21 Literature

 

         Reading the given literary text which is “The Accidental Tourist “was very enjoyable as it is far in my usual reading genre. It was interesting to how authors can create such a detailed story wherein what I experienced while reading this book transport me to different worlds, eras, and dimensions. Reading makes you think about other people and put yourself in their situations. I believe new genre opens tens of thousands of new worlds for us to discover. A brief summary of the literary text, starting with Macon Leary, a middle-aged travel guide writer but dislikes travelling because of mishaps he always experiences. After their kid is tragically killed, his wife, Sarah, they decided to break up. He ends up shattered and turn his back to the world, bringing him back to his family house. He strikes up a friendship with Muriel, a dog trainer with her own small boy. When Sarah learns about this, she makes an attempt at reconciliation, forcing Macon to make a choice.

         Using the biographical context, there is a close connection between the author’s life and her novels because many of her major novels are also set in the city of Baltimore where she settled and started writing full-time. After a thorough research of her life, I have found out that the reason why almost all of her novel has character of a man because he has 3 brothers, she stated from an interview “I am very comfortable writing as a man, and I think that’s because I had really good men in my life. They made me feel comfortable and I thought, “OK, they’re not so different from me.” I believe that her childhood plays a huge role in her writing. In addition to this using sociocultural context her writing primarily deals with problems of modern American life. Family relationships are portrayed as both comfortable and confirming of one's innermost self, but also as suffocating in addition to these more positive features. Macon's family, like his marriage to Sarah, proves to be a place where he seeks comfort in the familiar because he is not an adventurous person and always want something he already know of, but when the initial comfort of the familiar is gone, all that is left is a sense of the inescapable. "The Accidental Tourist" is set in the 1980s, a time when the United States experienced record-breaking numbers of divorces, that drew a big turmoil and attention from the media and social groups. Macon is surrounded by the failures of his own marriage to Sarah, as well as his two brothers, who are both divorced. This is an upsetting and distressing circumstances that represents some of the social problems of the 1980s, when divorce rates were at its peak on many people's minds. Furthermore, Baltimore has a long history of violence, as well as significant disparities between rich and poor urban communities. Class problems are not at the forefront of any direct happening in "The Accidental Tourist," but there is a persistent hatred for anything else than middle- and higher-class communities and individuals. In my understanding, it was titled “The Accidental Tourist” not only because of Macon and his travels but his overall self, his unplanned trips and the accidents he experiences in his life. Along with this are the lives of the characters that have experience the same thing, as well as the reflecting on the accidental tours or happenings that lead to the unknown destination.

           I think that we need to learn the literary text given to us for us to be exposed to different kind of genres of literary text. It enables us students to have different perspective and see what life is in the eyes of the character we are reading. It helps us learn to be empathic as we are experiencing or puts us into the shoes of the characters, which makes us relate to real life. It's vital to increase understanding of, and interest in, current social and cultural issues. Us students must be more socially and culturally conscious of what the world requires in order to shape what the future holds. Having broader worldview, will likely benefit as many people as are willing to put up the effort to understand different cultures and languages.