by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: May 17, 2008   Last Updated: June 06, 2008

Literature mimics life. Without a conflict, a problem, a situation to be worked through, a cliff where some poor helpless creature is about to fall over, there would be no reason to read the story. Literature thrives because it is a valuable art form and has lessons that span generations; its insights know no human boundaries except its language; and this small conflict is overcome by translations.

Literature holds a mirror up to readers inviting them to get glimpses of themselves. It allows them to identify and to go back into time and travel to places they have never been, nor will ever be. Or it can propel its readers into some futuristic imaginative event. The conflicts they encounter in their mind travels allow them to unconsciously work out personal problems of conformity and rebellion.

(The term 'mimesis' is used to describe the interactions of the reader of literature who inadvertently 'mimics' what literature has to offer. This can be therapeutic if it is not carried to extremes. When carried to extremes the word, as shown by Microsoft's Encarta, can also mimic diseases in a body that is not diseased. This is known as psychosomatic illness. Often it is mild and new medical students and those who are first learning of the disease are prone to develop the condition. Mimesis also refers to the condition of those who take over the words of others.)

Literature opens up new avenues of thought. It seeks to shed new light on the tug of war of words. It does not sanction either conformity or rebellion but pits one against the other to see which is more necessary to effect a change for the better.

Tales of conflict where conformity and rebellion play abound in literature. It could not long survive without these problems to be solved. In "All the King's Men" a political social realism' novel by Robert Penn Warren in 1939, he mirrored a Louisiana State political boss - the king -by showing how lesser politicians had to conform to the dictated standards. Eventually, rebellion and exposure solved the problem.

Writers use ploy, the art of deception, in writing in order to place it alongside virtue. This allows readers to make up their minds as to which method works better. Sometimes the conflict is reconciled before the story ends and sometimes it is left to the reader to finish it according to his own need. Literature is at its best when it allows for such interaction.

How do we know whether a book, an article, a piece of fiction, creative non-fiction or a poem etc., is literature or is simply a story here today, gone tomorrow? We don't. If the public demand for it is great and enough people read it and if its message is good enough it will survive. It may survive because for various other reasons: the educational system has labeled it an important work of art and it is included in the curriculum; if it is experimental; it sheds light on what has been; it answers questions that needed to be asked; is written by a controversial author; opens doors to a time long ago; and, of course, if its problems and conflicts of conformity and rebellion get solved in new and unique ways.

Source:
Campbell, John W. Ph.D, The Book of Books: A Guide to 100 World Classics, The Wonderland Press, New York, 2000.

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