Can Literature Tell the Truth?

William Shakespeare's, "Macbeth" is the perfect portrayal of human greed and strive for power. Macbeth, the protagonist of the play, is willing to go above and beyond to achieve absolute power and recognition. The generations of today are even more power hungry, and there are daily disputes over wealth and money. William Shakespeare's, "Macbeth" is still relevant to our society since nothing has really changed, we still value money as the number one thing, and the amount of authority you have is still very influential, this proves that literature can tell the truth, and pass it on better than some other areas of knowledge such as TV which is most of the time at best the third persons point of view where as a book is written from the first or second point of view.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" describes the hardships of an innocent man's life in a prison camp. This novel illustrates the universal truth about the nature of man. According to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the truth about all humanity is that everybody strives for survival, dignity, individualism, comfort, and friendship. Although there are some obvious exceptions to such a statement, it is very accurate up to this day.

Literature is also one of the best and most efficient ways to spread propaganda through out the world. During the 1800's, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a book, Uncle Tom's Cabin that was used to condemn slavery in America. Today, Uncle Tom's Cabin is viewed as propaganda. Propaganda and literature have been close friends for quite a long time and have had many short and long term affairs in the past. Many people use propaganda in literature to enforce ways of thought onto the public. In the Soviet Union the leaders of the country such as Lenin and Stalin have used books in the schools which were written by authors upon their request to promote communism throughout the country.

Literature however has some major flaws, which are the bias that is present in the works of all authors. Bias is inevitable since usually the writer is expressing his thoughts or his past experiences. In many cases writers try to cover their bias up because the book may be too controversial to publish or at times done for the purposes of self preservation, since if the author of the book would be critiquing someone's laws, beliefs or ways of life. However they write this in a way that the reader would have to "read between the lines" and find out the real purpose of the book.

Some of the greatest written works of art were published hundreds of years ago, and these still affect the communities of today. The history of the world enriches literatures in a way that the generations of today are able to view the world as it existed years ago. Furthermore, the authors of previous generations are able to interpret the way of life and the mistakes of that generation into their literature so the people of today can still learn from such works. Since "history repeats itself" literature can be viewed as a time machine not only into the past but the future as well. On a smaller scale this could be shown in the stock market where previously written work is used to predict the next year’s price of a certain stock.

There are hundreds of different cultures all around the world, each with different perceptions, diverse viewpoints, and various ideas about human kind and the way the world works. Such perceptions are important to people all around the world in order to understand various cultures and people. Literature can put us into a different world and let us live the life as someone else thus enriching our mind and giving us a new point with that of which we can look at life. You can picture literature as the platforms on which you can stand on and view the earth form different points, and the more platforms you have the better view of the world you can obtain.

People of certain religions or organizations may view some literatures as being threatening and going against what they believe in, despite the fact that that piece of work has five out of five stars and has won the hearts of millions of people. But that fact could not be changes in anyway since we as humans have the right to a freedom of speech, and what you may find threatening may have a diverse meaning in a different culture. There are of course exceptions to this case when the author may publish his book solely for the purpose of offending a different race or clan in which case it would be simply inappropriate.

Literatures are written about the author's experiences and/or the perception of the author about a certain matter in his life or the world. These may be truthful to the author for he or she can relate to such literature, but for other people this is not the matter. People around the world need hard facts and evidence in order to believe that something is in fact the truth. If a literature, for example, states that everybody experiences miracles in one point or another of their life, that would not be true to someone who a) does not believe in miracles and b) someone who isn't superstitious. In order for the reader to believe that this is in fact the truth, he or she needs strong evidence that could be obtained from Arts. Literature can tell the truth and provide us with valid information but a good reader should be able to filter the real from the not, and to try to separate the bias from the truth.