It has come to my attention that many of the stories we have been reading for AP English have been quite depressing. Many end on bad endings or characters go through a lot of trouble and pain to learn a lesson. So, what is the reason for this?
I think that literary fiction has a tendency to be more sinister than other works of fiction. One reason that I think this is because literary authors tend to be more realistic and show what may truly happen instead of what the reader wants to happen. This gives a reality-check to some people, and it causes them to realize that not everything will end happily. I think there are way too many fiction novels that end with happy endings, so maybe that is also a reason for this unbalance of tones in the anthology.
I don't think that the true nature of literary fiction is to be dark and depressing, but rather it is meant to be realistic and give valuable knowledge and understanding to the reader. The goal is to teach the reader something new, not to make him/her happy. Just because the story is depressing, that doesn't mean that it isn't good or interesting. Sometimes, in fact, the story is better when it has a depressing tone to it.
Literary fiction always teaches the reader something, no matter if it's happy or depressing. Many authors just want to point out realistic situations, and I believe that they are not wrong in doing so.
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