Respoding to Literature

As human being we are equipped with a set amount of emotion responses, that basically enable how we act, and react. I believe that how you think influences how you feel, and how you feel influences how you act. Obviously if your tired in the morning and you think that you cannot get up and get your day started, then your probably not going to get up and start your day. However, if you get up and regardless of how tired you are at that moment you say to yourself, "hey! I'm going to get up and enjoy my day right now!" Then your gonna want to get up, and your probably going to start your day. With this knowledge, and the combined responses we get from literature, we can virtually change how we live. Say you read a touching book that is about a mentally challenged person who didn't life bring him down, and didn't let anything stop him. If your emotional responses are right and hopefully not twisted, then you will think differently once your done with the book. This will then most likely change your actions. You might have a really long day after work or school, and you have a lot of things to do at home, and you really just don't want to do any of it. Because you read that book about the challenged person not letting life get him down, you might think, "well heck, if he can do it, then why am I complaining?!" If you never had a chance to get a hold of that literature and experience what it has to offer you, then nothing in your life would change. You see, this is what literature can do to you. It can influence you, change the way you think, change the way you feel...it can basically manipulate you into whatever form it wants you in. I mean, it obviously can't do it if it's not a good piece of literature or one that has a lot of grammatical and spelling errors. If you read a piece with errors in it, you might just laugh at it, or just stop reading it because, well, it's unreadable! If you have an open heart for the matter, and the literature is well written/made then chances are you will have your thoughts, actions, or ways of living life changed.
When we analyze literature, we are exploring a completely different world. I believe that literature can sometimes speak louder than a voice can. If enough heart is put into something, then other hearts will grab hold of it, and conform to it. Sometimes, the tone of a voice might be to harsh for us to grab a hold of. When we dissect literature then ideas are opened up and released into our current steam of thought. We can understand why someone wrote a piece, and if they meant to write it for a reason. We can learn from others mistakes, heart breaks, and wrong doings. If a book is not broken down, one might not get all that is intended to be received. This too, is another reason for dissecting literature. If I had anything to relate it too, I would relate it to why we teach history...and that is so we don't repeat it. This isn't meant literally to dissecting literature, but the idea is just when comparing why we analyze literature and study history.