Connections

         A frequent topic of class discussion lately revolves around how our lives always end up somehow paralleling our current book. I thought that this particular phenomenon might be unique to AP English nerds because we can never fully separate our lives from the novel. We eat, sleep, and breathe our books and always remain hyperaware of situations that could relate to the story. We have grown even more observant now in our search for interesting blog topics. However, as I sat watching Easy A the other night, the main character, played by Emma Stone, pointed out that their English books (in this case, The Scarlet Letter) inevitably relate to the most recent teenage drama in the school. So, it seems that people in general compare their lives to situations in books that they read. That makes me wonder whether we stretch to find these similarities or if they were always present and we just never noticed them. If people do indeed go to extremes to compare their lives with fiction, then I think that means that people need some sort of real life experience in order to understand a character’s situation. Perhaps we make these connections in an attempt to better empathize with a character. Or, and I think that this second scenario seems more likely, these connections and circumstances always existed around us but we never tuned into them. I mean that is really the point of any novel: to call society’s attention to problems around them. Although Easy A and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest revolve around fictional characters, they both describe situations that have actually occurred. Therefore, finding connections between fiction and real life is not a stretch in the least. It helps us understand the book and calls our attention to problems that exist in society, even fifty years after the author wrote the book.