Structure

The Empathy Exams is made up of eleven distinct essays. Each of these essays constitutes one chapter of the book and could theoretically stand alone as an independent piece of nonfiction because they each have their own internal structure with a beginning, middle, and end. The essays are not united by narrative or chronological structure, but rather by their shared themes. The essays could hypothetically be read in any order if they were being treated as stand alone pieces, but readers should take the opportunity to reflect on how the order of the essays shapes their overall experience of the book. How does this particular structural order introduce and guide the reader through the book’s various themes? This is an answer that may be subjective to the individual reader’s experience.

In many cases, the essays in The Empathy Exams have a unique internal structure that...