A great piece appeared this week at The Cavalier Daily, the University of Virginia’s newspaper, regarding literature’s power to restore our faith in humanity and help us face life’s tougher questions. The author, UVA student Kelly Seegers, offers a variety of examples in which literature provides opportunities for self-reflection and humility, as well as lessons in love and justice. Literature lays out examples for how life could go, given particular options and different character traits, allowing us to work through life’s challenges in ways that don’t offer the harsh repercussions of real life. Literature can be similar to a trial run, so to speak, giving us empathy for the circumstances of others and choices for our potential futures.
For me personally, when I read Moby Dick, I often wonder where in my life I am like Ahab, the one obsessed, leading others down a track that could cause harm and chasing only self-glorification. However, other times I wonder if I am like Ishmael or other crew members, being led toward dangerous waters and too weak to fight back and turn the ship around. Melville’s opus gives me a chance to more clearly define my role in my own life and what could be done to improve it.
When I read the fiction of Flannery O’Connor, I often wonder how I have shown hypocrisy in my own life, as she exposes it in her characters. I consider opportunities for spiritual change, seeking clarity of my true beliefs through her resonating themes.
When I read about Mr. Stevens in The Remains of the Day, I wonder about what it means to be loyal, what it means to have dignity. I wonder if those definitions can ever be misconstrued and if I will ever miss out on opportunities for something greater. I wonder what happens to those with misplaced hope, and if that may ever be me.
When I read about the character of Alexandra Bergson in Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, I feel her strength in defying everyone around her to build her family’s farm and trust in the knowledge that has been bestowed upon her. As she works the land, I wonder what I am willing to work for in order to achieve my own version of the American Dream.
When I read the poetry of John Donne, I can sense his struggles to understand his relationship with God, with his wife, with his surrounding institutions. And I am allowed to contemplate the precarious nature of the soul and how doubt and faith struggle against one another within our hearts and minds as we strive to seek wisdom.
When I read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, I wonder how I can be more resolute, more determined in seeking my own freedoms, my own goals. I am able to see and feel his struggles and question my willingness to risk everything for not only my own humanity, but the humanity of all. Douglass forces me to face evils that have defined the past and may still exist today, and decide where I stand and how I will use my voice for improving the world.
This wondering is the point of literature. It is what makes us human and allows us to further explore our humanness, in all of its flawed forms. Literature should never be pushed aside because it is one of the only things that forces us never to stop learning. And our world desperately needs us to keep learning. It’s nice to be reminded of that sometimes. Nice work, Kelly.
For me personally, when I read Moby Dick, I often wonder where in my life I am like Ahab, the one obsessed, leading others down a track that could cause harm and chasing only self-glorification. However, other times I wonder if I am like Ishmael or other crew members, being led toward dangerous waters and too weak to fight back and turn the ship around. Melville’s opus gives me a chance to more clearly define my role in my own life and what could be done to improve it.
When I read the fiction of Flannery O’Connor, I often wonder how I have shown hypocrisy in my own life, as she exposes it in her characters. I consider opportunities for spiritual change, seeking clarity of my true beliefs through her resonating themes.
When I read about Mr. Stevens in The Remains of the Day, I wonder about what it means to be loyal, what it means to have dignity. I wonder if those definitions can ever be misconstrued and if I will ever miss out on opportunities for something greater. I wonder what happens to those with misplaced hope, and if that may ever be me.
When I read about the character of Alexandra Bergson in Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, I feel her strength in defying everyone around her to build her family’s farm and trust in the knowledge that has been bestowed upon her. As she works the land, I wonder what I am willing to work for in order to achieve my own version of the American Dream.
When I read the poetry of John Donne, I can sense his struggles to understand his relationship with God, with his wife, with his surrounding institutions. And I am allowed to contemplate the precarious nature of the soul and how doubt and faith struggle against one another within our hearts and minds as we strive to seek wisdom.
When I read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, I wonder how I can be more resolute, more determined in seeking my own freedoms, my own goals. I am able to see and feel his struggles and question my willingness to risk everything for not only my own humanity, but the humanity of all. Douglass forces me to face evils that have defined the past and may still exist today, and decide where I stand and how I will use my voice for improving the world.
This wondering is the point of literature. It is what makes us human and allows us to further explore our humanness, in all of its flawed forms. Literature should never be pushed aside because it is one of the only things that forces us never to stop learning. And our world desperately needs us to keep learning. It’s nice to be reminded of that sometimes. Nice work, Kelly.