The “point” of literature. Get it? Like the pointy part of the book ahahaha…

Warning: The writing will be really clunky and all over the place because I haven’t written anything in months, and because I wrote this at midnight.

In high school, I sat in the English classroom, eyes twinkling with excitement for a discussion on Shakepeare’s King Lear, J. M. Coetzee’s Foe, or Willy Russell’s Educating Rita. My classmates, however, not so much.

There seems to be a common disinterest in literature for high school students. For many, English class is just a course in which you tread through books that “you don’t have time to read” and talk about people who don’t even exist. At my school, it weren’t such questions like “How does this book reflect society?” or “Do these two characters have a healthy relationship?” pondered by students, but “Why do we need to care? and “What’s the point of literature?”

1. Readers can learn about history, love, society, power, values, etc. by immersing themselves in literature. Immersion allows readers to see new things from another person’s point of view, even though the person is a fictional character. There are many historical novels which are not true, yet there are some elements of fiction which allow readers to understand some of the key events and conflicts during a particular era. Literature also includes important ideas, whether realistic or idealistic. A character may represent envy, and show readers that too much envy could result in a horrible fate. A central conflict may reflect conflicts in the real world, bringing the reader insight on some of the problems happening today and leaving them wondering whether we can solve this problem.
2. Readers learn about people. A well-written character is one in which he or she has complex morals and many characteristics, good and bad. Readers are supposed to empathize with protagonists, who may be just as complex as real people. Knowing about such characters and empathizing with them allows readers to do the same with other people. In psychology, there is the idea of Social Identity Theory (proposed by Tajfel) that states that people associate their identity with the group they belong to. When two groups clash, the theory states that it is much easier for people to antagonize people of the other group, because they are trying to protect their group, and by extension, their self. It is important then, to understand other people so that discrimination doesn’t happen.
3. Readers gain new perspectives on everyday things. I love metaphors, symbols and allegories, so when I read a passage and I am introduced to something new of the aforementioned, I become mind-blown. Plato didn’t need to use an allegory such as the Allegory of the Cave to describe that we are simple beings who do not know everything there is to know, but he did, and it was great. The allegory allows readers to understand such a complex topic in simple images – and research has shown that we remember things better when information is presented in visuals, not words – and gives them a new perspective on life and knowledge.

Maybe I’m just rambling and ranting toward my fellow students who told me, “What are you going to do with an English degree?” but I don’t think literature is something to be underestimated. We naturally inquire – since children, we are curious about many things, and they don’t have to be limited strictly to biology and physics and chemistry. We inquire about human relationships, communication, good leadership, and emotions. I believe literature allows us to discuss the ideas which make us human and contribute to society.