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Something else that i must add to my posts on art is that art can also show us possibility or inspire us. Speculative fictions, such as Star Trek, can show us a better or different vision of the future. A possible fourth category, although it could possibly be subsumed by the first category, is cathartic fiction. Cathartic fiction is a realm where we can express or explore antisocial desires and feelings and impulses. I think a lot of video games would fall under this category, games like Grand Theft Auto which give you total freedom. In a society we are constantly constrained, obligated, and compromised. Cathartic fictions allows us a level of freedom that is impossible in society. Still, I think cathartic fictions fall under the first category, because ultimately the catharsis is a form of pleasure.
Ultimately, these categories are ideals. Writers create for a multitude of reasons; passion for their craft, desire for recognition, prestige, fame-seeking, a search for truth or beauty. Every writer must make compromises, and every writer is subject to the economic, political, and social structure which he creates. Dickens didn't write the stories in the precise way he wanted to tell them, but in a way that was compromised by things such as the structure of publishing, I.E. the serialization. Serializing forced him to be more wordy (because he was paid by the word) to have excess characters and descriptions and plot twists. Almost every classic writer probably had to make compromises, and if they hadn't, they would never have published and never have become classic authors.
In art, we can discover our sphere of freedom. We compromised and constrained in our interactions with others, in our daily lives in society, but in our hearts and minds and souls we can experience freedom, and art is the catalyst to liberation, the guide to the universe of freedom.
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