Essay 22 - The Role of Literature

Let us take a step back and look at this from another perspective. We are looking for patterns, metaphors and archetypes that might be useful as you try to make sense out of your experiences. One good place to look is in literature, especially classic literature. To avoid the endless pedantic problems associated with defining classic literature, I will just say it is literature that you probably have heard of but probably have not read and would not take to the beach.

One of my favorite novels is Huckleberry Finn. It follows a journey metaphor as Huck journeys down the Mississippi River which is a metaphor for Huck’s journey in life. Huck is the Hanged Man from Tarot as he tries to come to grips with his views on slavery. Jim is a runaway slave and Jim is his friend. How do you work that out?

It is also a coming-of-age novel and a loss-of-innocence novel. In other words, it provides a lot of patterns of human experience many of which resonate deeply with me and with other readers as well. But Huck’s journey down the Mississippi is not the same as Ulysses’ journey home in the Odyssey. The coming-of-age for Huck is very different from the coming-of-age for Pip in Great Expectations. The beauty of literature is that the same pattern can be developed and explored in different ways. And the more ways you can look at a pattern the more you can understand it and its meaning. And the more you can figure out what it means to you.

To tap into the richness of literature find something you like and read it even if it is a comic book. Over time cultivate and refine your taste and improve your reading skills. And that will, in turn, help you to cultivate and refine your understanding of yourself and the meaning in your life.

This essay is 322 words long and the audio is a little over 2 1/2 minutes.