The Value Of Literature Essay, Research Paper

Literature can have many and different values on a person. It is all depending on the story and the value or moral issue the author wants, you, the reader to get out of it. The value literature had on me was actually hard to put into words. But to understand the value of literature you must know the definition of value and literature. Value has many meanings but there is two that relate. Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor and a principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable. Literature is a body of writings in prose or verse. Literature produces value because it is basically an analysis of an experience or situation. I got a different value out of each story.

With Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn it showed me that one does not have to be civilized or conform to the ideas of society to become cultured or mature. With Huck Finn he ran away from everything that was considered civilized. He had nothing and really did not want anything. But at the same time he experienced and matured living dangerously. This made me value Huck’s adventure and take it as my own. Huck proves his maturity when he comments on how the king and duke dupe the villagers into believing that they are the dead man’s brothers, and Huck says, “I never see anything so disgusting.”(Twain 163) Even though the king and duke commit an awful act on the villagers he still feels sorry for them when they get tarred. Huck comments, “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”(Twain 225)

In William Faulkner’s Barn Burning it told of a man named Abner Snopes who burned barns when upset or mad. This was his way of getting back at them. “Barn Burning” has two very evident struggles. Abner oppresses his family just as the upper class has oppressed him. “Barn Burning” to me is based on misdirected anger. Which is basically happening in these days. For example, a teenager and his parents have it out, he leaves, and now his anger is directed toward anything in his pathway. “Barn Burning” has a value in that it shows in life that people actually misdirect their anger. Such as in the school shootings and bomb threats that have occurred in the past couple of years. Just like Abner Snopes felt like an outsider to the upper class, so did the students who committed these violent acts.

In “The Swimmer”, it made me value life and what it brings. Because if your not careful or you do not watch out it will past you up without notice. As with “Everyday Use”, one of the daughters did not value who she was or whom she was because she was going out looking for her history. Which she already had at her fingertips.

Reading all of the literature this semester has broadened my outlook on life. It has made me realize that there are a lot of things that we as people in this society take for granted. Literature has made me value a lot of experiences and situations; I did not know about until I read all of the short stories by various authors with different styles and views of things. It is weird how the literature that has been written in the past still has an influence on what happenings in today’s society. We can reiterate the same ideas, values, and morals into what is going on today.