By Olivia Emerick · Copy Chief
What is the point of studying fiction? How do stories change the way we interact with the world?
Over the past seven semesters, I have read novels, poems, short stories and plays from different eras and cultures. I have studied Homer and Virgil in Classical Lit, Anne Sexton and Allen Ginsberg in Modern Poetry, W.B. Yeats and James Joyce in Irish Lit and William Faulkner and Toni Morrison in American Novels.
I have watched silent films like “The General,” classics like “12 Angry Men” and modern masterpieces like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Good Will Hunting.”
But what did I learn from those hours spent scanning lines of text or hunching over my laptop? Most jobs aren’t looking for someone who can discuss the characteristics of the Southern Gothic genre or who can talk about the symbolism of Norma’s mansion in “Sunset Boulevard.”
Nevertheless, I still believe studying stories, whether in writing or on the screen or stage, is worth your time.
Stories teach us empathy. A crucial part of reading a book or watching a movie is letting yourself go and stepping into the protagonist’s shoes. Not all stories succeed at this, but the best ones do, and this translates into how you interact with the real world.
Having this skill — being able to stop thinking about yourself and consider another’s inner life, no matter how different their outlook on the world — is crucial for development.
In “A Defense of Poetry,” Percy Bysshe Shelley writes, “The great secret of morals is Love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action or person, not our own. A man to be greatly good must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.”
Art, in all forms, helps us exercise our imagination, and imagination strengthens our empathy.
That is why it is important to engage with all kinds of stories, about all kinds of different people, created by artists who have lived different lives from us and therefore developed different beliefs. If you don’t engage with stories that challenge you or force you outside of your bubble, how will you engage with real people who have had wildly different experiences from your own?
Reading books or poems and watching movies or shows is perhaps the easiest way to explore the unique facets of life. You have time to sit with what makes you uncomfortable and digest why you feel that way. When interacting with the real world, you don’t get this opportunity.
So, if you haven’t read a book since Civ Lit, or haven’t had the chance to sit down and watch that movie you’ve heard so much about, consider that spending time with fiction may have more benefits than you might first realize.
