More on Universal Truths in Literature

My most popular post without a doubt is “Why We Need Universal Truths in Literature,” which has garnered over 4,500 views. This is shocking enough, and I never stop asking myself why a post about a tired old concept like “universal truths” would attract so many readers, especially given that we are already living in post-modern, post-rational world.

Or are we?

As I wrote in my previous article, Humans have an insatiable desire for truth, and good literature and art in general awaken the knowledge of these truths that exist in our subconscious, especially since truth appears to be embedded in our DNA. In this sense, truth can never be excised, no matter how much we are told the opposite or subjected to propaganda. We know truth when we hear it, when we see it, and when we read it. We are drawn to truth like moths to a flame because it awakens in us concepts that are eternal, and can never be expunged from our souls. This is the reason why art and literature are usually the first things to go in totalitarian societies because art brings us dangerously close to the truth. It awakens us to the lies and distortions that  we are subjected to. Art allows us to transcend our present situation, no matter how dire or repressive, with timeless concepts. It envelops our humanity in a cocoon of eternal wisdom and meaning that shield us from lies and deceit. Art is transparent. It allows us to see deep within a concept to its universal qualities and how they apply to our lives. Art never hides the truth: it illuminates and glorifies it. Art preserves the truth for future generations, teaching us what it means to be human in a chaotic and often dangerous world.

The Function of Art

If you ask the average person why they pick up a book to read, most people would say to be entertained, to get a thrill, to experience a romance, to travel, to learn, to feel some emotion. Hardly anyone would say they want to encounter a truth. For what is a truth? Who says if something is true or not? Who gets to decide these matters? 

One of the many functions of art is to express emotions, to enrich mankind with teachings, to immortalize stories and heroes. But also, one of the functions of art is to teach us what is true about ourselves. This seems a little self-contradictory since it would appear that it was the job of the natural sciences to give us truth. But rather than being didactical, literature can demonstrate the truth about our humanity in a more effective way: via the characters' behavior and actions, thus teaching a concept in a rather stark and more memorable way.

Allow me to illustrate.

Not too long ago I was reading an old classic called "Moonfleet" by J. Meade Falkner (1898), a historical novel about a young orphan who gets involved with smugglers. About four chapters in, I wasn’t too impressed with the novel. It was only when I reached Chapter 5 that I was awestruck. Un the first two pages of Chapter 5, I encountered no less than four universal truths. This is astounding given the fact that most novels are lucky if they contain even one universal truth. Here were four in a few paragraphs! How was this possible?

In the story, the orphan (John Trenchard) has lost his mother and father early on. He lives with an uncaring aunt who hated his father and resents having to raise him. Because young John feels so alienated in his aunt’s home, he often goes out wandering, and on one night, he spies some smugglers and follows them to their hiding place (a crypt) where he is unwittingly locked up and left to die.

James Trenchard is an orphan who finds himself in peril in "Moonfleet."

During all the time he is sealed up in the vault, his aunt never goes looking for him. She never worries about him. In fact, she doesn’t even care that he’s gone. She's almost glad to be rid of him. It takes his teacher to go looking for him after he fails to appear in class several days in a row. But the teacher doesn’t go looking or him initially because he fears he’s missing. He goes to the aunt’s house to pay him a sick call, since he believes the boy is sick, and is shocked to discover the boy is not sick, but missing. When he asks about the boy, the aunt merely shrugs her shoulders and says, “He is run off I know not where, but as he makes his bed, must he lie on it. And if he run away for his pleasure, may stay away for mine. I have been pestered with this lot too long, and only bore with him for poor sister Martha’s sake. But ‘tis after his father that the graceless lad takes, and thus rewards me.” She them slams the door in the teacher’s face.

Initially the teacher believes the boy has run off to sea, but after putting a few clues together, he realizes the boy has been shut up in a vault and thus saves his life.

In these few paragraphs I learned some shocking universal truths. And by universal, they apply to everyone regardless of time or place. They apply to all humans on the basis of our shared humanity:

a) There’s a danger in being with people who don’t care about you. You must have someone to care about you and inquire after you.

b) You never know who will be your friend in the end and who will be your enemy.

c) Visiting the sick is not just a nice thing to do. It could literally save someone’s life.

d) When one does not love you, they will not care about you or ask about you.

In the end, the teacher finds John Trenchard close to death, and with the help of the local tavern-keeper, nurses him back to life. When John goes back to his aunt’s house, instead of welcoming him back home, she greets him with harsh words and does not let him cross the threshold, saying she would have no tavern-loungers in her house. She tells John to go back to the tavern and he realizes that his aunt’s home has never been his true home:

“When I heard such scurvy words, felt the devil rise in my heart, and only laughed, though bitter tears were in my eyes. So I turned my back upon the only home that I had ever known, and sauntered off down the village, feeling very alone.”

And thus I learned still another universal truth: that people use religion and morality as a means to emotionally abuse people and exclude them.

"Moonfleet" is a great adventure novel about a boy overcoming terrible odds, but in the end, it is also a teacher of important truths. A simple story with such profound wisdom and moral teachings! 

We ignore the teachings of art and literature at our own peril.