with Christopher J. Ferguson
We are delighted to welcome author Christopher J. Ferguson to Omnimystery News.
We asked Christopher, the department chair of psychology at a university in Florida and the author of a historical mystery novel, Suicide Kings (February 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) set in 15th century Florence, to pick a topic of interest to him to share with us today, and he titles his guest post, "Violence in Literature".
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Photo provided courtesy of
Christopher J. Ferguson
From Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Stephen King, violence has been a common feature of the stories we like to hear and the books we like to read. There are two parallel questions that are interesting. Why are we so attracted to violence in literature? And is this a bad thing? Back in 2011 Wall Street Journal book reviewer Meghan Gurdon opined that the dark themes in a lot of young adult literature could have a bad influence on youth which, in turn, prompted criticisms by authors that she did not fully appreciate the purpose of darker themes in literature. What is the truth? As both a psychologist who researches media effects and an author myself, I've been able to look at this issue from multiple perspectives.
There's little doubt that, historically, violence has been a part of literature as long as there has been literature. One of the earliest known examples of written storytelling, Gilgamesh is a remarkably sordid affair, and considerable violence can be found in many religious texts including the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Hindu Ramayana. From fairy tales to morality tales it is difficult to find an epoch or culture that eschewed violence as entertainment.
There's an odd duality when it comes to violence in literature and violence in real life. Very few people would doubt that violence in real life is traumatic. Witnessing violence in the family is well known as a risk factor for psychosocial problems in childhood for instance. But, despite decades of trying (and hyperbole among some politicians, advocates and scholars), little evidence has emerged that violent entertainment is a public health concern. Most of that research has been done with television or video games, not books. There's certainly still debate in the scholarly community, but my own research and that of other scholars has questioned whether media violence influences viewers in the same way as real life violence exposure would.
This is pretty evident in the way we approach violence in these two scenarios. Most of us would work hard to avoid violence in real life while happily consuming (and for some authors producing) violence in literature and other entertainment. Obviously people do vary in the level of violence that interests them, but it's difficult to argue that violent entertainment doesn't have broad appeal. Why do we seek to expose ourselves to something in literature that we'd want to avoid in real life?
On a very basic level, even as we live mainly peaceful lives, violence and aggression seem to be woven into our genetic fabric as a species. Our history is a violent one and human violence has transcended culture and history. Fortunately, in the modern era, despite the technological innovations we have made in killing, our species has learned to become more peaceful. As Steven Pinker notes in his excellent book The Better Angels of Our Nature we are, in fact, living in the least violent epoch in human history, no matter what you may be seeing on television news. This is true for both war and criminal violence. Yet, even as our lives become more peaceful, for most of us at least, that genetic fabric seems to draw us back to something that is a basic facet of our nature. Indeed, our success as a species arguably owes less to eradicating aggression, but learning to harness it in positive ways. Being driven to success, willingness to defend oneself and others, debate for our personal views, seek accomplishments and advancement, are all likely positive features of this element of our nature. When it gets out of control it becomes destructively violent, but harnessed carefully can propel us toward greater achievements.
This is all a fing-fangled way of saying what people already know: we like to read violence in books because it is in our nature to do so. Some more than others, granted, but there's just nothing particularly unusual about it. So what does all of this violent literature do to us, particularly the younger readers?
As I mentioned before, there have been startling few actual studies of books. Some evidence does suggest that, indeed, books including those for young adults are becoming edgier with more profanity, violence, etc. This would seem to support Gurdon's perceptions. But evidence that this change in recent literature is "bad" for youth is lacking. I conducted one of very few direct examinations for a relationship between reading edgy (or "banned") books and problem behavior in youth. Interestingly reading "banned" books (books that are frequently challenged in libraries due to material offensive to some) was associated with more civic and volunteering behavior among youth. Such books had no influence on aggression. However, there were a very small number of youth, mainly girls, who both consumed a heavy amount of banned books, and also had more mental health issues as reported by their parents. Whether the books had asserted an influence on these youth, or whether youth with mental health issues seek out books they can relate to remains unclear from correlational evidence. But even this was only for a small percentage of youth. Otherwise no linear relationship between consuming banned books and mental health issues existed. Or, put simply, books even edgy ones don't appear to be associated with problems among most youth. The other interesting finding from this study was that reading for pleasure but NOT assigned school readings was associated with higher GPA. So discouraging kids from reading what interests them may not be such a good idea overall.
Violence in literature is not going away anytime soon. And such content appears to be a reflection of our natures, not a cause of it. Authors of darker material can likely take some comfort in this: you're not ruining the world. Critics of such material are certainly welcome to still be critical, but such criticism will likely be more effective when it eschews dramatic claims of "harm" that can't be supported by data. When it comes to youth, it is probably most crucial to get them reading, whatever they may be interested in reading. So let the darker tendrils of your imagination hold sway … it's only natural.
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Christopher J. Ferguson is the department chair of psychology at Stetson University in DeLand, FL. He has published numerous scholarly articles on media effects, including violence in video games, television, movies and books. In addition to his first novel, Suicide Kings, he is also the author of published short fiction. He lives near Orlando with his wife and son.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at ChristopherJFerguson.com, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Suicide Kings
Christopher J. Ferguson
A Historical Mystery
