"Legitimately produced, and truly inspired, fiction interprets
humanity, informs the understanding, and quickens the affections.
It reflects ourselves, warns us against prevailing social follies,
adds rich specimens to our cabinets of character, dramatizes life
for the unimaginative, daguerreotypes (photographs) it for the
unobservant, multiplies experience for the isolated or inactive,
and cheers ages, retirement and invalidism with an available and
harmless solace. "(Henry Tuckerman).
Literature provides a multidimensional experience radically
different from film or video. The rhetorical language and
vocabulary provide a much more definitive understanding of a
message, explicitly and implicitly. This quote from Tuckerman
connects the many different aspects and senses that evaluate the
effectiveness and relevance of a piece of fiction. Literature does
not solely create an imaginary world that tells a story created by
a person, it relates itself to humanity; it relates itself to the
nature of existence; it relates itself to the reality of truth,
through fiction. Fiction forges a story with philosophical ideas to
cunningly craft themes, motifs and a sense of realism. However,
there are minds that are much too weak to comprehend or accept the
realism of fiction. There are many events within the novel The Book
of Negroes that provide an insight into realism.
There is innocence that children posses that allows them to call
upon or state something as seen or heard; because their minds
resemble an unripe apple, the nature of their derogatory statement
tends to be sour for many people. "I remember wondering, within a
year or two of taking my first steps, why only men got to drink tea
and converse, and why women were always busy. I reasoned that men
were weak and needed rest" (Lawrence Hill, 13). There is an
understanding that throughout history, men have been dominant over
women and the rest of humanity. Men perform the occasional
difficult task and claim that their job is done and it is their
time to rest, while women continuously toil for many hours at a
time completing a large number of deceptively uncomplicated tasks.
This not be true for the most part of modern or western society,
but that does not falsify the quote or the expressed interpretation
of the message - from developing world to developed world where
times may not be alike, but at the same time are not dissimilar,
this child's statement posses a truth of humanity through
unfiltered eyes.
In the essence of raw truth, the existence of man is segregated by
ideology - some ideologies more educated, refined and experienced
than others. "I am not a white man. I am a Jew, and that is very
different. You and I are both outsiders" (Hill, 188). This quote
from the book brings a sort of unity between a slave and a Jew when
he relates them through their similar differences. Religiously one
is persecuted for belief; racially one is persecuted for having
life. Jews and Negroes having been enslaved during times of history
and they share the implicit bond through bondage. The feeble mind
fails to see the connection and says that even though he is Jewish,
he is white - a refutable argument as simple as the mind being
argued to, could be they are brothers because they are human; their
bloodline separated by thousands of years. The nature of existence
is defined through various philosophical ideas that provoke
thought; the feeble mind shows indifference.
The weak minds will continue to incoherently illegitimatise any
possible truth to any possible answer because they are afraid to
ask the question. Literature with its many strengths is an art form
that is able to create impeccable imagery that articulates the true
character of a message. "The ship became an extension of our own
rotting bodies" (Hill, 94). This metaphor provides a deeper
understanding and feeling of imagery that words alone could not
effectively describe. Battered upon the rocking sea, the ship would
sail for days, weeks, months and years at a time surviving through
adversity, destitution and disease. For the frail minds, such depth
and perception is detrimental because of the vividly depicted
realism.
Weak minds must always come to a point where they are forced to
stop and contemplate. Like an hour glass, one must show concern and
turn the glass over so that time may continue to be observed. Even
if a homeless man attends a scholar's assembly, it only takes one
scholar to acknowledge the existence of the homeless man and bring
him to light. Just as so, it only takes one piece of writing to
bring a person to light; whether the mind be a fortress or a
fragile palisade - excellence promotes excellence. "Weak minds may
be injured by novel reading; but sensible people find both
amusement and instruction therein" (Henry Ward Beecher). Without
reliance on the type of fiction or the type of literature, it only
takes one piece of writing to turn a weak mind in to a sensible
person.