We’ve all felt it. The way a story can grip us, make us pause, or even shift how we think about ourselves.
A novel, a poem, or even a single line of dialogue can linger in our minds long after we’ve closed the last chapter of the book.
Literature has always been more than ink on paper. In its truest sense, it’s how we make sense of ourselves, how we translate feeling into form, experience into story. Literature is how we translate what our spirit knows into what our soul needs.
Every time we read or write, we participate in something profoundly human: the creation of meaning. But what gives a story its power to move us, to reflect us, to change the way we see ourselves and the world?
Meaning Is a Shared Creation
The beauty of literature lies in its shared authorship. That is to say, meaning isn’t readily available to be handed down from the writer to the reader, as it is built in the space between the two.
Literary scholar Abrams describes this as the dynamic interplay of four key forces: the author, who brings intention, emotion, and craft; the reader, who makes sense of the story through curiosity, lived experience, and interpretation; the text, shaped by language and structure, which then becomes a meeting ground for both; and the world around them: the cultural and historical moment that gives words their resonance and relevance.
In more elaborate terms, the author plants the seeds of the story, shaping its structure, language, and imagery with intention and imagination. Yet a story remains dormant until it is received; the text serves as the bridge, carrying those seeds across time, space, and perspective. It is flexible, layered, and open to interpretation, capable of evoking different emotions and insights depending on who engages with it.
The Role of Context and Culture in Meaning-Making
For interpretation to work, there should be perception, borne, not merely out of experience, but of curiosity and an openness to endless possibilities. It bears noting, therefore, that the reader is not a passive consumer but an active co-creator of meaning.
Each reader brings their own experiences, values, and emotions to the text—the language and structure (the building blocks that make up the story)—completing the story in their mind and allowing it to resonate personally.
Lying between the author and the reader is the world itself — the cultural, historical, and social forces that shape how stories are written, interpreted, and remembered.
This is what researchers call the transactional zone of a story, the space where reader, text, and culture meet. It’s where meaning unfolds—not as a one-way message, but as a collaboration among the constituents of the story.
The Layers of Meaning
Meaning itself has layers. There’s the linguistic meaning: the literal words on the page. Then there’s the applicatory meaning: how we connect those words to our own lives. And finally, there’s the critical meaning: how we analyse, question, and place a story within larger cultural conversations.
Because no story exists in a vacuum, these three elements (author, reader, and context) breathe life into the text and determine how we perceive the story. Thus, every time we interpret a story, we’re adding to its life, giving it new colour and relevance based on our individual nuances and idiosyncrasies.
This is why a single line of poetry could mean one thing to a woman in 1920s Accra, and something completely different to a millennial woman reading the same text in 2025. Our backgrounds, languages, and communities all shape what we see and feel when we encounter a story.
A single narrative can therefore spark reflection, rebellion, or recognition in entirely different ways depending on when, where, how it is encountered, and by whom. Together, these forces remind us that stories are alive, and they shift and adapt depending on who’s holding them, when they’re holding them, and the reason.
Think of your favorite book. Maybe you loved it for the way it made you feel seen, or maybe it challenged you to rethink something you thought you knew. That’s meaning in motion—linguistic precision giving rise to emotional recognition, which then becomes insight.
Stories work on us in ways we often don’t notice until long after we’ve closed the book.
Stories as Mirrors and Maps
The stories we love most often mirror our own complexities back to us. They show us what we fear, what we desire, and who we might become. For women especially, stories can offer a kind of reclamation—a way to see beyond the narrow scripts society has written for us.
In reading and writing, we practice naming ourselves on our own terms. We reject silence, we rewrite narratives, we make space for contradictions and truth.
When we engage deeply with literature, we also engage deeply with ourselves.
We become more attuned to the language that shapes our inner worlds—the words we use to describe our lives, our choices, our worth. In this way, literature becomes both a mirror and a map: reflecting who we are while guiding us toward who we might yet become.
Living Authentically through Stories
To read or write with awareness is to live with awareness. It’s to recognise that meaning—whether in books or in life—is not something we’re handed; it’s something we co-create. By understanding how stories work, we begin to see how the stories about us—those told by culture, family, or fear—can be rewritten.
Authentic living, then, isn’t about escaping a narrative but embracing authorship. It’s about realising that, like any good story, our identities are layered, evolving, and open to interpretation. And perhaps that’s the greatest lesson literature offers: that we are both the reader and the writer of our own unfolding story.
