Table of Contents
Without literature, there are no meaning of living life. Literature carries the moral values and provides an exposure to good literary works is essential at every phase of life as it develops critical thinking skills, fosters empathy for others. It can also be learning material for different areas including medicine, history, sociology etc. In this 2005 article, “Why Literature Matters” the author Dana Gioia, says the true about Americans have become a society without readers than we can already see the impact in 2019, in our own politics, where racial division and immigration profiling has resurfaced its ungraceful head. He makes a claim that the level of interest of reading literature and reading in young Americans have decreased significantly in the past few years. Gioia also claims that there are serious problems and effects on society that come with this decrease in interest of literature. To support his claim, Gioia uses evidence such as surveys and polls from a credible source, reports from notable organizations and quotes from different sources.
Art for Society
In this article, Gioia discussed about how our society and world is advancing, but the interest showed in arts, specifically literature and reading reduced. I am a true example that reading is not my thing. From the childhood I never really interested in reading. As a matter of fact, it triggers to reflect upon my life. By doing this, he emphasizes his point that there has been a negative development in interest in literature in young Americans compared to other factors. Diction such as “unforeseen”, “ballooned”, and “enormously” all appeals to out path, by creating vivid imagery in the readers mind. Literature teach people the meaning of life when the readers read a literature that is related to them. To live a better life and become a better individual knowing literature is plays vital role. Literature gives an opportunity to understand the world closely. It enables individuals to go into different period of time story, into the mind and soul of the readers.
“The decline in reading has consequence that go beyond literature”. Literature gives people the knowledge about develops critical thinking skills. One main benefit of literature is it engage the reader in an active learning style. People can learn about their identities and history through literature and they can even use literature as a way to improve their lives. Individuals can learn complete history rather than a single story about a group. The author of “The danger of a single story” Chimamanda Adichie, describes a strong opinion about confronting history. She argues that inherent in the power of stories, is a danger. The danger of only knowing one story about a group. “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story” (The danger of a single story). According to Chimamanda, knowing the only story about a group is not very useful. It may hurt the society because life has never been so chaotic and challenging for all. It was just unsurprising before literature took place. However, things have changed, literature opens up people way of thinking and their perception. Also, it plays vital role to the modern generation’s people to explore the world around and gather knowledge about them.
In the sequel, literature changes people life in many different ways. It shows individuals every point of views of life from the saddest moment to the most upbeat ones that will get consideration of the readers. It helps us to see life in every condition that can affect human life. Knowing literature can help individuals for the better. It teaches people the ways to overcome the fears of success of life. And leads them to live a flawless life. We need literature in order to connect with our own humanity. Not only that, literature helps people to build up the relationships and make them socialized.
Conclusion
To conclude, art and literature is very important thing to know because it shows people the way to live a better life, enables the capability of think critically and it helps people to the perfection. A person can only communicate verbally. Literature brings the ability to read and write. It is undeniable that literature is very important to a society and it’s people because the society has moved from pen and paper to digital form of communication.