In creating a new word and embracing its self-involved implications, we have circumscribed our own critical capacities.

But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her.

Five years ago, Times writers resorted to "relatable" on only sixteen occasions in a twelve-month period. By last year, the newspaper’s reliance on "relatable" had surged: the word appeared in a hundred and sixteen articles in 2013.

Identification with a character is one of the pleasures of reading, or of watching movies, or of seeing plays, though if it is where one’s engagement with the work begins, it should not be where critical thought ends.