The Decline of Literary Fiction

Over the course of history, authors could be counted on to expose social injustice, to make us reconsider our stubborn opinions, or to simply paint a vivid portrait of the human condition. As time passed, this art form has gradually been declining, giving way to genre fiction, the sole purpose of which is to entertain, leaving the tasks formally accomplished by the writers of literary fiction to the writers of non-fiction.

Literary fiction, by definition, is simply "serious" fiction. But to those well studied, those experts in the field, it is known as fiction with a purpose (aside from mere entertainment). Some works have had a greater impact than others. Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is a prime example. This novel forced a hard look at the life and treatment of slaves; when President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he remarked only partly in jest that she instigated the Civil War. A literary piece of fiction's success to some degree can be measured by how controversial it is. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is controversial to this day - as written by William Mackey Jr. in 1995 in his introduction of the novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin continues in our time to be almost as controversial as it was in 1852. Each generation seems to find something within the book's pages to justify its own attitudes toward race. Many African-Americans see in Mrs. Stowe's main character, Uncle Tom, the epitome of the obsequious, toadying, head-scratching stereotype that they have been laboring so long to put to rest. There are many whites, on the other hand, who visualize Tom as the essence of the patient, long-suffering, loyal hero. Whichever way the book is read, obvious chasms exist among the many ways of understanding the true nature of its principal protagonist." (Mackey)

This novel succeeded, no matter what one's personal view of the work is, in creating some necessary social upheaval in regard to a very sensitive topic.