First, a confession: literature was not my first love.

For years, I was the stereotypical

nerdy science girl, my head often buried in an encyclopaedia. Yet as the pressure
from CCAs and schoolwork mounted, the world of fiction slowly became the place I
turn to for solace and escape. I guess that is what draws most people to litertature in
the first place - the promise of a fantasy world that allows the reader to let go for a
brief moment the not insignificant burden that reality places on all of us.
Studying literature in JC, however, was an entirely different ball game. After diving
head first into the humanities programme, I became acutely aware of the degree of
rigour required to analyse literature at JC level. No longer is it enough to have a
vague notion of a characters motives and emotions. The historical context of book,
the personal background of the author, and the sociapolitcal context of the text in
question all have to be taken into account. I began to appreciate the importance of
analysing from a macroscopic perspective. It is often easy to be lost in the minute
details, especially when it comes to the humanities. By through literature, I learnt
that it is by weaving the various strands of analysis together that we can obtain a
clearer and more coherent picture.
Admittedly, I was slightly taken aback by the demanding nature of the subject. But
as I slowly got used to the different techniques and methods of analysis, I realised
that studying literature is much more than analysing books. Literature is the
quickest and easiest way for one to understand the feelings and emotions of a
character in a specfic setting, be it America in the Roaring Twenties in The Great
Gatsby, or Victorian England in Wuthering Heights, or even the Orwellian dystopic
future in 1984. To use a scientific analogy, literature is an ancient form of virtual
reality. By studying literature, we study not only the book itself, but the entire
universe that led to the creation of the book, as well as the universe contained
within the text. In other words, by studying literature, we are studying a condensed
version of the entirety of human existence.
That is why I believe literature is so important to society. While it may have been
nothing more than an escape mechamism for me initially, it is now a viewing glass
through which I can began to understand and more importantly, empathise, with
experiences and people I will otherwise have no access to. Today I still read for the
sheer joy of exploring a new universe, but I am also constantly reminded of the
power of literature- that it can ultimately makes us more emphathatic, generous and
for lack of a better term, better.