LITERATURE AS WEAPON OF PROTEST: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH

Abstract

Since antique times, society's alleged rebels and activists have looked for ways to loan their voices in defense of freedom, equality, justice, and dignity, and aligned with unjust conditions. One instrument for initiating positive action is literature. Literature contributes much to the social order if it is critical enough to kindle deliberate and debate on developmental issues. Society can only flourish dynamically and attain mature culmination with the aid of criticism. Since art is always confronted with complex social, political and cultural contradictions, there is need for art to be a foremost force in responding to these contradictions and challenges. A reading of the societal protest is a part of the progression showing the ability of literature to resolve society’s challenges through protest.  The paper shows how the different forms of writing can be a contributing factor towards socio-political and cultural development in this world. The English novel was a social protest movement from the start, and its aim was frequently to acquaint middle-class people with the realism of various social ills, in a way that would engross genuine vision and emotion. Dickens wrote about child labour, Frances Trollope of the disgrace of illegitimacy, Thomas Hardy about seduction and class segregation. In some cases novels of social subjugation had large consequences. Social protest literature of the nineteenth century was a product of the rapid urbanization and industrialization of Western countries, along with the rise of socialist thought. It may be divided into two broad categories: literature that focuses on enlightening society's ills and literature that either advocates or opposes certain types of social or political reform. These broad categories encompass a wide variety of works that treat a range of subjects, including slavery, women's rights, minority rights, poverty, nobility, racial discrimination, ethnocentrism, and the immigrant experience.