♦ Literature and Society ♦


The topic in seemingly backwared, yet remains vital in the sense that it poses a question which cannot altogether be ignored i.e. as to what are the reasons of different types in literature belonging to different societies or social groups. For elaboration of my point, it is necessary to define literature, clearly state the limits of its action and to find out whether the relationship between literature and society is just casual or is deeply founded. Literature is something which cannot be defined comprehensively since it deals with the intellectual experiences of a particular human group subject to certain environmental conditioning. It can however be defined as an abstract, yet vital and living representation of social life of a certain society or group. While dealing with themes of such controversial nature as this, one cannot afford to be too much objective, yet the statement of facts and letting the facts speak for themselves can save it from being a more expression of the writers whims and imposition of his beliefs on his readers. While writing an article on the theme under discussion in this short essay, the writer is faced with the difficulty of removing those misconceptions which are founded on the popular "interpretation" of the term literature. Literature to me is not only representative of a particular society in terms of its perception of the problems of human existence, but is expression of the entire view of life a society takes under certain conditions of human living. The topic as I have mentioned before is an old one and writers in all times and all ages have been writing either emphasising or concealing the social element in literature and thus being unjust to either individuals claim of its being a personal concern or the due of society in the form of social conditioning.

To take a broad view of literature, one cannot ignore the vital significance of non written material besides the written one such as religious sermons, noted political and social doctrines and prevailing dogmas in a certain age, whereas society is a group of individuals having a common outlook and agreed on certain fundamentals of human living, specially so in the realm of collective security and group of solidarity. Society and literature both are human creation with the only difference that one is institutional and having a planned origin, while the other is spontanious in growth, unplanned and springs out of inspiration and intuition, though occasionally by Reason also.

The intellectual quest of man can be classified in three different categories i.e. truth, beauty, justice. The quest for truth is the realm of science, the love of beauty falls in the sphere of Arts and search for justice is the area of Religion : —

The three elements are instinctual, inherent in the very nature of man and deeply imbedded in human personality. Literature evindently falls in the second category i.e., Art the ultimate motive of existence of of whom is aesthetic satisfaction. It is not to be forgotten that if one hand literature has been the form of expression of those delicate and fine human feelings which cannot be expressed otherwise, it has been a tool in the hands of intelligentia for the propagation of certain socially accepted and recognised doctrines and precepts. It should be kept in mind that social psychological conditioning on literature does not necessarily mean its accordance with the existing value structure, as sometimes it is a reaction against it.

For having a few glimpses of the relationship between literature and society, let us start from the age, when man for the first time took up literature seriously i.e. the dawn of culture and civilization in Greece. We know that the Greeks were patriarchial and patrilineal people having a great reverence for authority and their social set up  was the one where males were holding predominent position and women were regarded as inferior and despicable. The social attitude is depicted very clearly in "Empides's" Hippolytus when Phaedre could not help saying "I learnt to know as well as that I was but a woman, a thing the world detests." In the same play Hippolytus says Great Zeus, "Why didst thou to man's sorrows, put woman's evil counterfelt. If thou were minded that the human race should multiply, it was not from woman they should have drawn their stock." It is clear from this how great a curse a woman is; the very father who nutured her, to rid him of the mischief, gives her dowry to pack her off. In an another play Thesous says, "Tiis said no doubt, that frailty finds no place in man, but is innate in the woman." This literary attitude was in accordance with the religious views. Greek Mythology, being an early form of Religion, was based on perception of certain non manipulable powers by man, who tried to solve their mysteries through symbolising and identifying his intellectual experiences in the light of his physical ones.

The myth of Pandora's creation for avenging mankind through her box which was full of miseries for mankind and the responsibility of human suffering on women in this myth is amazingly in accordance with the literary view quoted above. It is interesting to note that this attitude towards women did not vanish even in Mediaevalages. We find a striking resemblance between the story of Adam's extermination from Heaven for Eating the forbidden fruit on eve's temptation, and the responsibility of human suffering on Pandora for her opening the lid of forbidden box. This attitude towards women reflected itself not only in daily living when women was held in contempt, but influenced the literature of of the age.

The witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth are female who along with another woman "Lady Macbeth" drive Macbeth to his tragic end. In Hamlet also, the dramatist could not help Hamlet's soliloquy, when he said "frailty thy name is woman." The severity of this attitude went to such an extent that Mediaeval Christian Saints repudiated marriage and asserted on the importance of calibacy in Religion. The spirit of age is clearly depicted in the writing of Dryden and Swift as would be clear to the reader of "Absalon and Acthophal" and "Gulliver's Travel."

Among the reactionaries, it would not be out of place to point out that Wordsworth whose poetry took refuge in nature against the rising tyranies of industrials. Walt Whitman who rebelled against the sophistication and Thorian who went to the extent of condemning the very concept of social living. Among those writers, who accepted social change as an evil necessity and turned to past, T.S. Eliot stands most prominent. He is voice of antiquity in modern age who has the conciousness of being alone.


As Goethe said, "The decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency."

In the end I feel justified in asserting that literature and society influence each other and complete detachment from one's surroundings not is only difficult, but impossible for a writer.

♦ Teach Your Mind To Think ♦

↓ ↓ ↓

◄ You struggle with a problem, but cannot solve it. Then someone else finds the solution, and — behold — it's "obvious." What did you do wrong? How could you do better? Here are some practical suggestions ►

↓

For more than 100 years, psychologists have been studying the thinking process in solving problems. They have watched rats release themselves from puzzle boxes; observed chimpanzees use a stick to reach bananas outside a cage; seen how children mix color-less fluids to find the combination that produces a yellow liquid.

As experimental psychologists, they surveyed this mountain of data to learn whether such laboratory studies, in far from natural settings, have any relevance for solving the problems that coup up in everyday activities. It seems to them now that there may be a common thread. The stumbling block that appears again and again in both laboratory and "real life" is failure to make use of information at hand.

A homely old illustration of this concerns a truck that become wedged in an underpass. Onlookers suggested various ways of extricating it, but all involved major alteration — either of the truck or the underpass. Then a little boy came up with a simple solution: let some air out of the tires! Many such examples of problem-solving exist in the world of science and invention. All make the same point: a solution, once stated, becomes "obvious."

How can a person have all the necessary information and not be able to use it? The answer seems to lie in the fact that the brain, like the computer, is divided into a shortage unit and a processing unit. Although the storage unit can hold a vast amount of information, the capacity of the processing unit is limited. The average person is able to retain and repeat back only about seven un-related digits. This suggests that the processing unit can handle no more than about seven independent items of information at a time. Because any problem of consequence probably involves more elements than that, elements, or combinations can easily be overlooked.

Furthermore, the individual may start his search for a solution by looking at the wrong elements. As he does so, he places them in a tentative organization — and this may block him from a better approach. Think of the truck. Your attention is directed to its top, for that is where the problem is. And, if your thoughts are thuis channeled, that is where you look for the solution.

We do not know in advance what may be the right direction to look. But the problem-solver is more likely to hit upon itif he tries various approaches.

Here are six working preceots to aid in sloving problems. Three are preventive, to help you keep from getting your attention fixed on an incorrect line of reasoning; three are remedial, to help you if you find yourself stuck.

• Precept 1. Run over the elements of the problem rapidly several times, until a pattern emerges which encompasses them all.

The above helps you get the "total picture" before you become lost in details. Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, in his Rules for the direction of the mind, put it this way: "Knowing the relationship of A to B, then B to C, and C to D, does not help me see the relationship between A and D — unless i recall all the others. To remedy this, I run over them from time to time, keeping the imagination moving continuously, until I can pass from the first to the last so quickly that I seem to have the whole in intuition before me at one time."

As the German physicist Hermann L. F. von Helmholtz said more than 200 years later: "It is necessary, first of all, to turn my problem over over on all sides, so that I have all its angles and complexitiesin my head, and can run through them freely without writing them down."

• Precept 2. Suspend judgment.

The above rule keeps you from getting trapped into clinging to the first interpretation that comes to mind. Consider an experiment carried out by psychologists Jerome S. Bruner and Marcy C. Potter: If an individual wrongly identifies the object while it is far out of focus, frequently he cannot identify it correctly even when it is brought sufficiently into focus for another person to recognize it easily. This seems to say: more evidence is required to overcome an incorrect hypothesis than to establish a correct one. He who jumps to conclusions is less sensitive to new information.

• Precept 3. Rearrange the elements of your problem.

Frequently the solution to a difficult problem appears after a slight physical rearrangement. In Wolfgang Kohler's famous experiments with chimpanzees, a banana was hung outside one chimp's cage, just beyond his reach. A stick was available to the chimp, but it was behind him, where he could not see it when he looked at the banana. Later, when the chip was idly playing with the stick, it and the banana accidentally became part of the same field of vision. The chimp instantly made the connection and, using the stick as a tool to extend his reach, obtained the tempting fruit.

• Precept 4. If you are getting nowhere, try a new approach.

The "direction" a person takes in seeking a solution, depends on what he sees the problem to be. In one experiment, Dr. Maier gives his subject the task of tying together the ends of two strings of different length suspended from the ceiling. The strings are so located that the subject cannot reach one while holding the other. One reaction is to see the problem as shortness of reach; the subject's "direction," then, is to look for a stick to lengthen his reach. Others see the problem as a shortness of string and strive to make one of the strings longer. Neither solution works.

Some subjects finally see the problem in terms of getting one string to come to them. They tie an object to the end of the long string and make it swing like a pendulum. As it swings toward them, they catch it and tie it to the short string.

Maier learned from this test that good reasoners do not persist in one direction if they find themselves getting nowhere. Rather, they jump from one direction to another so they find a solution.

• Precept 5. Take a break!

Does it do any good? The answer is a qualified "yes." It seems to depend on the timing of its application. If you are really stuck — that is, if you have explored all the possibilities of your present approach thoroughly and can think of no other approach — this would seem to be a good time to take a break. But itf you have not given an approach sufficient thought, the break may not help.

• Precept 6. Discuss your problem with others.

In talking over the problem with someone else, you are forced to consider the aspects that you might otherwise skip over. The presence of a listener provides a powerful feedback mechanism which quickly exposes obscure or inconsistent points in your reasoning.

In general, these prospects can be reduced to two: Look before you leap. Then, if you find yourself bogged down, try another approach. Remember, you can not force a solution to come to mind. So, keep your mind open for new combinations and do not waste time on repeated unsuccessful attempts. As Dr. Maier says, "Reasoning, at least in part, is the overcoming of habit."