1. A text to go with your thinking:
1.1. Why the text supports your thinking:
2. Without literature, people across times and spaces and various other boundaries would be unable to communicate ideas.
2.1. 1984 was produced on Orwell's fear about the new machinations in Russia.
2.2. Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' draws heavily from other sources and generations of poor feeling towards women and their place in society.
2.3. The fact that we are able to debate Austen's opinions on the ideas with relation to our modern views and zietgeist.
3. Literature is what opens dialogue in the first place.
3.1. New node
4. Idea
4.1. The failure of humanity
4.1.1. Language is an inadequate media and does not interact with and translate our thoughts to a point where we can ever truly communicate our own ideas with someone else.Literature is, in essence the same as language in this way- it's incapable of fully expressing ourselves. At its best, literature is inadequate to communicate truths. #joyce #cummings #kantean philosophy
4.1.1.1. because of this, we spiral into a downward drive towards destruction #freud (re: pleasure principle (unattainable) and the death drive)
4.2. Literature often reveals truths about humanity that we may not have been aware of before. It gives form to our incoherent thoughts that exist subconsciously in our minds but have never been articulated.
4.2.1. Texts: -
5. Idea
5.1. We agree with this topic - we believe that literature at its best is a way of communicating truths too difficult to talk about.
5.1.1. That literature at its best communicates ideas like the fundamental uncertainty of the human condition
5.1.1.1. Fundamental uncertainty of the human condition: through texts authors can explore the consequences of not knowing anything about the world and other people in it.
5.1.1.1.1. Rock Springs - Pulitzer prize winning author Richard Ford
5.1.1.1.2. Discussing this idea through text people don't have to physically discuss, they can form their own opinions on what these consequences are but they're hard to articulate in real life and this is why we turn to literature to form these ideas for us - they allow us to make sense of the chaos of our lives and look at the idea objectively.
5.2. We think that the purpose of literature is to delve and uncover the truths that society is too afraid of to confront. Literature at its best must confront the truth in order for humanity to progress and improve. The concept of 'truths' is rather ambiguous because one may argue that 'truths' are subjective
6. We disagree to an extent and also kind of agree. Modern society and human nature provide us with the means to discuss anything that we wish, we are completely at liberty to talk about what we want- and we do so on the many platforms and forums that we are provided with. However, there are certain modern societies and also there were points in history where certain topics were seen as taboo subjects of discussion. In these cases literature may have provided a way to express ideas that would not have been acceptable to openly talk about.
7. Cathedral by Raymond Carver
8. We disagree to an extent because of the ideas of structuralism and post-structuralism, we believe that literature is not an ideal means of expressing truths too difficult to talk about.
8.1. Because of these ideas of structuralism and post-structuralism, we think that it ultimately means that language does not really have a meaning behind it and is essentially just letters on a page.
8.1.1. This kind of leads on to reader response theory, like we can read so many different things into a text because of the ultimate inadequacy of the English language - really, someone could read anything they wanted into a piece of literature and perhaps this would not necessarily be the idea that the author had intended to portray.
8.1.1.1. Because of the inadequacy of language it ultimately means that these issues and supposed truths cannot be fully dealt with through literature because language cannot possibly go into every little detail of an issue and really delve into the issue at hand the same way that other mediums can.
9. There is no truth too difficult to talk about. There are only truths that people don't want to talk about, and if they don't want to talk about them then there is no point in literature because they cannot receive the message that the author is trying to get across
10. Phillip Larkin 'apple poem'- we are too absorbed in our own existence that we either focus too much on the broadness of language and communication or with the specifics of language to the point where we are inable to communicate what we truly want to communicate, as we are left with too much or not enough
10.1. New node
11. Idea of Reader Response Theory
12. Agree, the truth is too subjective to ever exist in one form and literature allows for different aspects of the 'truth' to be explored. The poem doesn't ever exist without a reader, so the poem is essentially a catalyst for the reader's own ideas. Instead of the author conveying their own perception of the truth, literature is a platform allowing a person to draw their own truths from a presentation of ideas.
13. Literature can choose not to communicate truth and still be a good text because it can communicate desires or fantasies of society which in turn can show what our society is missing.
14. Literature doesn't have to be just about the truth, It's a form of escapism. Trying to communicate truths too difficult to talk about requires too much thinking/ debating so I wouldn't agree that communicating truths is literature at its highest form.
15. Literature is only truth if we believe in the ideas it is expressing
16. Idea of Reader Response Theory
16.1. Literature can be interpreted in any way the reader wants. The text doesn't 'exist' without a reader. Thus text forces a response from the reader in order to exist. Therefore Literature forces a reader to comprehend these truths that are too difficult to talk about. It makes us as a society reflect on the human condition, which is literature at it's best because it helps us understand humanity.
17. Authors often deal with dark and bleak issues which are not dealt with so openly and are hard to confront because these are usually emotive issues. Literature is like a subtle way of presenting these often dark issues in a way where we are forced to consider the ideas of the author.
17.1. 'The Marbury Lens' by Andrew Smith
17.2. 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath
17.3. The Virgin Suicides, directed by Sofia Coppola and Rock Springs by Pulitzer prize winning author Richard Ford both confront less dealt with issues - the scary ida of what is behind the 'American Dream'.
17.3.1. Both of these texts deal with characters who are unhappy in life and generally unhappy situations - they essentially deal with nothingness and the idea that having nothing is one of the scariest things that the modern human can face.
17.3.1.1. Having nothing is one of the most frightening thing that a modern human can have to deal with because it is in the modern human's nature to strive for something more and to have more, both materialistically and emotionally. So having things taken from us and not available creates a fragile human state which we do not readily talk about in regular society and try to repress, so literature is fundamentally the best way to deal with this.