"Relatable" is one of the magic words students love to use in analyzing literary texts. But the true meaning of this term always eludes me. Is it so important that characters are "relatable" for a novel to be attractive? Does this mean that students don't love to read any story which shows no resemblance to their narrow life world or at least satisfy their desire which is being nurtured by their unimaginative daily life? Spivak suggests that literature allows us to imagine others, pulling us to the boundary of ourselves, exposing ourselves and being exposed to the Other, and crossing the border across which we can never be the same any more. But, this is, it seems to me, the very thing students resist to experience. It's very ironic that some coercion is needed to make them read such othering texts.
