Assignment 1

I have many memories of Literature throughout my schooling career. My earliest memory leads back to 1st grade when the class read a Clifford book aloud. Obviously, a story about a giant red dog would catch the eye of most 6 year old children, and it did. I remember that book like I read it yesterday. My most recent memories of literature are the short stories titled "Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "A Good Man is Hard to Find," by Flannery O'Connor. Both of these were pieces of literature that will always remember because I became interested while reading them. Many people forget what they have read if there is no significant interest in the piece.
From a view that literature does matter, people could look at literature as a written form of art in a way that they are expressing themselves through written words rather than traditional art, or pictures. People also seem to find it hard to talk about a painting whereas talking about a character in a story is something that almost everyone is able to do.
There are also ways in which literature does not matter. Some may say that it is to improve reading skills, period, the end. There is no need to "read between the lines" or "take literature to your heart." I have heard people say that there is no need to analyze most pieces of literature because they have no meaning, no real thought put in to the work. I am going to side both ways on this one. Yes, I think that literature is, in a way, a form of art. Something that authors actually do put their lives into in order for many to express themselves. On the other hand, I do not believe that literature needs to be analyzed to death. There is no need to try to get into the authors mind and try to figure what his or her purpose was in writing a work or going "deep into the books roots" to understand the piece of literature better.