Literature is a fundamental theme in both Schlink’s novel The Reader and in François Truffaut’s film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. There is a perspicuous connection between reading and the human emotion of their retrospective characters, and through this literature is presented as a force which increases both emotional and social intelligence. Emotional intelligence, a term coined by Savaloy and Mayer, is defined as the ability to ‘recognise, and manage our own emotions [as well as] recognising, and understanding […] the emotions of others’ (Savaloy and Mayer:1996). The notion that reading fiction has an effect on one’s emotional intelligence is suggested by Bal and Veltkamp, who explore this in their journal ‘How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation.’ The representation of literature in the works studied mirrors this theory, as both Schlink’s and Traffuat’s works portray literature as a means of enhancing the readers’ empathy, and thus emotional intelligence. This is expressed through the characters’ subsequent reformed stances on situations once exposed to literature. Furthermore, the two works express literature’s effect on emotional intelligence through the development of the character’s emotional management once having access to fiction. Finally, social intelligence is a term described as ‘a person’s ability to interact, maintain, and build relationships with others’ (Coleman:2011). Again, it is a Bas and Veltkamp conception which interlinks the theory with literature, as they state that reading can help ‘people understand the world and how they should interact with other people’ (Bal and Veltkamp: 2016). Here lies the argument that literature does in fact increase social intelligence; the perspective is present in regards to the two works, and the idea is developed primarily through