Does Literature Reflect Common Values?

THE relationship of literature and society has, been variously conceived. Three general assumptions are that literature reflects society and culture, that it serves as a means of social control, and that it influences attitudes and behavior of people in ways considered in some respects desirable, in others undesirable.' For the present article, research was oriented to the reflection theory. Like other arts, literature has in the past been assumed to reflect cultural norms and values, the ethos and the stresses of a society, the process of dialectical materialism, and the historical development of a society or culture.2 Recently, divorce and prejudice in fiction have been studied, and some research has attempted to determine agreement between literary content and statistical data on occupations and population distribution in the United States.3 results have pointed to an emphasis on widespread American attitudes and ideals, reinforcing the idea that literature reflects common cultural values. It is this conception, also, which is logically consistent with the theory of social control.4 present research was focused, consequently, on the problem of literature reflecting cultural norms and values. It was limited, however, to the area of the American family and to short stories in large circulation magazines. principal hypothesis was that short stories read by large audiences, even though representing distinct reading levels, will ex1M. C. Albrecht, The Relationship of Literature and Society, American Journal of Sociology, 59 (March, 1954), pp. 425-436. 2Ibid., pp. 425-431. 3 See J. H. Barnett and R. Gruen, Recent American Divorce Novels, 1938-1945, Social Forces, 26 (March, 1948), pp. 332-337; B. Berelson and P. Salter, Majority and Minority Americans: Analysis of Magazine Fiction, Public Opinion Quarterly, 10 (Summer, 1946), pp. 168-190; R. Inglis, An Objective Approach to the Relationship Between Fiction and Society, American Sociological Review, 3 (August, 1938), pp. 526-531. 4Albrecht, op. cit., pp. 430-431.