The Dark Night Of The Soul Richard Miller Analysis

Richard Miller stated, “Is it possible to produce writing that generates a greater sense of connection to the world and its inhabitants?” (441). In his essay, “The Dark Night of the Soul”, Miller brought up the preceding question. Miller tries to understand the reasoning and value for reading and writing in education and whether it is still relevant in today’s world. He tries to investigate his question by introducing the Columbine shooting and four other literature pieces. Because of the violence, depression, and hopelessness displayed in three of these essays, he really begins to question if the literary arts are really valuable or is there becoming a disconnection in reading and writing? The pieces also make him think that institutions of higher learning should teach the literary arts differently. Although most of these works showed only depression, there was one work that gave him hope which was The Liars’ Club, a memoir by Mary Karr.

Overall, Karr showed how even though awful experiences and hurt may have been faced in life, writing can help a person continue to be hopeful. It confirmed that writing can be used in a critically optimistic way. In other words, Karr was critical of the things she had seen in her life but in the end she found hope and positivity. Miller stated, “Writing, as she uses it, is a hermeneutic practice that involves witnessing the mundane horrors of the past in order to make peace with that past” (440). Karr uses writing as a tool to forgive her mother and help her understand and deal with her past optimistically. There are other texts like hers that also portray hope in the end from writing. Similar to Karr’s memoir, the movie, Freedom Writers, showed how the literate arts can be used in a critically...

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...The voices that tells you that you can’t are silenced” (LaGravenese). The literary arts began to make them think of hope. They began to think a critically optimistic way and make peace with the past and find some sense of connection with others.

To conclude, reading and writing can end up being positive. Both Freedom Writers and The Liars’ Club showed how even if a person goes through pain, his or her life does not have to end up being awful and that writing is still valuable today. It just takes the right way of teaching the curriculum of reading and writing to make it actually be useful. Though all stories may not have a happy ending, writers have the potential to make it critically optimistic. The literary arts are relevant today and “can be made to generate a sense of possibility, a sense that a better, brighter future is out there to be secured” (Miller 437).