Fiction has many important functions in our world. But most people don’t think of public arguments when they think of fiction. The word fiction brings to light our younger days of reading books about child detectives; it doesn’t make you think about important political or social issues. In essence fiction has to work much harder when it is trying to establish a credible stance on a public argument rather than when it is just telling a story. I don’t know how many books I have read in my lifetime, but I do know there are many I have completely forgotten because they do not make a point that is anchored in reality. On the other hand all the fictional books I can think of that I have really enjoyed and not forgotten have made significant statements about our society. I wont bother going into that list because I think they are probably books we have all read and remember. The point is for someone to remember a fictional book, for more than a few days, it has to use the objective correlative. In other words the points made in a fiction must be anchored in reality in order to have lasting power.
This leads me to believe that using fiction to argue is much harder than just stating your case and giving the evidence. With fiction you have to create an entire story just to make a point. And beyond that the story can be anything as long as it gets a point across. This is probably the main reason that only a small number of people attain significance as fiction writers; most of us can’t just sit down and create a world that shows people what we think and how we think they should feel about a particular issue.
There are many things to take into consideration when crafting a public argument through fiction. For example the setting, it could be in outer space, it could be far in the past, or it could be set in a bleak and desperate future. Along with the setting of time is the issue of where in a culture you set the story. If I were to write a story about the current economic slump and have it set in the culture of the CEO’s who maybe lost some money, but are nowhere near as bad off as the vast majority of the population, readers would wonder what the point was. They would think why do I care about these men who may have lost some money, but also may have had a large hand in bringing the country to its knees. On the other hand, telling a story about a family who were on the edge of poverty before the economic downturn and their subsequent struggles to survive after the downturn would resonate with a lot more readers. A book such as “The Grapes of Wrath” does just this. In essence it is the culture of the moment that shapes what fiction writers must use to craft a valid and relevant public argument.
Upon writing this I now have much more respect for any writer who can use fiction to establish a legitimate position on an argument. I am sure there are countless more things than I have mentioned that writers must take into account when creating fiction. But most of all I believe it is actual reality that determines what a writer must consider when writing fiction. Again back to the objective correlative.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Fictional Writing and Public Argument
Fictional literature, though fairly limited as far as public argument goes, does have its uses when it comes to the public forum. There are both benefits and limitations to this method of public argument, with limitations most often outweighing the benefits in my view.
An example of the use of fiction as a form of public argument would be any novel or piece of literary fictional writing that’s main goal is to use the development of its characters, plots, and settings to portray a particular or a set of particular themes and messages to its target audience. There are many examples of World War I and World War II based literature that target their respective events and seek to discuss different themes about the wars. There are also many novels written including such books as Invisible Man and The Color Purple that try and portray different arguments surrounding racially tense issues. The main benefit of this form of public discourse is that the authors of such books have a clean slate from which to work. None of the characters in the book have any form of ethos to reference prior to reading the piece, therefore the author can successfully craft his or her characters without being limited by any preconceived notions by the audience. In real life, nearly every public figure has some form of past history and ethos to look back on, therefore skewing future opinions of the receivers of any message that that figure puts forth. Fictional writing circumvents this problem. The other main benefit of this form of public argument is that it is possible to reach a large populous of people, therefore ensuring that the discourse can be reached by many individuals.
As far as its limitations go, there are a handful of fatal ones. The first one being, that in the real world, not many people take the time to sit down and read. Given the lifestyle of many Americans and people across the world in general, there is not much time left in a person’s day to sit down and read a given literary piece, even if that person has the desire to. In an ideal world, people would take the time to read a wide variety of fictional literature, but unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. So, even though this form of argument has the potential to reach a large number of people, this potential is often irrelevant because simply put, not enough individuals take part in the literary world. Various other forms of entertainment such as computers and television take up the vast majority of people’s free time, leaving no desire to take part in the reading of literature. Finally, when you have people who do actually read, not enough of these individuals are astute enough to get the full benefit of the author’s literary work. Authors of these types of fictional writings often give meaning and purpose to every minute detail of language, but often times these well intended implementations are missed and passed over, ultimately defeating the purpose of the writing in the first place. All in all, if people were more interested in literary discourse and were better evaluators of language, this form of public argument would be more useful, but until that day fictional writing in the public forum will always be considered unfulfilled potential.
An example of the use of fiction as a form of public argument would be any novel or piece of literary fictional writing that’s main goal is to use the development of its characters, plots, and settings to portray a particular or a set of particular themes and messages to its target audience. There are many examples of World War I and World War II based literature that target their respective events and seek to discuss different themes about the wars. There are also many novels written including such books as Invisible Man and The Color Purple that try and portray different arguments surrounding racially tense issues. The main benefit of this form of public discourse is that the authors of such books have a clean slate from which to work. None of the characters in the book have any form of ethos to reference prior to reading the piece, therefore the author can successfully craft his or her characters without being limited by any preconceived notions by the audience. In real life, nearly every public figure has some form of past history and ethos to look back on, therefore skewing future opinions of the receivers of any message that that figure puts forth. Fictional writing circumvents this problem. The other main benefit of this form of public argument is that it is possible to reach a large populous of people, therefore ensuring that the discourse can be reached by many individuals.
As far as its limitations go, there are a handful of fatal ones. The first one being, that in the real world, not many people take the time to sit down and read. Given the lifestyle of many Americans and people across the world in general, there is not much time left in a person’s day to sit down and read a given literary piece, even if that person has the desire to. In an ideal world, people would take the time to read a wide variety of fictional literature, but unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. So, even though this form of argument has the potential to reach a large number of people, this potential is often irrelevant because simply put, not enough individuals take part in the literary world. Various other forms of entertainment such as computers and television take up the vast majority of people’s free time, leaving no desire to take part in the reading of literature. Finally, when you have people who do actually read, not enough of these individuals are astute enough to get the full benefit of the author’s literary work. Authors of these types of fictional writings often give meaning and purpose to every minute detail of language, but often times these well intended implementations are missed and passed over, ultimately defeating the purpose of the writing in the first place. All in all, if people were more interested in literary discourse and were better evaluators of language, this form of public argument would be more useful, but until that day fictional writing in the public forum will always be considered unfulfilled potential.
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