Does fiction teach you about life?

Question

What kind of fiction do you feel you learn from and makes you a better person? Examples would be fantastic!

croatan, I'd be fascinated to hear your argument! I read very little fiction, so it would give me a good excuse :^).

flexiblewill, I totally agree about Harry Potter...there were so many little lessons one could draw from Book 7 (I even jotted them down somewhere - things I knew already, but fun nonetheless!). That partly inspired my question as did something I remember reading in some essay by Robert Louis Stevenson on the importance of reading as a form of education and living many lives in one life.

ck1, you are the best and thanks so much for your brilliant and stunningly comprehensive answer!!

...although Harry Potter is also ridiculously lucky (as all super-heroes are) going into Hogwarts without the faintest idea of where to look!

Answer 1

Almost all fiction can teach you something about life even if it's just by showing you what different types of people there are in this world. Does this make you a better person? Not necessarily; you actually have to take it to heart. I think the best examples of fiction that, if you take it to heart, could make you a better person are in classics.

Most of Charles Dickens' novels deal with certain societal ills/issues. At the time they were written, a lot of people were unaware of certain things that were taking place. For instance, Nicholas Nickleby made the readers' of the day aware of how terrible some of the schools were to which they were sending their children. The book was actually instrumental in changing things. In other books, Dickens puts the spotlight on child labor, the poorhouse, the workhouse and various other issues. Even today we can learn from his stories.

Books like To Kill a Mockingbird (even Uncle Tom's Cabin) will drag out into the light the ugly specter of racism (and slavery).

In other novels you'll find the classic right vs. wrong and good vs. evil. You might learn something by seeing how subtle the slide into wrongdoing can be; how small steps taken in the wrong direction can have a truly big impact on your life. The Oath by Frank Peretti shows you this very well. You can find this, also, in The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. You could even say this theme is present in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, from the first book, teaches you that wrongdoing will start by selfishness and often ends up hurting someone for whom you care even more than it hurts yourself.

Oftentimes you'll find that fairy tales will give you a moral in a very entertaining way. Take for example The Boy Who Cried Wolf in Aesop's Fables. He keeps lying (alarming the people with a false cry of "wolf" when there was no wolf), so the villagers begin to doubt his word. When he sees a wolf for real, no one comes to his aid because they don't believe him. Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales often bring to the light a moral and show you which is the better way to go.

Fiction will also teach you that there really IS nothing new under the sun...human nature hasn't changed even when circumstances do.

Other books will show you the emptiness of riches like in Anthony Trollope's novels (for instance The Way We Live Now). Little Women by Louisa May Alcott will teach you that love and family are the most important things in life. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray spotlights the emptiness of society and the destruction that will come when you lie and deceive to be a part of society and have money (no matter what).

Shakespeare's plays (all of them) are full of wisdom, too.

Answer 2

I learned a lot about how to be stoic and clear-headed in the face of adversity from reading Dick Francis mysteries, lol. And I believe that Harry Potter as a character has a lot to teach about how to live - including how to make mistakes and overcome them.

Answer 3

Rarely and then only good fiction. I could make the argument that fiction hinders a person from learning about life.

Answer 4

All good fiction is based on reality or life, as you call it. Otherwise, it's called "fantasy." Try historical fiction.