Does Literature Reflect Society or does Society Reflect Literature?

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a smaller group or class of people within society is led to believe that they are mistreated or degraded compared to another group of people; which can be clearly displayed throughout literature
Most of the text discussed in class relate in such a way that conflicting views on society are deliberately exhibited. Geoffrey Chaucer, Patience Agababi, Jamaica Kincaid, Virginia Woolf, and Barbara Tuchman all write stories in representation of the extremely broad sections of all parts and classes in a society. Throughout Chaucer's prologue of the Canterbury Tales he introduces the society through the way the pilgrims tell their stories. Through the pilgrims' tales, it can be understood that during that time period, the lives of any person that was not of nobility were made to be unjustly and immorally diminished by those who are. Chaucer reveals to the readers the two differing viewpoints of people of nobility and lower class people. He describes each pilgrim's occupation, personality, ...

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story in is a voice of a man speaking about a woman. In the original text , April is a man who "with his sweet showers hath pierced to the root the drought of March" as compared to Agababi's version April is a man whom "showers... with kisses". The different voices used in both Chaucer and Agababi's version of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales exposes to the reader the perspective men had upon women. In "Shakespeare's Sister", by Virginia Woolf, also illuminates women's position in society. In the text, Woolf clearly asserts that the only thing women were any good for or thought to be good for was to be a housewife. Hypothetically, Shakespeare's sister, whom was just as gifted as he ...

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