This article contributes new insights into the interplay between textual and reader factors in experiences of narrative empathy, or empathy with characters in narrative. It adds to the rather scarce empirical evidence on the relationships between textual devices and readers’ (non-)empathetic responses to characters. This empirical study involved stylistic-narratological analysis of short stories by Eduardo Galeano and thematic analysis of focus group discussions. The study considers empathy in relation to victims and perpetrators in narratives of persecution and torture. Methodologically, the article emphasises the value of a qualitative approach to collecting and analysing readers’ responses that is half way between naturalistic and experimental orientations. The main findings, which revolve around the interaction between certain narrative techniques and readers’ moral evaluation of characters, challenge some theoretical claims from the scholarly literature about textual effects on readers’ empathy. In so doing, the article considers empathy as a highly flexible and context-dependent phenomenon, and suggests the need for a nuanced approach that accommodates the complex interaction between textual and reader factors in the reading context. The discussion spells out the broader implications of the study for stylistic research on the role of language in bringing about effects in readers and also for narrative empathy research. These implications will be of interest to scholars conducting reception studies or reader response research in the neighbouring fields of empirical stylistics, empirical narratology, and empirical literary studies.

本文对叙事同情或叙事中人物同情经验中文本因素和读者因素之间的相互作用提供了新的见解。它为文本设备和读者对字符的（非）同情反应之间的关系增加了相当稀少的经验证据。这项实证研究涉及爱德华多·加莱亚诺（Eduardo Galeano）对短篇小说的文体叙事学分析和对焦点小组讨论的主题分析。该研究在对逼迫和酷刑的叙述中考虑了同情受害者和作案者。从方法上讲，本文强调了定性方法在收集和分析读者反应中的价值，该方法介于自然取向和实验取向之间。主要发现 它围绕某些叙事技巧和读者对品格的道德评价之间的相互作用而展开，挑战了学术文献中有关文本对读者移情的影响的一些理论主张。通过这样做，本文认为移情是一种高度灵活且依赖于上下文的现象，并建议需要一种细微的方法，以适应阅读上下文中文本和读者因素之间的复杂交互。讨论阐明了该研究对于语言研究在语言中对读者产生影响的作用以及叙事同理研究的广泛意义。这些涵义对于在经验文体学，经验叙事学，