The influence of books & reading on the main character as a child in Essay

The influence of books & reading on the main character as a child in the novel Anton Reiser by Karl Philipp Moritz - Essay Example to one particular aspect of the work, namely, the analogy between Anton Reiser’s resort to reading books with the modern day teen phenomenon of using recreational drugs. A careful scrutiny of the early life of Reiser gives clues to his psychological development and his propensity to fall back on escapist activities. Foremost among the conditions was the family environment in which he grew up. He has a very unpleasant childhood as his parents never get along. From this backdrop of a dysfunctional family he is apprenticeship with a pietistic hat-maker proves equally troublesome and is forced to go back to school. His subsequent foray into the theatre also fails to take off. As Reiser gets pushed from one failed venture to the next, he is desperate to find an anchor to his life. It is here that books enter his life. They not only give him a feeling of liberation from his depressing reality, but also serve a therapeutic purpose (Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, 2009. In other words, he resorts to books the way a troubled teenager would resort to recreational drugs in contemporary times. On a broader note, â€Å"Anton Reiser has been generally recognized as an important source of the Genie Periode in which the artistic temperament came into its own as fiction material, and as one of the first German followers, after Sophie la Roches Fraà ¼lein von Sternheim (1771) and Jung-Stillings Autobiography (1777), of Rous seau s Confessions and perhaps of the Sentimental Journey, unless Werther in 1774 can be considered as preceding Reiser in that field. It has many typical traits of this sensitive spirit school as well as of the Bildungsroman.† (Mà ¼ller, 1987, p.23) The relevance of Reiser’s reading habits goes much beyond escapism. As is accepted in literary circles, the focus of a high-quality literary work is not so much its plot but its aesthetics. While climax is an essential part of any work of literature, its ultimate value is determined by its artistic elements