Literature = the opiate of the masses?
OK, one last weekly blog. I am once again troubled by this week’s readings, and have been avoiding writing about it too long, so time to confront my fears. I am bothered by Eagleton’s assertions equating religion and literature, and even more troubled by the report that the undergraduate theory class found this to be a positive development. I guess I just don’t like to think of Literature having any kind of agenda, conscious or otherwise. It is inevitable, I suppose, that the political climate of the day will affect what people write. But using literature as a tool of social control, and worse, implying that it is a natural fit to derive political or social ideology from literature, is one against which I cannot help but rebel. I was discussing this with someone (Courtney?), and I remember she said something like “I can’t put my finger on it, but he’s just wrong.” I find myself agreeing. It is hard to identify a flaw in his logic, but I just cannot believe this. His writing seemed also to be deliberately inflammatory, insisting one moment that English Literature was a study ideally suited for women early in the discipline, since “English was an untaxing sort of affair…a convenient sort of non-subject”…and about the lower classes: “If the masses are not thrown a few novels, they may react by throwing up a few barricades”. Eagleton is not the first to make these assertions, indeed, he is documenting history, I am sure he would argue, but the manner in which he is doing so makes my brow furrow in disquiet. Damn you, Terry Eagleton, you’re just wrong. I don’t know how, but I know you are.
On a happier closing note, I really thought the Gloria Anzaldua article this week was great. The whole idea of being part of an excluded (or marginalized, if you will) part of society actually opening things up to make you part of a larger whole is a wonderfully deconstructive way of looking at binaries of social constructs. I found it to be so beautifully inclusive, it really made an impression on me. In fact, let’s close with a few words from Anzaldua:
“As a mestiza, I have no country, my homeland casts me out; yet all countries are mine because I am every woman’s sister or potential lover (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races, because there is the queer of me in all races.) I am cultureless because, as a feminist, I challenge the collective cultural/religious male-derived beliefs of Indo Hispanics and Anglos, yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story to explain the world and our participation in it, a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other in the planet.”