Edited by: Aneesha Chandra (UG 21)
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
C.S. Lewis has taken the meaning of literature from its literal meaning, which is, “an acquaintance to letters” , to a much more thoughtful meaning that we would not normally think it to be. Literature is often seen to be something written just for the sake of entertainment but we forget that it depicts different facets of a common life by portraying the thinking patterns and the norms of the society. It not only tells us different stories from different parts of the world, but also gives the readers an insight into how cultures of areas that they don’t have an association with differ from the practices of the land that they call their home. Acceptance of different ideologies and beliefs of people, especially the ones that do not get much attention, becomes another important role of literature in society.
African literature is the best example of literature that has changed the way people see the customs and practices of a continent that failed to get much attention in earlier literary texts. African literature is a manifestation of African society, its culture, historical, and political experiences. African literary artists, like many other authors, aim at projecting their culture to the world. Who other than Chinua Achebe to describe what literature can do for a nation? Chinua Achebe is a prominent figure not only in African literature but for the entire genre of writing, because of his revolutionary ideas and his portrayal of the people of Africa. Achebe writes:
We must seek the freedom to express our thought and feeling, even against our thought and feeling, even against ourselves, without the anxiety that what we say might be taken in evidence against our race. (139)
Tired of listening to and reading the accounts of white men detailing how primitive, language-less, and socially backward the natives of Africa were, Achebe decided to write the novel Things Fall Apart. The novel came as a response to an earlier text by Joseph Conrad, titled Heart of Darkness, which was a direct attack on the continent of Africa, as compared to Europe. Literature, thus, helps the reader know the reality by hearing from the people who have experienced rather than people who have just seen.
Achebe, for a long time, might have been the face of African literature but he was not the only one to realise that, what Africans as a community needed could be attained with the help of literature. Another name on the list is that of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who writes about trauma in African society. She uses various characters in her fictional world to highlight the plight of real people in the real world. The painful reality of the people of Nigeria, who were mere silent observers and had to pay heed to the Catholic attempts from the outside, is shown in her novel Purple Hibiscus.
Such examples from the literary readings mirror and reflect society and allow people to develop new ways of thinking about various parts of the world. As Ogaga Okuyade critically argues:
Creative art for the African writer is not just an art form that seeks to entertain the audience…it is more of a social document geared towards the reconstruction of the socio-political configuration of the African people.
The societal impact that the novels bring about is not just limited to the outside world of Europeans but also to the world of people about whom these books were written. The philosopher Agatucci believes that Achebe wrote the book and intervened at the right time because Africans were almost ready to accept the judgement of the Europeans that their continent had no culture and history worthy of time and consideration. Achebe not only helped his people gain an identity in the outside world but also within themselves. He made people regain the lost belief they had in themselves. Literature, as we now know, is something that reflects society. It makes us think not only about the society or the external, but also about the internal beliefs, the self.
“Literature is thought-provoking, it allows us to raise questions and gives us a deeper understanding of issues and situations,” said Judith Caesar. Some literary texts carry life lessons, others make us think. Some of them provide entertainment while others intrigue us. By narrating stories readers can relate to, literature becomes an important part of society. Literature affects society in ways we cannot imagine and the impact it has on its audience makes it an important aspect of our lives.