Why Literature?

Why Literature?

The general argument made by Mario Vargas Llosa in his work Why Literature? is that people don’t have a full life without novels and literature. More specifically, Llosa  argues that we are jeopardizing their freedoms. He writes, “they earn my pity not only because they are unaware of the pleasure that they are missing, but also because I am convinced that a society without literature, or a society in which literature has been relegated—like some hidden vice—to the margins of social and personal life, and transformed into something like a sectarian cult,  is a society condemned to become spiritually barbaric, and even to jeopardize its freedom” (page39). In this passage, Llosa is suggesting that society is corrupted because of those who don’t take the time to read literature. In conclusion, it is Llosa’s belief that society is not educated enough because of the lack of knowledge in literature.

                How I see Llosa’s point is that he is right and wrong. Why I do agree with him is because literature can open a whole new world of new information and background knowledge to  our world that can be used all the time in our day-to-day lives. On the other hand, Llosa is wrong. Literature isn’t the only thing that can fill our minds with valuable information. To use my personal life as an example, I am very artistic. I connect better with visual things like art pieces, playing music (like the piano), and also listening to music. I can connect with poems, novels and other literature too, but I just don’t agree that literature is the only thing we can learn from.  Although Llosa might object to my reasoning’s, I maintain that not only can you connect to things from literature, but through other mediums like art pieces, music, etc. Therefore, I conclude that people connect in all different types of ways. Yes, literature is a great way to connect to the world, but it’s not the only thing that can stretch your knowledge.