Societal Impacts on Emotional Stability in Literature
Change is one of the hardest things that human beings have to suffer through, because with change comes anxieties, uneasiness, and the disappearance of a comfort zone that one has become accustomed to. Most humans experience a change in their lives and lifestyles, whether it is tragic or trivial. Usually, that change ultimately stems from social, cultural, economic, or historical influences. In the past two centuries, societal influences have made humans more aware of what society is capable of, increasing not only awareness but also fear, inducing in many people feelings of hostility and even insanity as they lose control to the external cultural forces that have changed their lives. This fear is different as you travel across the world; Eastern and Western outlooks have different views on the world and the meaning of life, making anxieties about the modernization of the world different, yet strikingly similar in their origins.
Western societies base most of their ideals on emotional stability and creating intimate bonds with others. Hiroshima, Mon Amour, although it takes place in Japan, focuses on the Western values of conscious attentiveness and love at an individual

A Bend in the River, by V.S. Naipaul, illustrates Eastern culture’s refusal to revolutionize and adhere to standard cultural practices. Colonialism had entered into Zaire, and where tradition and colonialism met was at the bend in the river; the problem. Naipaul looked at how society can struggle with itself when it is faced with the possibility of conversion from traditional to contemporary. Zaire did not know what it wanted; it was suffering from colonial schizophrenia because the country was torn between the options of keeping up with the world or remaining where it was, only to be left behind as a fourth world country in a world that didn’t care either way. “If you look at a column of ants on the march you will see that there are some who are stragglers or have lost their way. The column has no time for them; it goes on. Sometimes the stragglers die. But even this has no effect on the column.” (Naipaul 85).

Naipaul was grounded in the belief of Hinduism; that you cannot change something that is rooted deep within a social structure. A Bend in the River is about Zaire’s resistance to the changing of something that was rooted so deep in its culture that a bend- a problem- in the river that was Zaire would not keep it from continuing its traditions. “The bush runs itself” (Naipaul 272). Part of the novel is written in the third person, representing the main character Salim’s questioning of himself and the falling of his community and people to the forces of colonization. He is worried about the stability of his community and his country rather than his own feelings and well being, reflecting the sentiments of non-western societies such as Africa, and seen in the same sense in Things Fall Apart.

Isabelle Allende’s The House of the Spirits reflects emotional instability due to societal restraints in the form of patriarchal dominance. It is a feminist novel, and the main character, Clara, illustrates a refusal to adhere to the dominant male patriarchal society. She spoke out against the male-dominated church to show her refusal to be controlled. “Psst! Father Restrepo! If that story about hell is a lie, we’re all fucked, aren’t we…” (Allende 7). Clara reverted into a life of silence when she became mute in order to protest the male dominated society that she was forced to live in, reflecting her emotional instability due to her society. Nivea, the mother of Clara, also supported the opposition to society, and showed this by chopping down the poplar tree. The poplar tree was not only a phallic symbol which represented the power that their society had over them, but it also served as an outlet for the continuing affirmation of the rituals that helped to define this patriarchal power. “It was a tradition in the Del Valle family that when any of the young men wanted to wear long pants, he had to climb it to prove his valor. It was like an initiation rite” (Allende 80). The tree also served to induce emotional instability in the women of the novel, seen when Jeronimo, the blind cousin, tried to climb the tree. When he died doing so, his mother went crazy with agony against society’s killing of her son. “They wrapped the body in a sheet and took it to his mother, who spar in their faces and shouted at them with a sailor’s insults and cursed the men who had induced her son to climb the tree, until finally the Sisters of Charity came to cart her off in a straitjacket” (Allende 80-81). In this case, it is evident that through the linguistic protest of Clara, as well as insanity experienced by the mother of Jeronimo, that societal restraints and customs that seeks to promote patriarchal society and subdue the power of the woman induce emotional diffidence.