died, etc., they fell like rain, and it was strange in the early AM to feel so alone in my thoughts, yet somehow so close to the tale and the doings therein.

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    • Thank you, jhNY! Many movies are expert in opening the tear ducts, even if the films in some cases are not that good.

      And, yes, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” — your response to which you remembered quite eloquently and affectively. I didn’t read that novel until about 10 (?) years ago, and the parts you mentioned — and some others — were quite emotional. I think it’s a VERY good novel, as well one of the most consequential books ever written.

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  6. Hi Dave, I must admit that I am rarely moved to tears by a book but the death of Catherine at the end of A Farewell to Arms was incredibly sad for me. Other emotional scenes for me: when it is discovered that Rebecca had cancer in Rebecca, what a relief! When the Joad family successfully leave the peach farm with Tom smuggled in the back of the truck – again relief, when She dies in the book of that name – a weird feeling of horror, relief and pity, when Beth dies in Little Women – so sad. Just a few examples I can think of.

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    • Thank you, Robbie, for all those good examples! Your mention of Hemingway reminded me that his “For Whom the Bell Tolls” has a lot of sadness at the end, though I’m not sure I was brought to tears. (Perhaps the “manly” Hemingway would have approved of my restraint. 🙂 ) The conclusion of “The Grapes of Wrath” was also very moving. And, yes, relief can mix with sadness in cases of death ending a character’s suffering. Or if the author lays on the suffering too thick or too sentimentally, getting beyond that can also be relief for the reader.

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  7. Hi Dave,

    I must confess that it doesn’t take much to make me weepy. Books, TV shows, commercials, if there’s emotion, I’m likely to cry. But the book that recently had me sobbing like a baby? TJ Klune’s “The House in the Cerulean Sea” of course. I took it to book club last week to rave about how much I loved it and how often I needed the tissues. One of the ladies was confused and it was only when I drove home that I realised I should have clarified – they were happy tears. Ooh, I could well up just thinking about how much kindness there is in that book.

    As for sad tears? I’m pretty much gonna lose it any time the dog (or cat or horse or duck or billy bumbler etc.) dies. Mutilate all the people that you want, just leave Fluffy alone ❤

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    • Thank you, Susan! Yes, for readers who want to avoid sad tears, there are always happy tears. 🙂

      You’re SO right about the deaths of animals in books (or real life). Unbearable. A major reason why I became vegan.

      Some TV commercials are indeed moving. One resents that because those commercials are usually all about selling products, but some ad writers have a certain skill…

      As I mentioned, “The House in the Cerulean Sea” was not in my local library last time, but will try again. And I now know how to spell “cerulean”! 🙂

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  8. I haven’t read many tear jerkers, Dave. I did read a lot of science fiction, and stories near that genre. I often found myself getting a little emotional over the misunderstood monster or alien. Like Frankenstein.

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    • Thank you, Dan! Some sci-fi can indeed be very sad, including when a character is a sympathetic “other” in a difficult position. I felt the same way you did when reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

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    • I re-read Foundation before watching the show and I think it might have moved Asimov to tears: the book focuses on how to solve problems without resorting to violence, the future of humanity is set up so as to avoid long periods of violence and to force the new settlers into solutions devoid of violence. And yet the show is your violent special effects bonanza right and left…

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      • Thank you, Endless Weekend! Great observation that some works that might evoke tears can be genre fiction, have a lot of violence, and have other elements one might not associate with a tearjerker. Isaac Asimov conveyed a lot in his writing.

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  9. I can’t even count the number of books I’ve cried in, children’s books and adult ones. My first answer to your question, like Shehanne Moore’s, was Beth’s death in “Little Women.” But then I remembered that when I finished “Of Mice and Men” in junior high school, I cried and cried and almost couldn’t stop. I think I was still at an age where I expected books to end happily, and I couldn’t get over the extraordinary bleakness of that book. Not that it isn’t brilliant, but even to me now, as an adult, it seems full of unbearable loneliness.

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    • Thank you, Kim! Yes, many novels — including “Little Women” — can make a reader cry, and it can be a shock as a younger reader to first see that happen.

      Steinbeck was indeed bleak in a number of his novels: “Of Mice and Men” (as you noted), “The Grapes of Wrath” (mostly), “East of Eden,” “The Winter of Our Discontent,” etc. But when that author wanted to be humorous, his books could be partly quite fun — as in “Tortilla Flat,” “Cannery Row,” and “Sweet Thursday.”

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  10. I would have given Anne of Green Gables as my example had you not said it first, Dave. My Mom gave me the book when I was 9 years old because “the little girl in the book reminds me so much of you, Patti.” It’s the first book that made me cry (I was inconsolable). And I agree with Rosaliene: stories can indeed help us connect with our own losses. 🙏

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  12. As a child, I started reading a lot of animal books: Lad A Dog, Old Yeller, Where The Red Fern Grows, etc. and they were all tear jerkers. As a result, I decided to stay away from them. So I began to read mostly books about human beings; however, many of them had me blubbering as well. Consequently, I learned that life is tragic no matter how you slice it; however, reading books about tragedy doesn’t have to be tragic. In fact, this may, indeed, be the true purpose of poetry.

    “Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack in everything
    That’s how the light gets in.”
    ― Leonard Cohen

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    • Thank you! Yes, novels in which animals die or have something else bad happen to them can be VERY painful to read. I still think about scenes, such as what happens to a horse in Emile Zola’s “Germinal,” years later. 😦

      And you, and Leonard Cohen, are right that tragedy does have potential silver linings — for instance, in possibly helping the survivors learn something, be more compassionate, etc.

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  15. Dave – a great topic for discussion!

    Books have the ability to touch our hearts, stir our emotions, and bring forth tears as a natural response to the profound impact they have on us. As you noted, the power of storytelling allows us to empathize with the characters and their struggles, leading to a deep emotional connection.

    Whenever I read the end of The Lord of the Rings, I feel the tears come, especially when I read these words, “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the sea comes the end of our fellowship in middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep for not all tears are an evil.”

    I have found that non-fiction can “reel in the tears” as well.

    I just finished Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking” which is a compelling memoir that delves into the author’s personal experience of grief and loss. There was so much to consider in this non-fiction, but the tears came when I read these words:
    “we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves, as we were. as we are no longer, as we will one day not be at all.”

    A few years ago, I read the biography of George Washington via audiobook, when I walked back and forth from home to work. When I came to George Washington’s last days, I found myself unexpectedly emotional. I recall coming home in tears. Don asked me what was wrong. I said that “George died.” When he asked who George was, I said “George Washington.” Don reminded me that I knew that he has passed, to which I replied, “well, it shouldn’t have happened.”

    Perhaps books stir our emotions because they remind us of the brevity of life, of the importance of creating the best autobiography possible, of recognizing we are on a grand adventure, with ups and downs, twists and turns.

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    • Thank you, Rebecca, for your VERY eloquent comment and all its spot-on observations.

      Yes, life is short (even people living to old age are only on Earth for a small fraction of eternity) and that realization makes the reading of many novels even more emotional. I agree that the ending of “The Lord of the Rings” pulled very much on readers’ heartstrings. Beautifully written by Tolkien, and when a literary work is so long — in this case, a trilogy — and intense, taking leave of characters can even be more emotional. There were some similar moments in the final “Harry Potter” book, including the deaths of some characters and the near-death of a very major character.

      I “get” your George Washington reaction! With better, more modern medical treatment, he probably would have lived a few more years.

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  17. Oh I really must read this Hannah novel, Dave! The death you mentioned in the Anne of Green Gables series was difficult, but I felt it coming. And many thanks to you and Rebecca Budd for recommending them, since I could relate to so many aspects. I recall blubbering through the end of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities! Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss too, although all of hers have that effect. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Mary Jo! “The Great Alone” does have a very powerful impact on a reader. And, yes, the death in “Anne of Green Gables” was not a total surprise, but seeing that happen to such a kind person was difficult. And the memorable endings of “A Tale of Cities” and “The Mill on the Floss” were not for the faint of heart.

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  19. I have to say “Call of the Wild” – Jack London made me cry, and not just at the end.
    The entire book had me on emotional hooks, an emotional pendulum of sorts.

    “Romeo and Juliette”, a play not a novel had me in tear hysterics when I was a teen.

    “Grand Avenue” – Joy Fielding did not have me in tears per se, but the lump in my throat in the final quarter of the book was painful.

    A note… a movie hasn’t made me cry in 30 years, at least. Perhaps from working in the biz, it all seems so fake; right down to the drops in the eyes.
    Yet, a few days ago, I watched “Imitation of Life”, (the Lana Turner one) and I did cry at the end.

    Have a fab 4th of July, Dave!

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  20. I don’t read enough fiction to cry much over it, though these days I often cry at the grammar that I hear on local TV news broadcasts and that I read in newspapers, including the one for which I worked for decades.

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    • Thank you, Bill! I hear you. Some TV broadcast and newspaper content (what’s covered, what’s not covered, the slant, etc.) bothers me even more than grammar issues, but the latter is annoying, too.

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  21. I agree that Kristin Hannah’s novel The Great Alone is “emotionally intense. So is Remarque’s novel A Time to Love and a Time to Die. I haven’t read the others you’ve mentioned. It’s difficult, indeed, to hold back tears when major characters, who we come to connect with, suffer major setbacks. Such stories, though fictional, remind us of our own losses.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! Terrific point that seeing weep-worthy things in novels can remind us of our own losses. Might be painful to be reminded, but there’s some comfort in seeing things we can directly relate to. Makes fictional characters seem more real.

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  22. I actually sobbed while reading the final chapters of The Education of Little Tree! Turns out the “autobiography” was a fictional work by Asa Earl Carter, a segregationist who was heavily involved in the KKK! The book was a huge hoax! I guess it is a testament to his writing ability, but I am still angry!

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