Response Essay

Literature Literature, to me, is any piece of writing used to convey a message. Officially, however, it is defined as “writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.” (Dictionary) Over the years, students have been required to only appreciate what literature does for the education system’s testing quality. It is no longer used in school for appreciative purposes. It is used to question how well we can answer questions on an A, B, C, or D basis. Unfortunately, this appears to be what the test-makers and head of school districts view as the only positive thing students can take from literature.

Instead of sad, we are experiencing an annoyed and angry girl. “I used to think that we were forever,” is a line in this song and I feel like it holds a lot of importance for the entire piece of literature. The girl is looking back to her thoughts about the relationship prior to the heartbreak. She recalls having thought that the relationship was going to last a lifetime. This is extremely important to emphasize because of the audience that Taylor Swift attracts. The majority of this audience consists of teenagers who have a similar mindset about romances in their age. In my personal opinion, it was an excellent tactic to add this to the song to implement into these teenager’s minds the faulty truth in the word “forever.” For the time being, as teenagers, rarely any romance will be a forever thing. While

Out of all of the different methods one has to communicate their thoughts, music has to be my absolute favorite. The two female singers I have discussed have changed the game for love songs. While I described two songs that are about a depressing feeling, they have numerous songs about the happiness that love can bring as well. For the purpose of normalizing heart break, I think these two songs are a perfect example of literature’s impact on humans as a whole. Totally avoiding the topic of heartbreak can make the experience so much more difficult to manage. Expressing two of the many different ways people can cope with heartbreak is an extremely important thing that people who use literature to cope with can take advantage of. If we, as people, were to normalize only one behavior for heartbreak, we cancel out how others might react to it. Taylor Swift may not react to heartbreak the way she depicts the girl in her song to. She may have a more mature or understanding mindset when it comes to a situation like this. However, she used her literary talents and produced a song that could relate to someone who isn’t capable of seeing a breakup in any other way than angrily or annoyed. Adele may have a completely different outlook on breakups. She could hate every man she’s ever been with and that’s completely okay, but she created a piece of literature that helped a large audience see another way to cope with a break up.