Why Is Literature Important

There has been reading since the alphabet was first created thousands of years ago, but just recently, reading has taken on a new purpose. Reading in the modern day is a way to escape from a realty, good or bad, that people live in. People all over the world are suffering in their day to day life but now reading book especially fiction book allows them to escape. This helps people get over many problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thought. Many people have written about this such as Tim Gillespie. In Gillespie’s article “Why Literature Matters” he states that “Literature does offer inexpensively a vision of other lives and other vistas. One of its potential benefits is to enlarge a reader's sense about the many possible ways to

Which allows readers to find comfort inside something they would never think of finding comfort in. Literature is more important than other sources of entertainment such as movies, television, and video games because it allows for the reader to manipulate the text to make it relate to their day to day life which in the end lets them go into a fake reality leaving behind depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts that may be present in their real lives. Reading is becoming less important among teens lives as other forms of entertainment are drawing their attention away. Movies along with television shows don’t offer much option for the reader to change it in a way that fits them. They have set characters that look and talk a certain way. If the actor is a big strong man but the viewer is nothing like him it may be harder for the

Some suffer from depression or anxiety as a result of abused or raped. This is where great books come in to help. Many people don’t think there’s someone in the same situation or don’t know how to get out of a bad situation, but by reading a book about a character who has had depression and or anxiety it will help them overcome that obstacle because the reader can follow the footsteps of the character in the story to get better. People such as Sherman Alexie saw this first hand. In his article “Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood” he explains how he went to visit a school where they read his books in class, although is books were very horrific and sad many of the student could relate to the books giving the student a sense of relief after reading them. When I read I don’t just recite words off the paper in my head. I visually picture what’s happening in the story kind of like a movie but I’m creating it. This lets me be pulled into the book emotionally and mentally. Teen who are abused at home want to get away from that environment as much as possible. Reading is the best way to do this. They can drift off into a whole different reality anytime they want forgetting about what they are leaving behind. Many scientists have done brain scan along with other research to prove this. Keith Oatley talks about some of the research done to prove that reading fiction can make the feel emotion as though they