“Stop ruining my favorite books, it’s not that deep.” It’s a phrase I’ve been seeing constantly in social media comments. Literature is a helpful tool to educate about current politics, especially when the stories mimic our current realities. Whether we are looking at books meant for entertainment or education, authors put a lot of thought into the elements that create our favorite stories, including the way they craft the structures of fictional societies. There are no worlds that hold societies without disagreement. Readers can understand their own realities more when they can relate to stories. Let’s dive into what makes books political and why it’s inevitable to have politics included in literature.
What Is Political?
The word political is defined as “relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government”. However, with the constant hysteria over the varieties of human autonomy, the definition of the word has expanded to include social issues challenged for their unnecessary politicalization.
Conversations over free healthcare, accessible housing, and even walkable communities seem like common human issues we’d wish to solve for the continuation and betterment of humanity. However, necessities for the lower classes have continued to be contested in the political sphere, which has continued the suffering of individuals trying to survive in our greed-driven society. In the U.S., we have a right, protected by the First Amendment, to criticize our government and the politics that stand, because without our expression of opinion, we would not be able to live in a progressive society meant for the people.
Politics in Literature
All literature is inherently political in one way or another. No matter why you pick up a book, there are always some present or past politics that have created the sphere in which the literature resides. Whether it is in the creation of the stories we read or part of the publication of the books, literature always has history and politics that affect the works we read and how we interpret them. So, how can literature become political?
Obvious Politics in Literature
A lot of the time, books can show us their inherently political qualities. Book series in the dystopian genre, like The Maze Runner, show us storylines where the main characters expose the secrets of the government and go deep into how their actions affect societies, especially the lower class. The fantasy genre also addresses politics, as these authors have to do a lot of worldbuilding and figure out how their societies formed, what keeps them together, and how much it affects the main characters and their plot. The Empyrean series is an excellent example because the government’s involvement in the plot is woven into the storyline from the beginning. From Violet’s character being the general’s daughter to the in-depth government aspects that create the scenes she’s put into, the entire story becomes a commentary on administrative control and its effectiveness when we erase history and warp literature.
Politics Subtly Woven in
A lot of the controversy over whether books are political stems from entertainment-driven genres, where sometimes the politics may not be so apparent to some readers. Romance novels are a great example because readers go into this genre to escape the real world, typically for some light-hearted content. Still, it is crucial to remember that no society can be built without politics. Worldbuilding is critical for a good book, and part of this creation is establishing societies and how they run, which affects the main characters and their abilities in the world.
Ali Hazelwood’s books are a good example of this because, although they focus on love and science, they also talk about qualities such as affordable living, sexual assault, academic politics, and gender roles in science. Hazelwood incorporated these elements for a reason. Not only to address them because of their importance to our society, but also because elements like these give stories their depth and make for relatable content that readers can connect with. Without politics, most of the books we have consumed would lose their depth and interesting qualities that make readers love stories.
Politics in the Publication of Books
The publication of a book can also be part of what makes it political. Banned books will always be political because banning literature breaches our First Amendment right to free speech. A majority of Judy Blume’s books have been banned, especially in the states of Texas and Florida, due to her conversations about puberty and sex. While these are human qualities everyone experiences, the states have made these topics political by creating restrictions that attempt to deny teens access to valuable literature that would help them feel understood during this confusing period.
Books can also be political due to the purpose of their publication. Nonfiction books do this as people use literature as a form of expression. Memoirs and biographies can address political matters through civilian lives like how rape survivors speak about the injustice of the legal system in our country or undocumented immigrants who speak out on the dangers of broken systems. Authors can also incorporate politics through the craft elements they utilize.
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih is an example of this due to the author’s choice of language to write the story in Arabic. While it was later translated into English, and the author wrote other books in English, the purpose of writing this novel in Arabic was to express the themes in the book involving assimilation and colonization and address the less-spoken ways empires colonize communities.
Why Does It Matter?
We must view how political books can be because when we remain ignorant of the cause, we ignore the messages being put right in front of us. To immerse ourselves in literature is to view every aspect we are given and to relay our interpretations.
When authors give us political storylines, there’s a reason why they are addressing these issues. It is vital to the plot that readers learn to interpret what the author is trying to address, so we can clearly understand the books we are reading and why their lessons are essential to our society. Readers must also understand the political implications of the publication of books because the reason for the book’s existence in the first place is essential to the narratives being produced. When we read banned books it is crucial to keep their significance in mind to remind us of the violation of free speech epidemic we are going through. Especially, when they are being banned for reasons that should not be political and are simply part of humanity.
All books are political in some way. Whether it is obvious in the plot, subtly included, or part of the book’s creation, all books have some elements of politics in them. We must continue to write political pieces, especially in the fiction genre, because they become a tool of knowledge for better understanding our societies through alternative worlds. Having different perspectives of similar acts in societies creates knowledgeable communities of readers who can understand our world and notice the details some tend to overlook.
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