Being Human: The Value of Literature

by Brittany Hirth

I am writing this essay in April of 2020, and now is one of the more opportune times to think about the value of the humanities in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. People are increasingly turning to movies and television shows to help them cope with social isolation. Some of these films and shows are adapted from books while others are set into motion by teams of writers. We would not have these books, films, poems, music, paintings, and photography to express ourselves, to pass the time, and to help us feel a little less alone without the humanities. Although all these cultural productions and the study of them, and more, fall under the umbrella term, humanities, I will focus my attention on fictional literature, as fewer people tend to read it in an age of plentiful possibilities for entertainment.

The rewards of reading and studying literature are numerous, but I will concentrate on a few of the major ones. For those who become habitual readers, they will gain a better understanding of history from multiple perspectives and can be enlightened about their culture and cultures they may never experience, which has been proven in psychological studies to enhance empathy. If further developing empathy and encountering other perspectives of history are not persuasive reasons to read more, then perhaps some may find value in the calming effect that reading can have on the mind and body. I will further explain these benefits of reading literature and offer some illustrative anecdotes from my teaching and research to demonstrate the continued relevance of the humanities.

One of the reasons that most institutions of higher education require a literature course for most degrees is for the continued practice in comprehensive reading and critical writing. But most institutions also require a literature course in order to expose students to different cultures, time periods, and religions to which one may not otherwise be exposed. Of course history, anthropology, and sociology courses can accomplish the goal of introducing students to diverse cultures and important periods of human civilization. However, if someone wants to understand what the country or time period felt like, literature is the best way to immerse a reader into the author’s world.

Generally, literature enables the reader to understand the culture, concerns, beliefs, and politics of a time period through the lens of the author. In my literature courses, students are taught to read a novel with the publication date in mind and to research what the author’s world was like during the period of writing. Students are also trained to focus on the world of the novel. With historical and cultural contexts in mind, students learn a great deal about the problems and concerns of people at various points in history. Reading literature about a specific historical event in American history becomes particularly beneficial for students who might not be interested in learning more if an event were not first introduced to them in a compelling piece of fiction. For example, writing about war representation often leads me into interesting everyday discussions with others about American culture, history, and politics that are first inspired by reading the work of fiction.

As an American literature scholar, I research many aspects of what defines the identity of this nation and its people, but I mainly focus on war representation. My specific research interests emerge from my general perception that the United States is a nation that was formed by and is continuously shaped by war. Historic wars resulted in the liberation of the early American colonies from the British Empire, eliminated the horrific practice of slavery within the U.S., and ended the Nazi regime in Europe. These wars commonly illustrate the values that most Americans embrace that form a national identity: all people are created equal and deserve justice and freedom. However, wars also teach us something about how our personal values can conflict with the politics of arguably less morally inspired wars, such as the Vietnam War and the long war in Iraq.

Fiction becomes an entry point into considering the more contentious aspects of war. For example, while reading veteran accounts for my research, I often notice a stark difference between the average citizen’s understanding of war as it has been presented to most Americans, through censored media broadcasts, sparse reporting, and persuasive speeches from politicians, and the veterans’ depiction of their wars through their writing. If you want to know when a war took place, then consult a history textbook. But if you want to know what it felt like, then read a veteran’s novel. Although there are a number of admirable films and documentaries on the Vietnam War, those media will not plunge a reader into the depths of the jungle like the fiction of war-veteran writers, such as Tim O’Brien or Philip Caputo. Not to mention these war-veteran writers will provide the missing, and arguably necessary, political anecdotes that lead readers to a more comprehensive view of each war, which films often do not address.

Some may ask, why would anyone read fiction to better understand history? By its definition, fiction is fabricated and untrue. But while the names and incidences may have changed in the novels, from experience in speaking with bestselling author and war veteran, Tim O’Brien, I can claim with surety that much of the content in his stories are influenced by real events. The details may not always be factual, but the descriptions of the war and the emotional impact it had on those who served are authentic. Not to mention, many of O’Brien’s war stories are, indeed, rooted in truth.

Humanities scholars will generally defend literature’s value in contextualizing and illustrating history as is claimed in many articles, such as Allan H. Pasco’s “Literature as Historical Archive.” Pasco argues that literature can be considered a “cultural repository” and often reveals a “reliable window on the past” that can bring “fresh light to our perception of history.”(1) Although, one is always cautioned to not treat literature as an exact reflection of reality, stories from the past can offer viewpoints into the beliefs and fears of the common people that may be ignored in historical documents. Aside from helping one understand various historical contexts, fiction also offers a creative way to view the world as authors dramatize the issues of the past, present, and even imagined futures. In my humble opinion, only literature can intriguingly pose the speculative “what if ” questions about the future and interrogate some of the more problematic aspects of our contemporary society, such as class inequalities or racial and gender discrimination in the social sphere.

As a means to reduce discriminatory thinking, another benefit of reading literature is enhancing civic engagement and empathy for others. A stronger connection to others and the community is an especially important benefit in a civilization with continued technological advancements that threaten to socially separate people from one another. A 2002 survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the National Endowment for the Arts revealed that individual readers demonstrate greater civic engagement, as “readers and arts participants are more than twice as likely to volunteer in their communities.”(2) A 2009 updated survey for the NEA of art participants confirms that those who read literature, visit museums or art galleries, or attend arts performances, are more likely to vote in political elections and to volunteer in their communities. In particular, “Arts participants and literary readers show a greater likelihood of community involvement in a variety of other ways, including sports participation, collaborative art-making, and taking their children to out-of-school performances.”(3) So not only are those who engage with the arts more involved with their communities, but they also tend to be more empathetic.

Fiction is uniquely suited to helping one develop empathy as the brain scans of readers reveal that the act of reading increases prosocial behavior because fiction mainly focuses on eliciting emotions rather than on presenting factual information. The 2013 article, “How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation” specifically investigates the effect of reading on empathy. The results of fMRI scans of readers affirm that “fiction reading will be more likely [to] influence empathy than non-fiction reading”(4) by eliciting emotions through a simulation of real world problems. Readers often identify themselves with the characters in the story and this emotional involvement causes the reader to experience the events along with the characters. Therefore, people practice demonstrable empathy while reading a fictional story, as they become more and more invested in the welfare of the characters who live in a world similar to theirs. In short, because fiction presents a compelling and convincing storyline(s), readers are more likely to be emotionally affected than by reading a work of nonfiction.

A later 2016 study published in the journal of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience further confirmed that “readers make good citizens because reading may improve one’s ability to empathize with and understand the thoughts and feelings of other people,” and that “readers of fiction score higher on measures of empathy and theory of mind (ToM)—the ability to think about others’ thoughts and feelings—than non-readers, even after controlling for age, gender, intelligence and personality factors.”(5) In addition to developing empathy for others by reading about the trials and tribulations that characters endure, literature can also specifically increase empathy for others outside of one’s own ethnic identity.

A 2014 study published in the Basic and Applied Social Psychology journal revealed that participants who read an excerpt from a novel about a Muslim American woman were less likely to make broad assumptions based on race, (6) which means that literature can also help readers develop empathy for those who are dissimilar to themselves. Borders and political divisions separate people from one another, but literature can help a reader understand that people are more alike than they are different in all parts of the world. Consequently, reading about the struggles of characters who suffer and endure challenges in a fictional world that is based on the reality of our world can make us better people. Though, one will have to purposely seek out those authors from different countries, ethnicities, genders, and ages.

I teach literature courses at Dickinson State University that range from American literature surveys to literary theory and criticism. As an educator, I have seen the value of the humanities, specifically literature, not just as a complement to students’ majors but as a means for them to develop their sense of identity and to appreciate others around them. A very rewarding moment in teaching is watching otherwise quiet and shy students suddenly come alive when a classmate makes a snap judgment about the motives of one of the characters, or finally reaching a point in a discussion in which students are so invested in the story that a lively debate begins. It is also touching to see how students can form such strong attachments to imaginary people and to watch them grin when talking about the characters as if they have become real friends. Aside from developing prosocial behavior, younger adults benefit reading about demographics of people that they may not encounter in their hometowns. In my experience, fiction increases students’ exposure to diversity and broadens their ability to empathize with others. Albeit, these “people” with which readers empathize are fictional characters, the authors are tangible people who present their diverse world-views through their characters. From the transformations I have seen in the classroom, it seems logical to infer that just about everyone can receive these same benefits of reading more literature and learning how to approach the world a little more compassionately.

For instance, I taught Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried many times but most recently in a Writing about Literature course at Dickinson State University. To teach a short story collection about the Vietnam War was no easy task: this was a group of traditionally aged students who are distanced from this war by at least one if not two generations. In my estimation, many public high schools are likely to cover the history of the Vietnam War but perhaps with little to no attention to the more politically sensitive aspects of the war. Not to mention, most students will not have much enthusiasm when learning that are tasked with reading literature that covers traumatic material. However, I will never forget a student’s immediate reaction when we first started discussing O’Brien’s short story collection. He declared, “This is the first interesting book that I’ve read in school!” Why did this English major, in his third year, suddenly have a personal interest in assigned reading? The likeliest answer is that O’Brien develops deep emotional complexity in his war literature; plainly, he is an enthralling storyteller. My students laughed, cried, and cringed while reading the collection, and everyone felt a little sad that the characters had to be left behind when we finished the novel.

O’Brien made the Vietnam War come alive for them, but my students also developed empathy along the way for the very young soldiers who were drafted into this war and for the Vietnamese civilians of whom O’Brien often writes. One story that is likely to induce empathy is “The Man I Killed” in which the narrator imagines a life for a young, Vietnamese man who was killed while he was simply walking along a trail near My Khe. The narrator throws the grenade that kills this young man out of fear that he could have been Viet Cong. The narrator then struggles with the morality of killing someone who did not pose an imminent threat. The memory of this incident continues to plague the narrator and the description of it surfaces in other stories within the collection, The Thing They Carried.

While reading for my research, empathy becomes my most common reaction to accounts of young soldiers’ struggle to preserve their morality and protect their fellow combatants while also witnessing civilian deaths in the warzone. In speeches, politicians often purposely minimize or obscure the civilian deaths that result from military operations, or they dehumanize the country with which the U.S. is at war. For example, President George W. Bush often spoke of the “enemy” or vaguely, “the evil” that needed to be uprooted in Afghanistan and later Iraq. But how many American citizens have considered the impact of war on the average civilian in a war-torn country whose town is turned into a battle zone, as homes, hospitals, and schools are often demolished in drone strikes? It is impossible not to deeply empathize with the civilians in the Middle East, as war-veteran writers describe scenes of destruction and death and detail how often innocent civilians are mistaken for insurgents (because insurgents often invade civilian homes in order to hide). These war-veteran writers offer some much needed realism of war’s brutalities for those who perhaps do not fully consider all consequences of military intervention.

Literature can help diminish the impact of xenophobia if people read stories from another country and realize that those people abroad have the same fears and desires as themselves. But if broadening one’s worldview and developing more empathetic faculties is not enough rationale to read more fiction, a lesser known and more self-interested benefit may be the meditative effects of the reading process. In my experience, after a particularly stressful or long day, reading can be a calming closure. If my mind enters into the world of the book, I am likely to forget about myself and the day’s issues as I become invested in the characters or the drama of the plot. Reading becomes a meditative process as one begins to focus on one thing: the good book. The therapeutic potential of reading seems prolific if the inclusion of book clubs in prisons and free literature courses in nursing homes can serve as anecdotal evidence of how reading can continue to make people feel more connected to the world.

So, after all of this explanation of the benefits of reading, what is the true value of the humanities? My start to an answer is that while I write this essay most people are self-quarantining due to COVID-19. Events, schools, practically all facets of our lives have been cancelled, interrupted, or delayed. All of my classes have been shifted online, but we have been able to virtually meet every week on Zoom. We laugh. We exhibit frustrations with the characters that we read about in novels. We predict what will happen in the text, and we challenge each other’s assumptions. We talk about American society and the world. We talk about how people have always been and who we think we are in relation to this country and this world.

We giggle about the various pets that jump into view of the camera. Did we lose the classroom? Yes, but we didn't lose the community or the curriculum.

The STEM courses that are often pitted against the arts by administrators are probably struggling in the time of COVID-19. Certainly, there are ways to try to deliver the same curriculum, but seemingly there is not much one can do to simulate experiential learning without a laboratory or performing field research, aside from shifting to online teaching modules. But the humanities courses are most likely plugging right along in much the same design, with the exception of perhaps more online forum discussions or asynchronous learning. I would like to think that my literature courses are providing some much needed distraction in an anxiety inducing time, as we discuss the lives of the characters and hone some critical thinking skills. If my closing thoughts seem defensive, my discussion in this essay arises from the conversations I have recently had with fellow academics about an emerging nationwide trend: literature departments have and will continue to receive overhauls and upheavals at most higher education institutions. Even though literature is one of the oldest disciplines in the academy, some literature departments will face outright extinction in the coming decades, as lower numbers of English majors indicate the need to restructure departments, or eliminate the literature requirement, entirely.

My institution has not eliminated the English major, but the Language and Literature department will not exist beyond Spring 2020. A much smaller group of English faculty are preparing to merge with the fine and performing arts. Most humanities advocates are finding it harder and harder to rationalize the study of fiction and philosophy in an educational environment that increasingly wants pragmatism and job training. And yet, here I am, operating independently from the brick-and-mortar during a time of social distancing and helping others stay connected and wade through this immensely complicated experience of being alive. When many aspects of our lives have come to a grinding halt during this ongoing pandemic, the humanities are still helping people cope with a concerning time in their lives and will continue to do so if people appreciate their value. The humanities have much to teach us about being human.

BRITTANY HIRTH is an assistant professor of English at Dickinson State University. She specializes in twentieth century and contemporary American literature. She has published on the fiction of Jonathan Safran Foer, Philip Roth, and Anthony Swofford and conducted two interviews with bestselling author, Tim O'Brien.

Works Cited

1 Pasco, Allan H., “Literature as Historical Archive,” New Literary History 35, no. 3 (2004): 374, accessed April 4, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20057844.

2 United States, U.S. Census Bureau, National Endowment for the Arts. Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life (2002): 5, accessed April 10, 2020, http:// www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/ CivicEngagement.pdf.

3 United States, U.S. Census Bureau, National Endowment for the Arts, Art-Goers in Their Communities: Patterns of Civic and Social Engagement (2009): 2, http://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/98.pdf.

4 Bal, P. Matthijs, and Martijn Veltkamp, “How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation,” PloS One, 8, no. 1 (2013), accessed March 18, 2020, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055341.

5 Tamir, Diana I., et al., “Reading Fiction and Reading Minds: the Role of Simulation in the Default Network,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11, no. 2 (2016), accessed March 30, 2020, doi. org/10.1093/scan/nsv114.

6 Johnson, Dan R., et al., “Changing Race Boundary Perception by Reading Narrative Fiction,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 36, no. 1 (2014), accessed April 2, 2020, doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2013.856791.