Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Northanger Abbey Assignment #4
Reading novels can be great for expanding a persons mind and creativity, but It also can cause too much imagination which is shown in Northanger Abbey. Catherine begins to become involved in her novels and her imagination gets the best of her. On the other hand, novels can help change a society, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written around the time of slavery and it was meant to show the harshness and reality of what was happening to African-Americans. While causing major controversy, her book changed peoples persepctive on slavery and the treatment of people. Novels today I feel have less of an effect on people then they did years ago. We are have been shown so many things in our life that anything written in novels today will not have the same effect as if it was written 100 years ago. People during the 19th century were just starting to read novels and it allowed for their imaginations to roam infinitely. Novels also help us understand how life was during the 17-19th centuries, it gives us in depth look at society and how people were treated.
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I agree sometimes novels do have too much in them and changes reality. At the same time when reflecting true events I feel like they must do that to keep the reader interested so they can get the message across. As you said it does reflect of things going on at the time and I think it helps the reader perceive it a little better than just reading facts.
ReplyDeleteYeah, novels can get one's imagination roaring with delight but in some cases that's a good thing. I see novels as a way to get away from the real world and immerse yourself in something you want to believe that's real. I agree when you state that our society today has been open to all these horrible things that are going on such as murder, crime and rape. I think that only thing that can shock us americans today is something awful like a building getting blown up by terrorists. I feelt aht way because we always get an explanation with things and when stuff like this happens, we don't know why and we are just in this state of shock and confusion. Getting back on topic, i've always thought that novels that were writtn back in the 18th to the 20th century portrays what life is like or had been like and how people may have acted back in those days.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that novels can be great for expanding our knowledge and imagination. However, it can also harm you if you live in the life of an imaginary world. Jane Austen is trying to tell us through Northanger Abby that everything could go wrong if we take it in extreme. We are the one who could control the effect of novel reading. There is nothing wrong with novel reading and it does have practical value in it.
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