Vacant Imaginations

“Every child realizes that literature is taking him in a different direction from the immediately useful, and a good many children complain loudly about this.” (p.3)

I sincerely agree with Northrop Frye when he states that children complain loudly when interacting with literature because they have to use their imagination to understand what they are reading. Now a day’s children are growing up in an environment where the imagination is suppressed because of instant entertainment such as video and computer games, and television. Rather than children developing their own ideas, it has already been handed over to them. Our generation has become lazy, and technologically dependent. This ultimately effects the ability to problem solve and to think outside the box, whether it’s involved with math, science, English, or any other application. This is because we are dependent on the answer already being there for us. McCullough states that learning is not at the touch of the finger, which is exactly why children today complain about literature. Literature has depth and requires time to understand; which is a hard concept to deal with when living in a fast paced and immediate world.