Literature and Words As Salvation

Do words really have the power to save?

Throughout "Atonement," Robbie relies on Cecelia's words, particularly her refrain of "I'll wait for you, Come back," to sustain him through hard years in prison and at war. He admits, "In love with her, willing to stay sane for her, he was naturally in love with her words" (191). So, Cee's words enable Robbie to keep his sanity, and they keep him pushing forward in his struggles to reach Dunkirk.

Their dependence on words in their relationship gets taken to a meta-level with their need to use literary couples as a shorthand for their feelings (ironically, Robbie lumps them in with some icons of tragedy -- Tristan and Isolde and Troilus and Criseyde). Unable to be frank with each other emotionally, they must substitute the romances of these great literary figures for their own feelings (and quite interestingly, it allows the reader to perhaps buy more deeply into their romance as well since this depth of feeling is, after all, predicated on only one night in a library).

Robbie and Cee's dependence on words for emotional expression and survival seems to link very naturally to the notion of bibliotherapy and certain books being conduits for readers to work through a variety of life problems. In a way, they are practicing their own form of biblotherapy, as they reference works of literature to reassure and commune with one another.

This, in turn, made me think about (and the class overall) the power we grant words as a society. Not just literature and the questions of how we value what we deem canonical, but words overall-- Briony's words that implicate Robbie's guilt, the written words of the Supreme Court in legal decisions, and in the case of most world religions, some type of written instruction manual of faith and morality.

We, perhaps because we are limited in other forms of expression, privilege words and language above all else. In a Catholic mass, "the word of God" is held up as the centerpiece of the mass and the justification for particular belief systems and behaviors. So, if we are willing to privilege and honor the words of religious texts, legal documents, etc., why can the same type of resonance and meaning not always apply to literature? Sure, it's not real, some will argue, and others will state that reading just isn't for everyone, but can literature take on this kind of deeper meaning and therapeutic bent outside the realm of literature professors and avid readers? And should it?

Most will be able to guess at my feelings on the matter, though I am not able to adequately express just how such a movement might occur. However, I think the example of Robbie and Cee--the way their words propel them forward in their own lives, and most particularly, their own reliance on literature to grant meaning to their lives and voice their feelings in a metaphorical way (and the way that their happiness and posterity as individuals is only maintained through fiction)--is a firm argument for the transformative power of bestowing a deeper meaning on literature in defiance, or perhaps, even in embrace of, its removal from reality.