What Is Literature? Essay, Research Paper

Midyear Exam-Essay

Literature is an interpretation and an analysis of experience that allows people to get a sense of the way life can be without having to brave anything in reality. They are able to learn the lessons from a certain circumstance without having to deal with the real-life outcomes. Literature is a vice that people use to share lessons and experiences with all people through writing. Literature most often has an major message or moral. Works of writing, called literature, have most often stood the test of time and have been acclaimed by readers of many generations. However literature is not limited to the old. Modern works such as To Kill a Mockingbird, “The Hand” and “A Perfect Day for Bannafish” all show how literature can put the reader in a character’s shoes and allow them to experience things in the story as though it was real life.

The piece of literature To Kill a Mockingbird explains the life of Scout, the protagonist, and allows the readers to experience her life, who otherwise would not be able to. For many, the only way to experience different cultures and backgrounds is by living the experience through characters in literature. This stunning piece of literature is essential for many because not everyone can live in every circumstance and experience every single way of life. People can not all go through the same things. Scout lived in the south, during the depression. By reading the book To Kill a Mockingbird people are able to see what is was like living in Scout’s time. Another aspect is that the author’s childhood was very similar to the childhood of Scout. Haper Lee wrote about her life’s experiences and of profound lessons that she felt that all people should learn. Literature allows people to share everything that they have absorbed and enrich the lives of others by giving them a head start with the knowledge that usually comes from background.

“The Hand” by Collete is about the place of females in the 1920s; using this selection of literature, readers are able to share the experience of the women of that time. This is a story about a newlywed woman who is just beginning to realize the life of repression she is about to enter. During the 1920s, there were less opportunities for women. Girls grew up with the expectation of marring and having children. Today, women’s jobs are not limited in any way. Literature, can assist readers in contemporary times to understand the way that life was years before. By writing down an experience any person can comprehend what it would be like to undergo that certain experience themselves simply through reading.

“A Perfect Day for Bannafish” is a literary composition about a man struggling with the transition from war back into society; the reader is able to undergo the chaos in his mind through this piece, allowing them to experience something that would have been otherwise foreign to them. In reading this story one is forced to attempt to decode the disorder in Seymour’s mind. The reader is able to experience the terrible after math of war “shock” without ever having to step foot on a battle field. This is a perfect example of the definition of literature because the story fully reveals every detail of what Seymour is going through and the reader is able to walk away unharmed. Literature makes a person more aware of the way the world works. Many people would never be able to understand why someone would ever kill themselves. After reading “A Perfect Day for Bannafish” it is understandable to not be able to control you mind and just give up. This story leaves the reader with the wisdom of what emotions can do to a person if not taken care of.

Literature is written work that allows the reader to “become” another person and live their life for the span of the book. Literature is inspiring, it is more than just written work. It is able to transform the reader into something that they are not. Between the covers of a book a regular person can alter into a repressive czar or a little orphan named Annie. Literature bends reality, it adds another dimension to life. Literature is writing that not only enlightens, but contributes to the awareness and consciousness of many distinctive lifestyles of people.