From ancient Mesopotamian code of laws, to Hamlet, to the Declaration of Independence, works of literature have helped construct our happiness, both literally and mentally. Works of fiction grant us a window into the lives of those who have never lived and allow us to laugh, cry, feel defeat, and achieve victory with them. These works can act as either a distraction from our problems or create parallels to them allowing us to view them from a new light. In her essay “Because she’s a woman”: Myth and Metafiction in Carol Shields’ Unless, Nora Stovel, a renowned professor at the University of Alberta, argues that Carol Shields uses (particularly in her final book, Unless) metafiction to illustrate how fiction can be an escapist method to step
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We find intrinsic satisfaction through distraction by changing the subject and drawing attention to something less obtrusive than our own inner dilemmas. “By focusing in on one’s own happiness, one inevitably draws attention to it’s shortfall[s]”(Nettle 155). Nettle goes on to equate this idea to how “materialism breeds dissatisfaction with material conditions, consistently reassuring to find happiness in doing or having can make it more difficult to be happy”(Nettle 160). By changing the subject away from one 's satisfaction to one 's unhappiness, we allow the mind to find a medium of happiness and entertainment. Reading books is a successful method of “changing the subject” in order to bring us out of our world of discontent and into another plane of existence where our worries are no longer endured.
Nonetheless, some readers might object to my view by claiming literary works are not intended to be used as a means of distraction or as a means of self improvement. Lorraine Hansberry, a prominent and influential playwright of her time and author of A Raisin in the Sun, in which George takes an opposite stance by projecting a simplified version of this argument:
GEORGE: This is stupid! I don’t want to talk about the nature of ‘quiet desperation’ or hear about all your thoughts - because the world will go on thinking what it thinks regardless-
BENEATHA: Why read books then? Why go to
We find intrinsic satisfaction through distraction by changing the subject and drawing attention to something less obtrusive than our own inner dilemmas. “By focusing in on one’s own happiness, one inevitably draws attention to it’s shortfall[s]”(Nettle 155). Nettle goes on to equate this idea to how “materialism breeds dissatisfaction with material conditions, consistently reassuring to find happiness in doing or having can make it more difficult to be happy”(Nettle 160). By changing the subject away from one 's satisfaction to one 's unhappiness, we allow the mind to find a medium of happiness and entertainment. Reading books is a successful method of “changing the subject” in order to bring us out of our world of discontent and into another plane of existence where our worries are no longer endured.
Nonetheless, some readers might object to my view by claiming literary works are not intended to be used as a means of distraction or as a means of self improvement. Lorraine Hansberry, a prominent and influential playwright of her time and author of A Raisin in the Sun, in which George takes an opposite stance by projecting a simplified version of this argument:
GEORGE: This is stupid! I don’t want to talk about the nature of ‘quiet desperation’ or hear about all your thoughts - because the world will go on thinking what it thinks regardless-
BENEATHA: Why read books then? Why go to