The Reflection Of Literature As The Mirror Of Society

According to Raymond Williams, “In a class society, all beliefs are founded on class position, and the systems of belief of all classes …” (Rice and Waugh 122). His work titled, Marxism and Literature expounded on the conflict between social classes to bridge the political ideals of Marxism with the implicit comments rendered through the text of a novel. “For the practical links,” he states “between ‘ideas’ and ‘theories’ and the ‘production of real life’ are all in this material social process of signification itself” (133). Williams asserts that a Marxist approach to literature introduces a cross-cultural universality, ensuingly adding a timeless value to text by connecting creative and artistic processes with the material products that

Literature is considered a mirror of the society. The pool of content in literary writing stems from the environment in which the writer is placed. A writer will use this environment to advance his/her views of the society and at the same time drive into the audience/readers important information that he/she wishes to pass. Hunter S. Thompson has used his creativity in the novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas written in the 1960s to reflect on American society with Las Vegas as the point of reference.

Sociology is defined as a “systematic study of human society” (Macionis 583). The 1989 film Dead Poets Society features multiple sociological themes and issues. The main themes shown in this film are deviance and role conflict. These themes do not apply to every character, some characters even show neither of these theme, but with the main characters there is multiple examples provided through their lives.

Before commencing a discussion on analyzing the article “What makes sociology a different discipline” from the other sciences we should have the know-how about sociology. In the words of modern thinkers of sociology namely Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim “Social fact should be the subject matter for the study of social life and can provide explanations for human thinking and behavior (p19)”. What we infer from the above definition is that man is born as a social animal. Man cannot live alone. He prefers to live in groups and his behavior that is actions and deeds are well governed and regulated by certain rules and laws of conduct that comprises of moral ethics and civic standards. His standard of living is said to be within the

According to “The Demise of Disciplinary Authority” by Louis Menand academic literary studies is more important than one may think. Menand claims that there is two background categories condition for the academic. The first one is “that knowledge accumulates brick by brick.” The second is the discipline of literary studies. The author goes on to say that the literacy studies have existed since 1960. There was a time in society when literature was not known as its own genre. The author wants the readers to learn and understand that literature is itself genre. Literature studies can be understood as an independent discipline. An author named Levine argues in this article that the future does lie in interdisciplinary work. There was a research done that showed that academic literacy studies became disconnected from the institutional structure it inhabited. The American university was covering up and enjoying a pergola of rapid expansion. The challenge of literacy studies was that it could have simply been put in the existing system.

For the Marxist critic, literature is in of itself a social institution, with a particular ideological function based on the experience and beliefs of the author, and a material product to be comprehended in broadly historical terms, emphasizing class and ideology as they are illustrated, distribute, and contest the social order of the period in which it was written. Terry Eagleton, in his book Marxism and Literary Criticism, describes Marxist application to literature

“Writers consistently use novels as a lens through which they scrutinise society.” To what extent do you agree with this view?

Literature is the window to realizing the negatives of society and how destructive certain norms can be. Readers are brought into a completely different story than their own, but by using similar issues in today’s world, the readers can actually learn from the story and its overall message. All writers write for a purpose, whether it’s for a new meaning to life, to live a different life than our own, or to impact others on an emotional level by teaching them to see the importance of the little things. As a reader, you search for pieces of literature that interest you whether you find the story like your own, or wish you lived the life in the story. By using issues in today’s within their works, authors are able to grab the reader's attention long enough for them to get across what they wanted to get across. Often in many works of literature, writers use societal issues as their basis for the work’s themes and symbols. By doing so, this allows the reader to question the morality behind social norms and how impactful certain ideals can be in people’s lives.

There are many ways to interpret a book, one can read it as a character’s adventure, a conflict of ideas or emotions, or a story. For myself, I read the books, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville, in an ironic sense; and while doing this, I noticed that both books showed an intuitive sense of sociology. Furthermore, what mattered most by reading the books ironically is that it is easy to see the outcome of a situation which is pleasing to be conscious of. It is easy to see the outcome of a situation because when one is paying attention to a character, one’s attention is toward a character, except when one’s attention is on an entire situation, one’s attention is on the flow of events and then the

In sociological theory there are many concepts discussed that are utilized in the analyses of society and culture. Some of the main concepts are Postmodernism, Historical Materialism, Structuralism, Interpretive Sociology and Poststructuralism to name a few. These theories are relevant to the research of understanding certain or specific cultural texts. These concepts provide problems and solutions associated with some of the research approaches fore-mentioned. Analysing the main dimensions will be covered by discussing the appropriate concepts separately and by individually contrasting the classical and modern theories with Quentin

Literature comes in all forms; its basically everything around us. Movies, books, newspaper, songs, posters, magazines, these are examples of literature. Like the many forms of literature, it also has many purposes; literature is used as a source of entertainment, it in forms people, and it also enlightens them with knowledge. Ever since we entered school, we have constantly been questioned, asked to reflect upon what we read and to analysis what we read, watch and see. All we have been doing since day one had been analysing literature. Don’t you think there must be a reason for all these years of analysing everything? I’ve finally come to the conclusion that all those years of analysing was to prove to us the power of literature. To some extent literature has the power to refute and/or reinforce our prejudice and bias. Literature is able to do this because it is able to open us to the different social and cultural standing around the world, we can always connect with literature, it comes in many forms and it’s composed of facts.

The Marxist literary criticism states that “literature reflects class struggle and materialism.” Someone who reads texts through a Marxist lens tries to identify issues that relate to both money and power, and commonly asks questions about how they deal with the struggles for money and power, along with the roles they play in the work. These criticisms stem from the beliefs and perceptions of popular philosopher Karl Marx that human society consists of clashes and conflicts between the oppressed and oppressing; between the proletariats and the bourgeoisie (Delahoyde).

The theoretical works of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber still influence sociological theory. Though their works are decades old they still are a major part of what sociology is today. Though their theories can seem very different, there are some similarities. To become a great sociologist one most learn and understands how to use all sociological perspectives. To do this one must understand and use the different theoretical perspectives created by Marx, Durkheim, and Weber.

Van Krieken R, Smith P, Habibis D, Mcdonald K, Haralambos M, Holborn M, Sociology Themes and Perspe

Literature is an imitation of societal values and is thus a reflection of the human experience of a time period. Written works emphasize the elements of culture, by means of characters, particular events, setting and theme, specific to the time period in which it was composed. Furthermore, literature mirrors the troubles or hardships of society and projects the core values that define said society. Thus, as culture has changed over time, literature has remained a critical facet in representing time periods of the past. Essentially, the culture of a time period is manifested through writing in the projection of society’s values, symbolism of the center of community and literature itself.