Global literature is a general term referring to the world’s national literary texts. This term includes works, which have become famous within and outside countries of their origin. It is worth mentioning that most books, which are identified as the part of global literature, were written in Europe. These works have several distinguishing features. Usually, such books contain descriptions of habits, traditions, mentality, nature, geography, history and other characteristics by which certain nations are specified. For example, the author of The perforated sheet refers many times to different geographical objects, historical facts and local habits, like the city of Bombay, Kashmir, Mughal Empire, a prayer mat (Rushdie, 2002). Although, the main reason why a book gets global recognition is its main idea, which raises relevant to the global community problems. In this case, Rushdie (2002) discusses the question of losing the faith and replacing it with love.
Regarding the question of the blurring of national boundaries, it is necessary to note that it is not a typical attribute for global literature. The blurring of national boundaries implies removing the cultural specificity from the book in order to make it more understandable for readers from all over the world. Authors may refer to a lot of different geographical locations and facts to distract the attention from the scene of the main action like it is done in Wedding at the cross: “He fought in Egypt”, “hawk market at Bahati” (Thiong’o, 2002, pp. 1042-1043). The same method is detected in Omeros (Walcott, 2002). The story described in The perforated sheet mainly takes place in a specific location, Kashmir, but the author mentions some other places as well (Rushdie, 2002). Finally, the fourth novel, Girl, obviously has only a few details, which may help to identify the location and the ethnicity of the main character (Kincaid, 2002). However, it is less likely to do that. Also, the main character does not even have a name. The author discusses problems common to people of any social group living in any place in the world.
Education and discipline problems described in Girl deserve to be discussed in detail. Every phrase from this work contains a message of enormous size and importance. All these recommendations might seem to be controversial. However, they present a clear perception of a confident person. It is highly important to demonstrate these views to high school students who very soon will have to begin their own lives, full of responsibilities and problems, like the main character of this novel. Providing examples cited in Girl, teachers need to raise a dialogue among students addressing mentioned above issues as these themes closely correspond to students’ main interests. The practical nature of questions described in this work relates to every individual. Hence, forcing students to make concise conclusions based on this discussion will help them to comprehend the main principles which guide people through their lives.
Links to movies, which simply display negative outcomes for young people who got confused, who cannot properly interact with society contribute to engaging students in the theme more effectively. Also, the media provides a lot of examples of well-known celebrities who end up bad due to the same reasons. Visuals always have the biggest impact on the mind, especially during adolescence. This is a multifaceted question, and it is necessary to illustrate as many sides as possible. Hence, employing any efficient tools is justified.
References
Kincaid, J. (2002). Girl. In M. Puchner, S.C. Akbari, W. Denecke, V. Dharwadker, B. Fuchs,… E. Wilson (Eds.), The Norton anthology of world literature (p. 1146). New York, NY: Norton.
Rushdie, S. (2002). The perforated sheet. In M. Puchner, S.C. Akbari, W. Denecke, V. Dharwadker, B. Fuchs,… E. Wilson (Eds.), The Norton anthology of world literature (p. 1146). New York, NY: Norton.
Thiong’o, N. W. (2002). Wedding at the cross. In M. Puchner, S.C. Akbari, W. Denecke, V. Dharwadker, B. Fuchs,… E. Wilson (Eds.), The Norton anthology of world literature (p. 1146). New York, NY: Norton.
Walcott, D. (2002). Omeros. In M. Puchner, S.C. Akbari, W. Denecke, V. Dharwadker, B. Fuchs,… E. Wilson (Eds.), The Norton anthology of world literature (p. 1146). New York, NY: Norton.