Literature in a Technological World

Most technology becomes irrelevant over time as someone introduces a new way to build a house, throw an arrow, play a game, or share music. In contrast, well-crafted literature, like Homer retold in his epic poem Odyssey, endures as a relevant part of the human experience for three millennia and longer. Technology merely makes life more comfortable and enjoyable and at times may even prolong days or years. The tools used to shape a life of comfort and ease, however, never give it meaning and purpose the way literature does. Literature is heartache, anger, blasphemy, exuberance, and despotism, but it is also passion, joy, worship, reverence, and freedom. It is built of the elements that celebrate life; literature is life. With each turn of a page, a reader loves, hates, dies, and is born again.

When I was ten-years-old, I languished in a German concentration camp with other unfortunate women through Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. Since then, I have faced life with greater determination and gusto than someone who merely dies a thousand deaths in a simulated game can ever appreciate. Although one might argue my suffering was merely vicarious, because ten Boom crafted a well-written story I came to appreciate the struggles of Corrie and her sister Betsie in a way that made those experiences a part of my own life. Even if characters are fictional, life implications are real. I endured slavery with Eliza in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as though I was confined with her because the fictional story captured actual human experience. Since then I have enjoyed a freedom that only those who have shared the tragedy of slavery can appreciate.

In today’s world of blinking lights and constant beeps from slim phones announcing themselves at inconvenient times, we are constantly reminded of the importance of technology to our daily existence. However, amidst the din of white noise as technology insists we give it attention, literature still has the power to take us far from the superficial world of longing, getting, and possessing, into a world of solitude exposing those quiet places in our soul to the things that make us most human. It is during these moments that literature accomplishes what technology never can. While technology may make our lives more comfortable, literature can make them uncomfortable in ways that transform us and give our existence greater meaning and purpose. Therefore, as we suffer at the hands of unscrupulous suitors with Penelope, feel the sting of condemning friends with Job, experience pathos as Hamlet faces unavoidable tragedy, or feel indignant about class prejudice with Eliza Doolittle, we experience life in a way that will never go out of fashion or become obsolete. This experience gives life meaning and purpose.

-Anna Staker