Depressing Literature

[PyrosNine]

Now, I'm sure as you're all aware, that True art is Angsty. As someone carrying the proverbial pen as a lit/writer in college, one thing I am expected to do is understand and appreciate art, my only problem is that this usually ends up with me having to read about a little girl tripping and falling into a river, bashing her head open on a rock after drowning- FROM HER PERSPECTIVE. Or a story about a rapist who rapes a little girl after hiding under her bed, narrowly gets caught but lies his way out of it, goes home where we find he has his own little girl, whom he then rapes. Or story about divorced man who gets a drunken call from a girl who likely wasn't serious about it calling him over at the 3:00 am, and so he pulls his son out of bed and puts him in the car, and decides to drive across state in search of some poon. The kicker is that once he thinks his son is asleep, he starts falling asleep himself, and decides that not only is rest and giving up on his quest not an option, but the only thing to do is to masturbate to keep himself awake. The very last line of the poem makes it explicitly clear that his son was very much awake.

And at the end of the day, my teacher will ask us how we feel about what we just read. He has caught on to their somewhat morbid, soul crushing nature at this point so he is very careful not to invite a question whose only answer is "How do you think I feel after reading that? I'm depressed/scared/shattered as hell, you fat *expletive known only to English majors*!?!!?"

I mean, I can take the usual levels of atrocity in what I read, I know of the good catharsis inherent in tragedy that will realign me with 'real' world, I know that there are real stories in life that are more tragic than this shit being dished out to me for a grade, but also that these authors were depressed as hell when they wrote most of this stuff.

The fact that many of these stories go explicitly to say: "Life is pointless, there is no reason to put forth any hope or dream at all in anything, you deluded fool! Everything you know is wrong, everyone you love will die, and at the end of things, you will die in the worst, possible way but that's the only positive outlook because life is like broken needles in your eyes full of the aids and sulfuric acid."

And I have to wonder then, why did you have to write this anyway? If it's all so pointless, then there was no point in you even writing this! There was a point maybe, if this was to grapple with your own dark looming thoughts, those unsavory weights dragging your feet down, riding your legs like children, but then you had to go and write a sequel with different subject matter, but same purpose and ultimate theme: Go shoot yourself!

And it's not that the lack of angst does not mean art has no merit. There is nothing tragic about the Mona Lisa, is there? The student written story about the vengeful ex-magician with the innuendo laced parlor tricks was just as well written as My Last Duchess, detail, character, setting! It seems that people will use the angst, the depressing, the tragic as just something to give their story an extra edge. It is fitting that while on his quest, he should be shot, dragged, burned, cursed, but fashionable for him to arrive at the end of the quest with everyone he's loved forever removed from him and his shaggy dog shot in the face!

My main complaint is that us English majors have it rough enough already. Stuck in the back corner of an engineering school, we got the least of the scholarships, and the good idea that our diploma will be worth less than the paper it was printed on. Or that part of the reason we're writers is that we're alienated as hell already, and write to put down transient thoughts to permanence, or maybe it's just that I've got a nephew in the wings my sister can't afford, I think my dog's sick, and I've had like two deaths in the family, and I spend my watching silly movies and playing stupid webgames rather than deal with the fact I have school in the morning and that it will likely meet me like a fist, a claw, or a dull mace that I have worn down slowly with face.

And then I have to go to class and read someone else's manifesto on why they have no faith in the human race! It's too much! If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever, and it's the boot of an acclaimed author.

Questions? Comments?

[Satan's Onion]

Are you allowed to reveal that "expletive known only to English majors" to us mortals, or do we have to guess what it is?

On the bright side, when you're a writer, maybe you can have your pointlessly soul-crushing nihilistic stories and poems placed on college curricula. See, if you can't solve the problem, you can at least pass it on to the next generation of hapless students.

[Amake]

I'll tell you a secret only few people know: Great art doesn't have to be angsty. You'll see a lot more strong tragedies than memorable comedies, in any genre, but that's not because tragedies are inherently more powerful stories. It's because it's easier to make a deep, impacting story if you have bad things happening in it. It's easier to make an interesting drawing with dark colors. Metallica made their career on songs with negative subject matter because, I'm quoting an interview here, it's much harder to write meaningfully on uplifting topics.

So I suggest you do that. Write something that cuts to the heart of the reader without using any sharp edges. Show them how it's done.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

On the question of "If life is pointless why do you write" I've always fond of the treatise that Camus last work addressed the profound truth he found in tobacco induced release and how it answered the inherent contradictions in his own work but then he thought "Fuck it" and smoked it. Then he murdered some people and said the tobacco did it. Cause that how he rolled.
But you know, there are plenty of great bits of literature that aren't inherentely depressing/alienating- that's really the domain of the modernists. Surely you could just do different papers and avoid those authors. They are immensely important to literature but nothing says arts degree like specialising in something ridiculously unimportant. My flatmate is an English pHD and his field is 18th century epistolary novels- nothing depressing about lots of them.

[BloodyMage]

Originally Posted by Satan's Onion

Are you allowed to reveal that "expletive known only to English majors" to us mortals, or do we have to guess what it is?

What about those of us who do English Majors? Can you tell us because I can't think of one that the plebs wouldn't know?

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

My flatmate is an English pHD and his field is 18th century epistolary novels- nothing depressing about lots of them.

1748. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Woman published by Samuel Richardson. A young virtuous woman is drugged, raped and kept prisoner by a man attempting to trick her into marrying him. While yes, some of them aren't depressing, the likely hood is that you'll have to have to study the darker ones to get to the more pleasant ones.

Part of an English Major though is really the exploration of literature and trying to figure out why the author wrote what he wrote and what exactly he was trying to say. This is why you'll see so many different fields of literary criticism ranging from historic critics to psychoanalytical criticism. I mean, I'm not familiar with what books you're talking about but if you look at some of the authors and what was happening in their lives, such as (for lack of a better example) Jack Kerouac's On The Road. It's so closely autobiographical that you can pretty much place the whole book into his life but the names are changed. The whole book isn't that dark, certainly not as much as the books you've mentioned, but it's depressing because the character mentions that he's just lost his father, he's split from his wife and he's recovering from an illness and by the end of the book, nothing has really changed. He's traversed America but nothing really changed, he's not much of a better person because of it, and if you look into the context of the author you see that he's writing this after his father has died, and his separated from his wife and he's recovered from an illness and travelled back and forth across America, so you can see why he's written this novel. Nothing changes in the novel because the writer feels that nothing has changed. And that's how it happens sometimes. You've got a writer who feels pretty depressed and down, but he's a writer and he wants to write, so he writes, but what he's feeling comes out in his writing and you even up with depressed literature.

I mean, Smarty does have a point though. Some genre's are less prone to it, so you could do 18th C epistolary novels and you might have to study some depressing stories like the one mentioned about but it's going to be less prominent in that than it might be in Gothic literature or post-war literature. Do you have the option of choosing your modules each year?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

There's a quote floating around out in the net attributed to any number of actors/writers/creative types that goes "Dying is easy; comedy is hard". It goes back to what Invisible Queen was talking about. Any wannabe English major or vanity press hack can play the angst card, because I think there's a lot more things out there in the world that can evoke a universally negative reaction rather than a positive one.
However, this only serves as a further testament to the skill of the authors who manage to be able to work without it. Look at Terry Pratchett's Discworld series for one; sure, there's some cynical bits and characters here and there, but if you look at the actual plots, more often than not good wins out, and people get their happy endings. TvTropes describes it as "An idealistic world populated by cynics." And it still manages to be one of the most popular fantasy literature series in the world. Look at the Three Stooges for that matter; 60 years later most of their stuff is still attracting fans. Now that is an achievement.

[Funka Genocide]

Much of what you're describing just sounds like lazy, let me get my name out there writing. I agree with what most everyone else has said, that overt tragedy is just easier to get a reaction out of. Its kind of like the Jackass of literature.

If you don't like it, then don't write it. I never understood the purpose of a degree in literature anyways, all you need to be able to write is a working knowledge of the language in which you wish to create. I guess if you've got nothing better to do.

Although if I had to write a reaction to that dad jerking off in the car thing, I'd probably say something like "Revulsed, by both the subject matter and the hamfisted writing tactic the author has used to garner an artificial emotional response."

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by BloodyMage

1748. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Woman published by Samuel Richardson. A young virtuous woman is drugged, raped and kept prisoner by a man attempting to trick her into marrying him. While yes, some of them aren't depressing, the likely hood is that you'll have to have to study the darker ones to get to the more pleasant ones.

Yes but there is a difference between outlining terrible events and incorporating them into a encompassing literary theory- it's the difference between "Here is a rape" and "WE ARE ALL RAPISTS".

Part of an English Major though is really the exploration of literature and trying to figure out why the author wrote what he wrote and what exactly he was trying to say. This is why you'll see so many different fields of literary criticism ranging from historic critics to psychoanalytical criticism. I mean, I'm not familiar with what books you're talking about but if you look at some of the authors and what was happening in their lives, such as (for lack of a better example) Jack Kerouac's On The Road. It's so closely autobiographical that you can pretty much place the whole book into his life but the names are changed. The whole book isn't that dark, certainly not as much as the books you've mentioned, but it's depressing because the character mentions that he's just lost his father, he's split from his wife and he's recovering from an illness and by the end of the book, nothing has really changed. He's traversed America but nothing really changed, he's not much of a better person because of it, and if you look into the context of the author you see that he's writing this after his father has died, and his separated from his wife and he's recovered from an illness and travelled back and forth across America, so you can see why he's written this novel. Nothing changes in the novel because the writer feels that nothing has changed. And that's how it happens sometimes. You've got a writer who feels pretty depressed and down, but he's a writer and he wants to write, so he writes, but what he's feeling comes out in his writing and you even up with depressed literature.

This is all irrelevant if you are a new critic *titter titter*
Man I hate new criticism. It is especially great because I only encounter literary theory as it crossects with historical analysis of sources so we get new critic historians. Most self-defeating field ever.

[Funka Genocide]

I like how you mentioned "for lack of a better example." You are such a Kerouac hater Barrelpants.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I didn't even write that!
My hate is so strong it infects others!