Paper 2: “Essay”

How valid is the assertion that literature is a voice for the oppressed?

Literature regardless the text type, always has a purpose, either deliver a message or entertain the
reader. I will want to focus on those texts where the author intent to transmit a message to the
reader because both books that I will talk about give us a wise reflection about a hard period of the
history as it was the Germany holocaust and the period of discrimination against black people in the
20th century. In this essay, I will make a conection between both books we read on class and how
literature has been a way to express what was happening in the context that the book was written
and how the author expresses himself like a voice that denounces the hard moments that each book
refers to. By one side, in TKM, we are introduced in a context where Jim crow laws appears in United
States and the discrimination was something present in most of the states of this country specially
in the south ones. In this part of the country, black people where treated like animals. These people
where sold as slave labor just for his skin color and their rights where violated in every way. In few
words, black people had no right to anything. By the other side, in Fatelessness, an autobiographical
novel, it is narrated the author own experience in the Jew holocaust during the Second World War
and how Jew people were treated in these types of prisons, specially the harsh treatment they
receive from the German military, including the tortures they received.

How I mention before, black people could only keep silence, in that society full of evil and
discrimination. They even had no right to be defended by a lawyer in case that they were accused
of something like happens in TKM. In this book, Tom Robinson, a hardworking black man was
denounced for kidnapping a little girl and rapping her, something that he didn’t do. Atticus, Jem and
Scout’s dad, an honest lawyer, was the one that decided to help this man, regardless of the skin
color of the accused. This book is based in the process of how Atticus helps this man in a society
where anyone who had contact with this kind of people was considered impure. Atticus was
criticized by all Maycomb town for his decision of help this integrant of the black community.
Everyone in the town started to talk bad about him and his kids began to realize what was
happening. The author, Harper Lee, though this novel wants to make a reflection in the reader
conscience about how the black community was treated in most of the 20th century, especially
during the great depression where all the American people were living in miserable conditions.

In fatelessness, we have an autobiographical narration where Imre Kertesz, the author of the book,
make this novel through what he lived during his stayed on a Germany holocaust. This writer make
a connection between him and the protagonist of the book, Gyuri. He tried to talk about his own
experience in this Germany prisons though literature, making an excellent novel that describe how
Jewel community were treated and how was the life inside these places. The story is about Gyuri, a
young Hungarian boy that was sent to a labor camp during the Second World War, just for being
Jewish. He passes through three different camps where he met every type of people and make some
friends that help him to survive. The author though this novel wants to transmit a message to all the
readers and make them reflect about the horrors that were committed when Hitler was the
president. Gyuri is a good example of what we now as a “fighter”, because he never gives up and he
fight till the end to get ahead. Despite the hard work and the injuries, he survives for an entire year
and return to his town when the war finished.
We can see clearly that in both books the authors though literature gives the readers a message and
a reflection about two sensitive issues that happened during the 20th century. By one side we have
the discrimination of the black community and by the other side we have the creation of the
concentration camps during the second world war. This is what we call “the voice of the oppressed”
because both community could not express themselves and denounces what was happening in
those times. They could only keep silence and wait for someone to help them. Both authors try to
leave reflected what happened to prevent this from happening again soon. Literature is something
that we all have the right to use and nobody is excluded from it.