The Case for Literature, Essay Example

Literature plays and important role in society. It is through the author of a literary work that the voice and emotions of a frail and sensitive individual in the society can be heard. Through the literary presentations examined for this particular task, it could be realized that the author or writer of any given literary work embodies a sense of influence and that this influence is mostly interpreted in more ways than one, at times contradicting what is considered culturally or politically correct. Based from the readings assigned, the language employed by a writer influences the perceptions of the given work of writing.

According to Shen Congwen, literature is merely words that have been put together that strangely appear as both useful and useless. He draws from the phrase “All writing is propaganda” and how people who serve in governmental and nongovernmental organs always seem to remember the propaganda part. This has served as the grounds on which many works of writing have been dismissed.

Gregory Lee and Noel Dutrait agree with these sentiments as shown in their conversation with Gao Xingjian. The conversation depicts how Gao Xingjian’s works were banned in her home country, China, under with the government citing her work as propaganda and going against Chinese culture and traditions. Gao’s open and often free spirited ideology and sentiments on China’s modern literature and his representation of women has solicited questions on his work. This is the influence of his open writing technique.

Gao Xingjian in his work believes that any form of literature cannot and should not be the voice of the majority, but rather the voice of the individual. He maintains that this is pivotal to ensure that literature does not evolve into a political toll as literature was first invented or realized to be the voice of an individual’s emotion, ideology and perception of a given item in society. When literature is allowed to be a political tool, it raises controversies that transform it into a tussle of what is progressive and what is reactionary.

References

Gao, X., & Lee, M. (2007). The case for literature. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lee, G., & Dutrait, N. (2001, September 01). Conversations with Gao Xingjian: The First “Chinese” Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. The China Quarterly, 167(1), 738-748.

Shen, C. (1996). Universal or restricted? In K. A. Denton, Modern Chinese literary thought: Writings on literature, 1893-1945 (pp. 250-254). Stanford: Stanford University Press.