Argumentative Essay: Does Literature Make Us Better?

Does literature make us better? According to Dr. Seuss, the answer is yes. His famous quote answers this question. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go!” A greater knowledge of different forms of literature inspires imagination, produces empathy, and develops moral structures in our lives. Reading literature triggers creativity while broadening the mind for a greater ability to imagine. In the article “Why Community College Students Need Great Books”, J. M. Anderson stated that, “Great books open up new pathways of thought and press students to test the validity and cogency of their assumptions.” This quote relates to imagination, because it is explaining what Great books

According to the article “Why Literature Matters” by Tim Gillespie “literature draws us in, submerges us into a story, and summons our imaginative power to identify with characters.” When reading literature, our minds are opened and we start to see into the story and imagine that what we are reading is happening in real life or to oneself. This realization of the story makes the reader a better person, because other ways of life are able to be imagined. The imagination that is uncovered when reading is unexplainable, and everyone’s imagination from reading literature is different. Also, in the article “Disturbing (or Not?) Young Adult Fiction” by Christian Chant Sullivan, “Freedom and independence in not only taking on the bad guys in the adult world, but also in eluding and

Being able to understand and relate to feeling and others is important. Empathy “is a much-needed skill, and literature is a form in which we can practice this skill” (Gillespie). This is a true statement because if empathy was not something people felt when they read books, then reading would not be as meaningful. When reading literature, there is something about it that can cause the reader to feel what the author wrote. This is an example of how literature makes us better, because we are able to feel so many different forms of empathy. Even when a situation is not real life, the reader is still able to picture it, for example, in the story “Disturbing (or Not?) Young Adult Fiction”, the author reading Hunger Games talks about how she “felt great empathy for these destitute characters” (Sullivan). Hunger Games is not a real life situation, because humans are killing other humans as a game, but she was able to feel empathy for the characters that did not want to participate. This made the book more interesting for Christian to read. Sullivan, the author of this story wrote about her empathy when reading Hunger Games, and it helps other readers realize that while reading, one can obtain more than a story or knowledge from reading, but also empathy. In the article “In the Minds of Others” by Keith Oatley, “Fiction gets its power from a reader’s emotional connection to the characters in a story” and without this,