Literature is a reflection of life. Each form of literature represents a significant human experience, which allows its readers to ponder and reflect on their own experiences. It is a piece of reality written into words. It is often said that Literature gives its readers insight into the human condition. Yes, I believe it does, for there's more to the character, setting, plot, conflict and theme; as this can be seen in the stories discussed in class.
In the tradition of Greek mythology, heroes must always leave the lives they once knew in order to go on a quest - to seek greatness. It is in their leaving that their stories of adventure, romance, and heroism are made known. The Odyssey by Homer taught us that the journey to Ithaca is long and hard. In life, we all have that Ithaca - one we consider as our goal. Some of these goals may seem too far to reach or we may encounter challenges along the way. We may even find ourselves hopeless or close to giving up. However, it taught us that with the right attitude, and mindset; we will eventually get there no matter how long it takes. We should never give up similar to the character of Rorschach in Alan Moore's Watchmen. He continued to seek the truth up until the very end and refused to keep silent about Ozymandias' action to justify the destruction and maintain the supposed "paradise" he created. This just goes to show that the end does not justify the means. Even if one's intention is good, but the manner of execution is morally wrong; especially when it involves thousands of lives or humanity - it will never be justifiable. This can be related to the issue of death penalty here in the Philippines. Yes, there's the good intention of bringing it back but I also believe that no one has the right to condemn a person's death or to deprive a person of his/her life especially in our culture wherein we are predominantly Christians. We each have our own culture - what may work for others may not exactly work for us and vice versa which can be depicted in Chinua Achebe's work Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian Novelist who wrote in English to educate western people about the culture in Africa.
With that said, culture, customs and religion are depicted in the works of Literature. Things Fall Apart showed us all of those and highlighted the differences between a tribe's culture before and after the coming of Christianity. The author is the perfect product for she is the Nwoye to the story - Christianized and educated in the west yet still carries the culture of the Africans. This leads us to another main point of how literature gives insight into the human condition for where else will a writer draw his/her inspiration if not for his/her own experiences? Thus, making it more relatable and close to the heart of many readers. Since it is from her own personal experience, it is safe to assume that others are going through it too and may even find themselves in a character or two from the story. Just like Nwoye, some people are willing to embrace the change while others are Okonkwo's (in their own way) who remain grounded in their values and principles in the face of changing times. The story ends with a commissioner planning to write a book allotting only a paragraph for Okonkwo despite the many things he can say about him and considering Okonkwo's countless greatest achievements; he was worth nothing. Similar to how Gregor Samsa was treated when he turned into a verminous bug. His family just turned their backs on him because they found him completely useless since he can no longer provide for the family. It is a sad reality that some people are only nice/talking to you when they need something from you. Otherwise, you would not matter to them. The perfect example of this is during elections. During the campaign, politicians become (1) visible; (2) start having projects named after them; (3) shake hands, dole out money and throw a feast. But what happens after? These people whom they once needed votes from are disregarded - worse, they steal their money for their own selfish and personal gains. With Gregor Samsa's story, we can see that the love and care he has for his family was not reciprocated; thus, causing his death. This is familiar in Borges' Eugene Onegin's interpretation of unrequited love. Here, we saw that it is possible to fall in love with someone who cannot love us back in return. Many of us can relate to this "we want what we can't have" or to simply put it - one-sided love. There are many reasons why we like/love a person but there's only one reason to keep that love going and its called choice. The choice whether or not we will fight for the person or let it hold us back. These choices reflect the kind of person that we are in the persona of characters in the different stories.
Truly, Literature is the discourse wherein humans meet or at least find similarities in terms of experiences. That's why we have an element of literature which is the theme - a universal idea or lesson being portrayed in the work. This is what connects literature to the real world because most of these are true to life. The point of literature is to exist beyond the writer and co-exist with the writer's experience despite being written at different times and in different context in the hopes that it could connect with other people in order to give them a glimpse of "a slice of life".
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