Rather, the lesson itself is an entertainment: the central character's triumph over adversity is profoundly pleasurable to those readers who identify with her.
Buying gifts or giving to charity is often more pleasurable than purchasing things for oneself, and luxuries are most enjoyable when they are consumed sparingly.
Their play, and ours, appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure to the players, and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of life in earnest.