Genre v. Literary Fiction

Like most high school students, I prefer genre fiction to literary fiction any day, but that being said, I don’t think genre fiction has a place in the school curriculum the way literary fiction does. Genre fiction is often written much more simply in order to reach a wider audience. They don’t contain concepts that are more difficult to grasp, a higher vocabulary, or the level of symbolism that is seen in literary fiction. To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, is heavy on symbolism which gives several launch points for class discussion. Genre fiction novels simply don’t do this and often dead end in discussion. That, of course goes for most, though not all, genre fiction novels. Hunger Games for example, provides symbolism. In fact, the entire series is based off the symbol of the mockingjay. The problem with the symbolism in these novels is that you’re hit over the head with it. There is no way you could miss the symbol and you’re told point blank what it means and what it stands for at several instances. This requires no outside thinking making it still inadequate for classroom teaching.

I do agree with the argument in Readicide and how our school system is overanalyzing and killing reading for students, but I don’t think we can change the system. How do you justify removing Of Mice and Men or Macbeth from the curriculum? How can you honestly argue that students will be ready for further education without exposure and understanding of those key texts? The fact is, we wouldn’t be. Without sufficient literary background students won’t be ready to further their education and would be harmed in the long run because of it. Even though we won’t always like it and perhaps will always prefer the simpler and more entertaining texts of genre fiction, the analysis of literary fiction is vital to our school development.