Impacts of Literature on Culture

Literature has always been a driving force for social change. The words of great authors have been the catalyst for change countless times throughout written history, holding an uncanny ability to provoke emotion through their works that push the common people to fight for something better for themselves and others. For instance, Percy Bysshe Shelley's Song to the Men of England, called out the slavery of the common English man, detailing how they work themselves into their graves for men who neither care for them, nor have their best interests in mind. "In this song, which became a hymn for the British labor movement, Shelley urges the proletariat to force change in the social and economic order" (412). This poem forced a change in the common people, resulting in them standing up for their basic human rights and demanding better for themselves and their families. Another example not discussed in class, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, calls attention to the corruption in modern day democracy, pointing out the submission the common people have unwittingly submitted themselves to, slaving away beneath corrupt politicians. This work, which became an even more influential movie, inspired entire movements and freedom fighter groups, from Occupy Wall Street and the hacktivist group Anonymous to Democracy Spring. It showed the common people how blind they had been and called for them to change it, which the people have been fighting to do ever since, adopting the Guy Fox mask used by V in both the graphic novel and film as a symbol for freedom.

Authors have always used literature to drive social change, whether or not people originally looked at that push the way they do now is a question that will likely never be answered. Today, there is more awareness placed on the power an author holds and their ability to inspire change and readers have come to assume that is what any work is attempting now. The most popular books are typically those with a message trying to be told that readers can easily cling to. We now understand that literature exists to make a statement and to send a message; after all, that is what writing was created to do in the first place, to communicate ideas. We may never know if people originally recognized that fact, recognized the messages hidden within an author's works, but we can most certainly say that people today do.