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How does literature criticize and affirm a society’s cultural values?

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Antique book open to the frontispiece of The Iliad of Homer, showing the title and an engraved portrait of a bearded man, with old books in the background. — literature *The Iliad*, an epic of the Trojan War attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer, is considered a foundational work of Western literature.

Literature serves as a vital medium for both criticizing and affirming a society’s cultural values, functioning as a form of human expression that elevates and transforms experience.1

Affirming Cultural Values

Literature often affirms society by organizing and evoking archetypes and symbols that represent fundamental human realities. By drawing on shared myths, legends, and folktales, literature reinforces the collective values and "general experience" that bind a civilization together. Even when works are invented, they are constructed from the constant materials of human life, helping to transmit a culture’s intellectual and cultural heritage to future generations.23

Criticizing Cultural Values

Conversely, literature acts as a powerful tool for social critique, often through modes like satire. Satirists use wit, irony, and parody to expose hypocrisy, greed, and dehumanization, pitting their moral authority against established power. This criticism is most effective when it relies on shared ethical norms, allowing the writer to stand apart from society to offer a "double vision". While censorship and political pressure may attempt to suppress such dissent, literature remains a persistent force for questioning the status quo and challenging the "mad logic" of a society.45