all that you hold dear

In the essay How does Politics affect Writing, and Vice Versa?, David James prefaced his argument with a couple of questions. James considers, exactly how political can the political space within literature get? How does one even define a work of literature as “political”? He then proceeds to enumerate: is it merely discernible in works that exemplify themes of injustice, oppression, war, and the like? Or can it also involve identity politics that encompass the space of gender, race, social, and economic class? In what way does the author’s sociopolitical background influence both the intent and content of the text; and what about that of the reader: how does one’s racial, religious, social, and political background affect the way they perceive a work of literature? Coming across this essay, I found my thoughts reflected in each of the questions, particularly my concerns in the way I want to understand the correlation between politics and literature.  

One may say, that when they pick up a book, behind it is the intention of recreational reading—and somehow, it is ironic that people mostly turn to literature for comfort as a form of “escapism”; to mentally veer away, even for just a few moments, from the world we all live in. Yet certain works of literature undeniably reflect the reality of the world through narratives that mirror—more often than not—the ongoing cultural, social, and economic situation of that period. This association is enveloped within stories, characters, and specific literary devices. Therefore, it is safe to say that in this sense, politics, and the books we read, are in a lot of ways inseparable. 

In her essay Pure Heroines, Jia Tolentino examines the concept of the literary “heroine” from childhood to adulthood, as seen and interpreted in literature. She begins by exploring the environment present in children’s literature, where there is an inclination to the ideal life—with its world commonly and heavily based on its language, as if you are “reading a catalog description of a world to be entered at will”; somehow too good to be true, innocent, and dreamy, in a way. Young middle-class characters are typically hardworking and resilient; however, some are forced to child labor due to economic reasons. Then, these young heroines grow up; at this point, the construct of marriage typically comes into the picture. And finally—they end up in the predestined narrative of marriage to stay true to the “wholesome” premise of children’s literature. Their wants and needs acclimate to the supposedly traditional lives each of the characters lead. 

But the literary world shifts when the narrative of adult fiction carries onto the harrowing hurdles of adulthood. Now, life is anything but a bubble of inevitability and certainty, and has now become a “traumatic” and, to some degree, depressive portrait. Tolentino recounts Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, where Esther Greenwood finds herself and her individuality trapped in the conventional and very traditional concept of femininity—that is, the ideology of motherhood and the bearing of children, which have both always been tied to the societal expectations of being a woman. To her, these double standards have always hindered her sense of being.  

Adult heroines were also often pushed to an insatiable degree of desire: thus, the issue of adultery, and eventually, come the point of suicide—when these heroines have nowhere else to turn to the moment they’re hit with an overwhelming amount of longing. There is Emma Bovary in Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, driven by her ambition and desires, only to end her life with arsenic, Anna in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and the train. These adult heroines consistently put up with the burden of the constructs of marriage, streaks of ambition in a world that belongs to a period that does not permit the fulfilment of these when one is a woman, and the idea of suicide. 

Yes: these stories exist to illustrate the historical and social reality of the world in differing timelines—however, they not only linger as mere representations of the material world. Tolentino concludes her essay by saying that while the heroine’s journey “from brave to blank to bitter” are indeed products of existing “social materialistic conditions,” these narratives also tell us that whatever is written in fiction “can always be rewritten,” because reality and the world’s social context both are, at the end of the day, impermanent and constantly evolving.  

When second-wave feminism came in the mid-1900s, it became “respectable” for white women belonging in the middle class to question societal expectations placed upon women as these said incidents not only happen in fiction but in real life, too—to which Betty Friedan, in Feminine Mystique (1963), wrote: “We can no longer ignore the voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’” This period initiated the questioning of the “historical reality of marriage,” an issue that have long existed in literature “before political will addressed it.”  

Along with second-wave feminism also came the characterizing adage, “the personal is political,” which aimed to expose the commonality among the personal experiences and encounters of women as an evident result of existing systematic restrictions such as that of gender inequality—which in itself is a social structure, therefore providing a greater “social and historical context” rather than just a mere individual matter. Carol Hanisch’s essay, which introduced the popular slogan, highlights the context between group vs. individual: there is no such thing as a personal problem indeed, because these problems extend far beyond what is, or what could be considered “personal,” and require not just an individual solution, but a systematic action; one that has the capability to initiate change and social justice. This era challenged the issue of women employment, the construct of marriage, parenting, and the like. 

Certain texts have also been re-examined, deconstructing the male gaze. Case in point: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.Barbara Hill Rigney stated in Madness and Sexual Politics in the Feminist Novel that the character of Jane Eyre indeed is a “powerful” representation for women not because of her evident withdrawal from men in the novel, but because she demonstrates the possibility of equality in marriage by exhibiting her capability to respond “equally in its passion.” This alludes to a woman’s right to be essential all on her own within the frame of marriage. 

But, of course, what is literature if not empathy persevering? Isabel Allende mentioned in her interview with Rosianna Halse Rojas that a fiction writer’s role is to empathize with a character—who has a voice and a certain narrative—among anything else, and to be able to step into the Other’s shoes when writing a story. It is important to note that the concept of the Other would not exist without systematized alienation and discrimination. Simply put, the Other would not exist without the One. For instance, according to Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex—because history is written by male, He has the privilege to set the standards to His advantage. He is the essential, the “Subject”, the “Absolute,” placing women as the “Other.” In the context of race, the marginalized takes the place of the Other instead. However, with powerful stories and narratives, literature offers a space of inclusion for the people whose voices need to be heard. With literature, it is always possible to heed these calls through proper and adequate storytelling, which is exactly why empathy plays a crucial role in writing. 

Literature is indeed political in a way that it reflects the material conditions of the current period, and, by ways of empathy and continuous re-visioning of its texts, goes to show that it is also aimed towards the direction of understanding and social justice. Literature can bring about important conversations, too, and has the potential to extend beyond itself to instigate discourse about important social issues and be a catalyst for change as much as it is representative.