The Importance of Words Essay

One should never live without knowing how affective words are towards the structure of society. In Pablo Neruda’s The Word and Virginia Woolf’s How Should One Read a Book? The authors present words as a source of power obtained by consumers and those who are willing to live by it. Within both works of art, there are evidence of how words are important for the use of communication, entertainment, and culture; which are used to build up nations. Communication is what help people understand others want, need and expectation.

Evidently communication plays a big role in how society is run. Entertainment is what keeps mankind from being bored or causing mayhem; sadly people never associated entertainment with words . culture consists of many things but words are what help human understand custom and tradition. Ultimately language is important for the survival of society. To begin, in The Word by Pablo Neruda, he initially starts with how the word came about, but goes on and talks about how words are what keep communication alive.

Good communication is the key to a good relationship; if people do not understand what is being said to them, then the relationship is doomed. There are many ways of communicating, but the most used by the public and private is the verbal communication so “for human being not to speak is to die” (Neruda, line 45) most people cannot converse without words because speaking or writing is the most familiar to them and they do not want to change what they are accustomed to. People use communication to provoke action in others; an example is a child asking a parent to pick up a toy that is out of their reach.

Words are what make the world go round. Therefore, verbal conversation made between human can either resolve or start conflict. Similarly, shown in Virginia Woolf’s How Should One Read a Book? She goes o about the importance of communication. Woolf uses her knowledge of books to go in-depth about another way of communicating. Woolf focuses on communicating with the self rather than with someone else; her essay deals with intellectual communication that happens after a person has read a book or watched a play.

The essay touches on how individuals will try to make sense of new information they have ingested into their brains and try to find out how it will be beneficial. Woolf proves in her essay that people communicating with themselves and “are only able to help [from books] if we if we come to them laden with questions and suggestion won honestly in the course of our own reading. ”(Woolf 269). Woolf shows the importance of communication the mind by having questions; people really try to understand what is written on a page no just look at it.

Both Neruda and Woolf demonstrate how words are valuable to mankind. In addition, Neruda uses his poem to convince is audience about the importance of words to entertainment. Entertainment comes in different forms for different people; what someone sees as fun can be seen as boring to another. Entertainment is something that catches people’s attention either it is a book, a poem or a movie. Although everybody knows about entertainment, it is never associated with literature or words.

Words are an important factor for entertainment, either an actor reading a script to an audience, listening to a song or reading a work of art just for the enjoyment. Entertainment can be put in the same category as beauty and it can be explained as “it lies in the eyes of the beholder” everyone have their own form of amusement. Neruda makes sense of how words are important to entertainment by him “tak[ing] the word and go[ing] over it… its arrangement [puts him in] awe. ” ( Neruda lines 51-52).

He makes a point of showing his audience the immersive impact words are to humans, either big o small, it s want keeps society intact. Likewise, Woolf believes that words are important to society. Woolf revel in her essay the entertainment is the phenomenon which everyone takes pleasure in either analyzing it or just having fun with it. Woolf produces the same impression of how words are important but goes more into detail. Woolf view of words as entertainment is put in day light for reader to see while Neruda’s is hidden in his lines.

Virginia Woolf concentrate on the pleasure f words as she declares “To admit authorizes, however furred and gowned into our libraries and let them tell as how to read … is to destroy the spirit of freedom. ” (Woolf 261) Woolf understands the fun of reading, she knows about how some use literature to entertain themselves. Work of art of any kind that uses words brings people to a place where they can leave their worries aside. Woolf shows how words are vital to society by readers “not dictat[ing] to [the] author [but] try to become him.

A person can take o a new persona when they try to like an author; it clarifies what the author is saying. Even though words are use as entertainment, it can also help and gives massages of what was done in the past, so that as a civilization we use the information for the next generation. Lastly, Neruda proves to reader about the importance of words in culture. Words are important in culture because people identify themselves with their language. Words in culture show outsiders about a person’s heritage, living style and background. Pablo Neruda demonstrates the significance of words in the continuous of a culture.

The first thing a person teaches a child about their heritage is the language and how certain words are pronounced. Neruda stresses on language by declaring “And so [words are] inheritance … wavelength which connects us with the dead man and the dawn of new beings not yet come to light. ”(Neruda lines 15-16) This makes notice that culture through words are learned from ancestors and their ribs that no longer exit but are passed down from generation to generation until it gets to a “new being not yet come to light” like a embryo still in its mother womb, being taught about his or her language through words.

Words can be many things but it is important for the survival of a culture. In the same way, Woolf uses words as an important factor in culture. He employs some of the ideas as Neruda but lays her own spin on the concept. In Virginia Woolf’s essay, she shines a spot light on the virtues taught by culture. Woolf’s essay expresses on the intellectual impact and the learning skills taught in a culture. When a person moves to a new place, they have to adapt, as the saying goes “when in Rome, do as the Roman do”; a person has to learn the basic language proficiency, which takes years to achieve.

Just as learning something new in culture can provoke emotions reading which consists of words which makes a person “stress the value of sympathy [which can] sink our identity;” (Woolf 268) Woolf shows her audience how books can cause different emotion ,same as culture to question their identity. Woolf uses her knowledge on books like an elder of a tribe will use his knowledge of his or her culture to teach a new member. In conclusion, Pablo Neruda and Virginia Woolf use their work of art to speak to readers about how words give authority to users.

The authors prove their points on how words impact society with communication, entertainment and culture. Communication is what helps society understand what is going on. Entertainment is what takes up free time that can e use to cause trouble and chaos. Lastly, culture is what helps civilization pass down information from generation to generation. Thus, words and language gives civilization the strength to survive through distraction.

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