The characters act for reasons that they can’t control and, as readers, we have to believe in their motivations, their sense of choice and in the reality of their suffering, even though, deep down, we know it’s all just puppetry on the part of the writer.

Suffering is inevitable. It is part of the human condition. It is written in the human script.

Job understood that he was nothing more than God’s invention and so too was his suffering

Inhumanity is part of humanity as much as suffering is a part of stories. Cruelty is written in the human script.

His suffering was no more real than he was.