History in Literature

     History comes from a number of sources, such as archaeology, scientific discovery, historical records, personal diaries, letters, and many more. One source, however, not only records history, but how people felt about the events happening in their time, and that is literature. Essays on the topics of societal issues, memoirs of the people living in that time, and poetry give readers a sense of what happened in the past time period and what it meant to people in their everyday lives. Even fiction contains themes important to social, political, and economic events in history. Among all of this, we can see how it is still happening today, in music, stories, academic essays, and other forms of literature that are commonly found everywhere. With the ongoing pandemic and social issues, history is in the making, and it is reflected in the art and entertainment we view each day. Three examples are the songs, "Dream," by Imagine Dragon and "No I in Beer," by Brad Paisley, and a story a friend of mine wrote.

    "Dream," by Imagine Dragons has a very melancholic tone to it, which expresses everyone's internal feelings about the brokenness of the world today. Although the song was released in 2015, five years before the pandemic, there were still many social issues ongoing in the world at the time, many of which still continue today. This is evident in the chorus, with the lyrics, "Oh, we all are living in a dream / But life ain't what it seems / Oh, everything's a mess." It relates life to a bad dream where we have no control and everything is all messed up. This is very clear in today's terms where there are problems everywhere, no one can agree on anything, and everything just seems like one big mess. It paints a picture of our own fears and worries inside, where we feel so alone, and want for it all to be nothing but a dream. 

    For an opposite perspective, however, consider the song "No I in Beer," by Brad Paisley. Is was written in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to give us all hope and a sense of togetherness. Rather than the sense of despair and loneliness in "Dream," Brad Paisley uses drinking beer, an "activity" done by many in a social setting to remind everyone that no one should be alone and everyone is going through the same thing. In the second chorus of the song, Paisley sings, "''Cause we're all in this together / That's why God put us here," which emphasizes that we are all more similar than we think, and everyone goes through similar problems.

    The story my friend wrote, I never actually read myself, but she has told me about it. In the story, people live in a world still gripped by the pandemic, where the virus is on the fifty-seventh strain. It sounds a little depressing in a way, but it is meant to poke fun at all the craziness associated with the current pandemic. She wrote it to turn such a serious situation into a lighthearted joke, in order to remind us of how ridiculous we can look with all our constant worrying, and to remind us that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it takes a while. Nothing bad will last forever. Even though her story is not officially published, she still responds to a social issue today, reflecting on it.

    Literature will continue to morph and change to fit the current situations. Otherwise everything will be the same, and that would be boring. Besides that, however, it will give people in the future a chance to see how we feel now, and to know what the issues we are going through really are.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Desire to Leave

      The short story, "Checking Out," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, provides the point of view of a disadvantaged minority many people ignore. The main character, Obinze, is an immigrant from Nigeria, in London, struggling to gain citizenship in the UK. The political situation in Nigeria is at a bad point, and Obinze tries to obtain a visa to emigrate to the US, but is denied each time, which causes him to end up in London. His desire to go to the US stems from a commercial on tv called "Andrew Checking Out," where Andrew "checks out" of the country as if was a hotel, and leaves for America. This inspires Obinze to do try to do the same, and he fantasizes about what his life would be like in the US.     Most of Obinze's desire to leave Nigeria comes from his vision of the US. He sees it as a utopian-like society where he is free to do and speak what he wants, and can drink all the Fanta he wants. He imagines the intellectual conversations he would have...
Read more

The Poem to Write About

     Poem number 20, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in his book, A Coney Island of the Mind , is quite a beautiful masterpiece. Ferlinghetti perfectly uses rhyme in the poem to make it flow and connect ideas together in ways that may not have been previously imagined. Besides that, however, he uses the beautiful imagery of a candy store, with its many colors and inviting sights, to depict a childish innocence, and the exact moment it disappeared.      The first few lines of the poem invite the reader into the innocence of a boy who goes to a candy store. The reader is given visions of jellybeans that "glowed in the semi-gloom" as well as licorice sticks, tootsie rolls, and "Oh Boy Gum." It seems like a paradise for a child, when all they ever wanted was something sweet to make them happy.  After that last line about the gum, however, the visions of the candy die away like the dying leaves when the boy sees the girl walk in. The final lines of the poem, "Out...
Read more

Inclusiveness Today

      There was recently a video I watched of a joke about millennials in a job interview. In it, the girl was on her phone, was al little rude, and seemed clearly out of place for the job as her definition of trained in technology was social media and Siri. She expected everything to go her way, even when she was told she wouldn't be hired. While the video does provide a good laugh, there are a few things that can be recognized following the theme of equity and inclusiveness from both sides of the interview.     Starting with the girl, she wasn't being very inclusive towards the interviewer. She automatically expected him understand her point of view and judge solely based on that. She did not do research about what the job qualifications entailed and attacked him using a perceived defense mechanism when he told her she wasn't going to work out. People today tend to follow a pattern similar to this. While the video showed an extreme in this case, many...
Read more