Thinking about the Effects of Literature

Works of art are artifacts — things constructed, made up, fashioned, just like chairs and houses and automobiles. In analyzing works of literature it is therefore customary to keep one’s eye on the complex, constructed object and not simply tell the reader how one feels about it. Instead of reporting their feelings, critics usually analyze the relationships between the parts and the relationship of the parts to the whole.

For instance, in talking about literature we can examine the relationship of plot to character, of one character to another, or of one stanza in a poem to the next. Still, although we may try to engage in this sort of analysis as dispassionately as possible, we all know that inevitably

Why? Because literature has an effect on us. Indeed, it probably has several kinds of effects, ranging from short-range emotional responses (“I really enjoyed this,” “I burst out laughing,” “It revolted me”) to long-range effects (“I have always tried to live up to a line in Hamlet, ‘This above all, to thine own self be true’”). Let’s first look, very briefly, at immediate emotional responses.

Analysis usually begins with a response: “This is marvelous,” or “What a bore,” and we then go on to try to account for our response. A friend mentions a book or a film to us, and we say, “I couldn’t stay with it for five minutes.” The friend expresses surprise, and we then go on to explain, giving reasons (to the friend and also to ourselves) why we couldn’t stay with it. Perhaps the book seemed too remote from life or perhaps it seemed to be nothing more than a transcript of the boring talk that we can overhear on a bus or in an elevator.

In such discussions, when we draw on our responses, as we must, the work may disappear; we find ourselves talking about ourselves. Let’s take two extreme examples: “I can’t abide Huckleberry Finn. How am I expected to enjoy a so-called masterpiece that has a character in it called ‘Nigger Jim?’” Or: “T. S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism is too much for me to take. Don’t talk to me about Eliot’s skill with meter, when he has such lines as ‘Rachel, née Rabinovitch / Tears at the grapes with murderous paws.’ ”

Although everyone agrees that literature can evoke this sort of strong emotional response, not everyone agrees on how much value we should put on our personal experience. Several of the Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing below invite you to reflect on this issue.

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What about the consequences of the effects of literature? Does literature shape our character and therefore influence our behavior? It is generally believed that it does have an effect. One hears, for example, that literature (like travel) is broadening, that it makes us aware of, and tolerant of, kinds of behavior that differ from our own and from what we see around us. One of the chief arguments against pornography, for instance, is that it desensitizes us, makes us too tolerant of abusive relationships, relationships in which people (usually men) use other people (usually women) as mere things or instruments for pleasure. (A contrary view: Some people argue that pornography provides a relatively harmless outlet for fantasies that otherwise might be given release in the real world. In this view, pornography acts as a sort of safety valve.)

Discussions of the effects of literature that get into the popular press almost always involve pornography, but other topics are also the subjects of controversy. For instance, in recent decades parents and educators have been much concerned with fairy tales. Does the violence in some fairy tales (“Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Three Little Pigs”) have a bad effect on children? Do some of the stories teach the wrong lessons, implying that women should be passive, men active (“Sleeping Beauty,” for instance, in which the sleeping woman is brought to life by the action of the handsome prince)? The Greek philosopher Plato (427–347 B.C.) strongly believed that the literature we hear or read shapes our later behavior, and since most of the ancient Greek traditional stories (notably Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad) celebrate acts of love and war rather than of justice, he prohibited the reading of such material in his ideal society. (We reprint a relevant passage from Plato on the next page.)

Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing

  1. If you have responded strongly (favorably or unfavorably) to some aspect of the social content of a literary work — for instance, its depiction of women or of a particular minority group — in an essay of 250 to 500 words analyze the response, and try to determine whether you are talking chiefly about yourself or the work. (Two works widely regarded as literary masterpieces but nonetheless often banned from classrooms are Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. If you have read either of these, you may want to write about it and your response.) Can we really see literary value — really see it — in a work that deeply offends us?

  2. Most people believe that literature influences life — that in some mysterious way it helps to shape character. Certainly, anyone who believes that some works should be censored, or at least should be made unavailable to minors, assumes that they can have a bad influence, so why not assume that other works can have a good influence?

    Read the following brief claims about literature; then choose one and write a 250-word essay offering support or taking issue with it.

    The pen is mightier than the sword.

    — Edward Bulwer Lytton

    The writer isn’t made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.

    — E.L. Doctorow

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    When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benedictions to this behavior by his attitude towards the result of the behavior arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.

    — T. S. Eliot

    Poetry makes nothing happen.

    — W. H. Auden

    Literature is without proofs. By which it must be understood that it cannot prove, not only what it says, but even that it is worth the trouble of saying it.

    — Roland Barthes

    Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

    — Françoise Sagan

  3. At least since the time of Plato (see the piece directly following), some thoughtful people have wanted to ban certain works of literature because they allegedly stimulate the wrong sorts of pleasure or cause us to take pleasure in the wrong sorts of things. Consider, by way of comparison, bullfighting and cockfighting. Of course, they cause pain to the animals, but branding animals also causes pain and is not banned. Bullfighting and cockfighting probably are banned in the United States largely because most of us believe that people should not take pleasure in these activities. Now to return to literature: Should some kinds of writing be prohibited because they offer the wrong sorts of pleasure?