Literary Fiction and Empathy

This article was interesting because it got me thinking about stereotypes of the ideal man or woman and how every pop fiction novel has them in it. In all the Disney movies there is this deprived, beautiful maiden who finds her true love and instantly gets married and lives happily ever after. What does that teach us? As a culture we are so inclined to focus on the perfect and ideal rather than what is actually real and I think that is why literary fiction is so influenctial. It teaches us about what is actually in life and the patterns of society rather than about the popular kid in school who didn't get what they wanted or the secretly pretty nerd who needs some popular guy to help her find herself. Life isn't apples and oranges and literary fiction dives into a deeper sense of the word "life" and how we as human beings act in it. Effectively using words is the best and worst thing that can happen. You can degrade someone with your words and push them to harm or you can compliment and nourish people with your words and influence them to shine. In novels there are no pictures that are drawn for people to make their own interpretation about, there are only words and letters on a page that have to get the same effect that a movie or picture does. Novels have no choice but to be influential and change perspectives and through extensive detail and relating to the audience, or not, novels stand out in this day and age and authors have to teach people about themselves rather than the people teaching themselves.