I was recently joking with a friend that we are both using our seemingly useless writing degrees. I corrected her saying that I have an English degree which is even more useless because it's half literature.
For the record, I love my background in literature and wouldn't trade it for anything, even when I'm inside all day, when it's beautiful outside, learning about city politics and journalism.
This helped me decide on this month's book, one that I read during my first semester junior year, which is around the time I started paying more attention to politics. I'm embarrassed to give the real reason as to why that happened though.
In my California Literature class we read John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." It is one of my favorite novels of all time, and I know this is sort of strange, but I liked it better than East of Eden. Maybe I could just feel all of the Oakie blood running through my veins reading about the Joads.
I did my research paper for the class on the idea from a Marxist critique examining that the novel wasn't the proletariat novel it was expected to be. I poured into Marxist theory and realized this statement was true. The book isn't about the Proletariat (working class) rising to topple an oppressive regime. It's about something bigger and more powerful seeing all humans as connected.
My argument was that Steinbeck wasn't trying to provoke the lower class to rise up, but instead for the upper classes, who would more likely be reading the novel, see what was happening around them and have some compassion.
I won't ruin the ending, but it's one of the best examples (not to mention shocking moments in literature) of how we are all dependent on one another.
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