Paul Bloom's Essay 'Imagining The Life Of Others'

Literature opens a new world of ideas and situations with just a sense of an imagination to picture and begin to realize what it would actually be like. In article, “Imagining the Life of Others,” Paul Bloom completely disagrees. He stated that life or virtually any situation cannot be lived and seen through the perspective of another. To become more understanding of the event you must listen to what people have to say about it, carefully. From personal experience and knowledge of literature having a large impact on people’s lives, I couldn't agree less with Bloom’s claim. Literature is made from experiences and previous knowledge, recreated to give an imaginary outlook on situations.

Throughout this school year, and most of our lives, we have read books, plays, poems to gain an idea as to what life in a different era or altogether “someone else's shoes.” The book, To Kill a Mockingbird, gained an impact on people’s lives and helped better open their eyes to

Because of this, I feel as though we turn to literature to find a sense of hope or recognition to connect our lives to a situation that seems more irrational. In the play, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare responds to the lives and complete rash choices of teenagers. Shakespeare also focuses on the theme of love and close relation of hate and how it creates a larger more uncontrollable situation. This play was written in an era utterly different than ours, yet it is still relatable and we care completely able to imagine what this situation might have been like, even though if thought about, seems so irrational and extreme. We have these connections of love and loss of all sense that you’d do anything for someone, even if we couldn’t imagine potentially killing yourself for them. No matter what, as teenagers, we have felt the sting of Cupid’s arrow and Romeo and Juliet’s love doesn’t seem so incomprehensible after