Everything we’ve read so far has been dark/depressing/violent. Is this the true nature of literary fiction? If so, why? If not, why would our literature anthology be so imbalanced? - Mr. Mullins
The purpose of literary fiction is to educate or reveal something deeper about life than what is on the surface. I think that the reason our stories are depressing/violent is because it is very hard to learn anything from a happy ending. And additionally, you don't stop to think about why there was a happy ending. If the ending evokes some kind of emotion, you have to (or at least I have to) go back and look at it.
For example, in "Where are you going, where have you been?" I needed some answers. I wanted to know why the author wrote that story, and whether there was a deeper meaning, and what some of the symbols are, and what was the purpose of the character Ellie was. None of it made sense until I looked at SparkNotes for some answers, and then as we spoke in class it became even clearer.
Since we covered most of the other topics, I want to talk about Ellie. He's a character that has very few lines, but he accompanies Arnold Friend on his expedition to go attack and possibly kill a child. Now, right off the bat, why on earth would anyone ever agree to go on that trip? It's ridiculous. But of course, this is literary fiction, and everything has a meaning. What my group and I decided on is that Ellie represents society overlooking horrible events. He ignores the events going on for the most part, but doesn't exactly encourage them. Society also seems to pretend that bad things aren't going on rather than helping. I believe the author is pointing this out along with the many, many other things going on.
So, we got a little off topic, but basically I think that we don't learn much from happy stories, so that's why all the ones we read are depressing.
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