This blog is written as part of a task assigned by Prof. Dilip Barad, Department of English (MKBU). The blog is about my understanding of literature and how literature shaped me? I tried to put my experiencing and growing along with literature. For further info you can visit the following blog.
First, let's look at literature as a literary form. It is a way of human communication. From the rise of Shakespearean plays to modern novelists like James Joyce, literature encompasses a broad range of works. It includes Greek plays, Romantic poetry, Gothic novels, and extends to modern cinema and web series. It’s not just these; literature also encompasses diaries, letters, newsletters, advertisements, and social media posts. Literature delves into every form of communication and its impact on society. In general, it is said that literature is the mirror or X-ray of society.
I noticed that soap operas, especially those centered on saas-bahu (mother-in-law and daughter-in-law) drama, often depicted all saas as being bad, torturing their bahus. I used to like Hollywood movies a lot because of my brother. I remember having a VCD player at home, and my brother would bring lots of CDs. I enjoyed the action scenes, new concepts, and the use of VFX. Hollywood movies also featured more explicit content, which, as a teenage boy, naturally attracted me.
Then came Beckett with his “Brahmastra,” Waiting for Godot, which introduced me to Absurdism, Existentialism, and Nihilism. Camus and Nietzsche convinced me that everything is meaningless. When I prepared a presentation differentiating Absurdism, Existentialism, and Nihilism, I delved deep into each concept. The Sisyphus inside me awakened, and I explored philosophical suicide. When I read Metamorphosis, I understood the deep-rooted aspects of human nature. Even people close to us might abandon us when things go wrong. It’s a darker reality, but it taught me the practicality of life. It is said that literature is related to stories and emotions, but it also teaches you emotional intelligence. It prepares you for the heartbreaks you will inevitably face.
When I read Camus’ The Stranger, it begins with the line, "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know." This made me wonder how one can forget such an event. However, through the novel, I found my answer. I would say that literature made me less emotional, not in the sense that I don’t feel emotions, but it gave me the strength to handle and understand situations better.
Later, I delved into cultural and postcolonial studies, which broadened my understanding of absence. Derrida contributed to this understanding. It taught me how to read power and the text. I studied Hamlet from the perspective of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I now understand why Spivak asked, "Can the Subalterns Speak?" I studied Orientalism, which revealed how power structures work. I began to understand why all arts are political. It taught me how to read literature and to question—something I believe is the most important lesson I’ve learned.
I realized that literature isn’t just written documents, stories, or plays. It is interconnected with history, philosophy, psychology, social studies, anthropology, linguistics, politics, and more. Its scope is vast, and it teaches anything and everything. I also learned why many authors and poets support those who suffer. Literature stands against power and is on the side of those who fight for justice. As Kandasami writes in the poem One-Eyed, I saw the devils of caste and religion, and I witnessed the oppression of people through films like Article 15, which I had been unaware of before.
Through Frantz Fanon, I realized that Gandhian ideas wouldn’t work in French colonies. I read the minds of oppressors and understood that there is still a need for feminism. I became more empathetic toward the queer community.
I used to believe that the farmer protests in Haryana and Punjab were wrong. I used to criticize South Indians for not accepting Hindi and for hating Hindi speakers. I once believed that the growth of multinational companies in India equated to the growth of India itself.
Your Metaphor for Literature: ‘Dream’
Literature is like a dream because it exists in a realm between the real and the imagined. It is not tangible, yet it reflects profound truths about reality—truths that may not be immediately visible when we are awake. Like a dream, literature brings forth realities hidden beneath the surface of everyday life. It is a dream of a community, capturing collective emotions, struggles, and aspirations in ways that blur the line between what is real and what is imagined. Psychologists speak of two minds—the conscious and the subconscious. A dream, they say, reflects the subconscious mind, bypassing the ego to reveal deeper truths. In literature, something similar happens: the ego of the writer, or even the reader, is set aside, allowing for a more honest exploration of the human condition. Literature, like a dream, brings to the surface insights that may seem more real than reality itself.
This metaphor has a deep connection to my life. As I look back on my journey with literature, I see how it has unfolded much like a dream, unearthing the hidden, sometimes uncomfortable truths about myself. Literature, in its many forms, allows me to confront emotions and desires that I may not fully understand or acknowledge in my waking life—the ambitions I suppress, the fears I hide, the darker parts of my psyche that I might prefer to ignore. In this way, literature acts as a mirror, reflecting the deepest parts of myself that I often fail to recognize. When reading works that are raw, emotional, or philosophical, I often feel as though the story is my own—yet told in a way that is more expansive and descriptive than I could ever articulate. The experience feels like a dream, where my reality intertwines with the fictional, allowing me to better understand myself and my place in the world.
A key moment in my literary journey occurred when I read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel’s exploration of identity and belonging resonated deeply with me, and at times it felt as if the characters were living inside me. The emotions they experienced, their struggles with culture and family, mirrored my own—yet the novel gave voice to those feelings in a way I had not been able to express myself. It felt like a dream in which I was both the observer and the participant, moving through the narrative as if I were in the characters' shoes. Similarly, when I first encountered Kafka and Camus, their works felt surreal, as though I were in a dream where reality and absurdity collided. The sense of alienation in Metamorphosis or the existential questioning in The Stranger mirrored my own feelings of disconnection, but through these writers, I was able to engage with these emotions in a deeper, more structured way, making the experience of literature feel more real than life itself.
In dreams, events often merge across time and space, and the same happens in literature. There are moments when a story feels not just like a narrative, but like a fusion of various moments from different points in my life. I am not merely reading about the characters; I am living their experiences, as if I have crossed into their world. This merging of time, space, and emotion allows me to see myself in the story, to uncover parts of my own reality that I might not have been aware of before.
Barad, D. (1970, January 1). Literature: What, why and how. Literature: What, Why and How. https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2016/03/literature-what-why-and-how.html
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