The Significance of the Novel

Paul Thompson

Hum-112-D020

12/10/2011

Reflection Paper

The Significance of the Novel

How important or significant is the novel? By discussing and researching the topic, I hope to get an understanding of the impact it had on society in the 18th century. And if it had not been introduced, would humanity be different today? Before taking my humanities class, I didn’t give much thought to how the novel had affected people or how it shaped society. It appears that the influence not only became an educational tool but also affected the circumstances surrounding men and women. As an illustration, men liked the fact that women had an activity to do while they were sitting at home. This was known as the “leisure time of women.” Men felt that by keeping the woman’s mind occupied that this alone would prevent them from causing mischief. In a sense, the women would not be tempted to commit adultery nor have the desire to leave the house. However, the men’s strategy did not go according to plan, in fact, the scheme did the exact opposite. The more women read, the more educated they became. This new found knowledge alone gave them the desire to explore or travel to different venues. Even though the stories were fiction, people who read them could see the story happening to them. The rise of the novel was important because I feel it was part of the first group of rocks placed on the road to gender equality. Just like the dictionary and encyclopedia before it, the novel became a new way for people to gather information and learn about the different cultures they had never seen before, but unlike present day society, the influence of the novel is on the decline.

The importance of the novel goes above and beyond the two to three-hundred page story it may be composed of. Before I conducted my research, the information I learned in my humanities class opened my eyes to the significance of it. The reaction to learning the history and importance of the novel compares to the...