Literature is one of the most important areas of study. <u>It serves to describe the human condition and helps to understand what are the human possibilities. </u>
Besides being a form of art, literature is also a way to seize reality, that is, it makes the reader more intelligent, because intelligence is the capacity of perceiving reality.
<u>Therefore, the view of an artist will make his creations describe the part of the reality this artist intelligence perceived. </u>
Let's take, for example, Joseph Conrad's work – "Victory". Victory is a psychological novel that tells the story of a skeptic character, incapable of loving, named Axel Heyst. The novel uses a series of methods to give the reader the possibility to see a psychological interior battle lived by the protagonist and his impossibility to love, even when his partner shows proofs of loving him.
Such a book represents part of the reality seized by the artist, Joseph Conrad, and gives the reader tools to understand people they meet that are alike Axel Heyst, and, more importantly, tools to understand themselves. For example, even if the reader does not have the psychological battles fought by the protagonist, understanding these battles will surely make the reader understand a little more of the human psyche.
Therefore, literature should describe reality, and this description shall consist of the part the artist intelligence was capable of seizing.