Thursday, December 18, 2008

Chapter 11 ...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You

OK--so can you think of any novels without violence? Without injury or death? I'm sure you can--but I can think of many more that have some sort of violence. Hamlet alone has too many incidents to count. DH Lawrence (the author mentioned in the chapter) also wrote the short story we read called "The Rocking Horse Winner." I would say there was definitely some violence there.

If any of you have read The Lord of the Flies, you would probably agree that the author thinks most humans are violent when given the chance and in the absence of rules.

What do you think about this? What books have you read that include violence? What kind of violence was it? What does it say about human nature? How did it impact the novel? Is violence in literature necessary? Why?

19 comments:

Дилан said...

Violence is not important in all literature (Carver's "Cathedral" comes to mind), but it definitely allows an outlet for the tension built up in the plot. It can help bring people together (ex. Carver's "A Small, Good Thing") or drive them apart.

I really enjoy Flannery O'Connor's use of crazy, violent, unnecessary actions in order to bring the reader closer to the protagonist. For example, in "Parker's Back," Parker is subject to a lot of violence and hate and the narrator does not condemn the treatment of this man-- in fact, the narrator is very cold when describing everything that happens to him. This makes the reader sympathize with Parker and shun people like the narrator that seem to enable the violence and the people committing the violent actions.

faithe said...

I really don't understand how violence is so important in stories. I know that is does add some insight into the characters, but sometimes it is kind of pointless to me.

One book that comes to my mind that has violence is "The Unbreakable Vow". This book is about a guy and a girl that have been dating for a long time and the guy was abusive towards her and they eventually got married and she had a child, but he was still verbally and physically abusive towards her. The violence was the main point of this book though.

Beas-Girl said...

"The Pact" by Jodi Piccoult is about a suicide pact in which an investigation was conducted trying to determine if it really happened or not. While violence is not necessary in a book, I think it often makes it a more popular book becuase that is the kind of think that people fin more interesting. What does this say about human nature? It says that we are people who like to have action in our lives, and people can be very sick and demented people. However, when the people that commited an act of violence get punished, that mkaes us feel like tehre is some good and sense of fairness in the world.

Golfin' Weasel said...

Haha here comes a goofy answer. Harry Potter has a lot of violence especially towards the end of each book. This type of violence was related to the magical words the characters shout to create the violence.

I think with human nature and violence a lot of it is caused by the actor "acting" without thinking before they commit the act of violence.

The violence in Harry Potter was relating to how Harry is dealing with a powerful and violent man who failed (haha burn!) to kill Harry when he was a baby. Violence in this work is somewhat necesary, as they teach in the school defense against the dark arts and harry repeatedly uses his studied works to defend himself. Plus he was a freakin' beast.

Austin said...

Life As We Knew It by Susan B. Pfeffer has tons of violence. The world is coming to an end around them and people are panicing. After a while people start to carry guns with them and raid places to find wood or furniture or anything else they can to possibly sell. Nature is also clearly against them. Tsunamis rock the coasts, once dormant volcanoes start erupting, and tornadoes and earthquakes hit everywhere. Not to mention the fact that the sky is covered in ash from all the volcanic eruptions, so there's not any sunlight to warm the world, thus inducing an extremely long and very cold winter.

karson said...

To me, violence in books gives it more detail and meaning.

In the book "Underwater" the son gets beat by his father and then the son ends up beating his girlfriend. This shows that in some situations you repeat things that have happened to you in the past over a period of time.

Dianna said...

I think that violence is somewhat necessary in novels. Every novel has a conflict. Most conflicts lead to somee type of violence. Just about every horror novel or movie includes violence, of course. It's kind of the heart of the novel. Without violence in horror, it wouldn't be horror. In other genres, it just shows more of who the characters are, something about them.

Ash-Daddy said...

I have read many books about the Holocaust, which is one of the most horrifying and gripping examples of violence in human history. Violence of that magnitude represents our desire as humans to place the blame for our problems outside ourselves, and punish that outiside source for it. The central conflict for the Jews in the Holocaust, because their faith was so deep-rooted, was, Where is God in all of this? Their ability to resist and keep their faith even in the face of the most degrading persecution speaks to the perserverance and valor of the human spirit and the power of faith, which is something everyone responds to. I don't think violence in literature is always necessary, but sometimes it is used to further a reader's understanding of a character's point of view, in which case it is vital.

andrea said...

I dont think that all literature has to have violence. I cant think of the name of the book but it was about a boy whose bother is paralized and some boys come over and hurt the boy so the brother almost kills the boys. I think it is human instinct to protect people weather it leads to violence or not.

christina :) said...

Violence is not important in a book, it can still be a good book without it. Some people believe that violence in stories is a good point to make, but i don't see why it wouldn't be good without it. In the book "Hazing Merry Sugarman" she killed Merry with a chainsaw. This was not expected by me, so the book stil would of been good if she didnt kill her.

Victoria said...

I think it's true that violence appears in literature more often than not. I think this is because almost all plots are good vs. evil in some shape or form, and the clash of the two usually brings violence in one form or another. I've also read the book East of Eden and one of the many instinces of violence that takes place is a fight between the main character Adam and his much stronger, older brother. Because the book is a parallel of the bible the violence was biblical, but also thematic. It reveals that it is human nature to be jealous, even of those we love, and when we let it control us it can drive us to irrational acts of rage, resulting in violence. Although i don't think violence is always necessary in literature, when it is present it is something tangable because every human has experienced the emotions that lead to it. All of this drives a novel and makes it more relatable in our own experiences.

Jessi said...

I think the majority of literature includes violence. I think that it makes stories alot more interesting, simply becuase they appeal to the violent nature in every human. We can relate to these situations easily, because we all have those evil tendencies whether we act on them or not.

Brooke said...

Almost every novel I have read has some sort of violence in it. I think that authors choose to add violence into their books simply because it does make the book more interesting and just like Jessi said, most humans can relate to teh violence shown.

Josh Barkley said...

I really don't think that violence is necessary in literature although every author does seem to incorporate it. It seems to make the story more meaningful and definitely a lot more interesting.
In the book Of Mice and Men Lennie is a violent person but not purposely and in the end when George shoots Lennie that took me by complete surprise and I think it could of definitly been avoided.

b.buurman said...

It's hard to think of a story that doesn't have some sort of violence in it. I don't necessarily mean their aren't any, but it seems that the violence in the story is usually pertinent to the plot. Many of the climatic parts wouldn't be nearly as interesting without it. I guess that's kind of sad that without violence I probably wouldn't be as interested.

Big_daddy_alex said...

depending on the genre of the novel depends on if the story should have violence. if it is a horror novel then defiantly yes that is what makes a good horror story the violence is what keeps you on edge. But if the novel is a comedy you don’t necessarily need violence, do to the fact you can be funny without it. i do have to say though some violence in comedy’s is funny.

Rachel said...

Like a lot of my other classmates, I think that most novels have some sort of violence. One novel that came to mind is "Faultline". It starts out as a sweet love story and turns for the worst when the narrators boyfriend starts to get jealous and beats her. Reading this novel made me anxious and sad, but it turned out happy! Its true everyone gets jealous and angry about things, and I think it is necessary because of that.

JANA2 said...

i also agree with everybody else when they say that most books have at least some violence in it. even when it may start out as something very mellow, usually some sort of violence always occurs.

Kenbo! said...

well i know in one of my favorite books the outsiders its the classic gang violence war the popular kids vs the grrunge kids we humans hate waht uis different than us an a kid gets murdered in the big brawl of a book an yes it si nesscary to have violence in books because pepole dont need to forget that at one put we were basically animals before we tamed ourselves an there are still monsters in this world that go bump in the night an we all should know what we are still capable of