Spanish 365: Assignment 1

Spanish 365: Assignment 1
The Relationship between Literature and Family

Literature is a principal method of expressing ones feelings and insights, but it also reflects society and culture by the stories or accounts the author documents. Authors may write about stories of family interactions and what is the norm for the family structure in the given time period and culture. Furthermore, we may also use literature of different time periods to infer what the typical family structure of the past was or how society and culture played a role on the family system. In a cultural sense, families differ from region to region; they may be groups tied by genetics or just by a common area, such as a town, and literature portrays their existence and illustrates their differences. Many stories describe everyday routines a family faces and the roles of the family members.

Moreover, literature often tells stories of extraordinary families to spark interest to readers and make the piece interesting in order for it to be successful. It may describe struggles the family faces in life in order to develop the story and make it of interest. Families in literature may be compared to one’s own to determine what makes a happy, dysfunctional, strange or exceptional family according to the author, and it enables the classification of one’s family.

Literature can describe the relationship between the genders, such as between husband and wife, and therefore, reflect societal views and norms in that given period. It also describes cultural differences of family types and norms; for example, various pieces demonstrate relationships between members of a community, such as a town, as a family system. In this type of family, each member of the community plays a different role (such as the income earners and caretakers). In this sense, readers gain knowledge of how different family systems function and exist.