In class, this week, we focused on love letters–specifically love letters from World War II soldiers communicating with their loved ones back home. The love letter–or in this case, collection of love letters–that stuck out to me the most were from, My Dear Bessie: A Love Story in Letters. These letters stuck out to me because Chris and Bessie–the two communicating–fell in love with each other through their letters. Most of the letters we read were Chris writing to Bessie because Chris burned most of Bessie’s letters since Chris did not want anyone to see them. I found it interesting how despite not having many letters written by Bessie, it was still clear that Bessie loved Chris just as much as Chris loved her.
Reading My Dear Bessie caused me to reconsider how I view new communication-related technologies–such as texting. Of course, sending a text message is a lot faster than mailing a letter. However, the words in a letter are arguably more powerful and valuable than the words in a text. Since a letter that is mailed will take time to get to the recipient, the writer is more likely to carefully consider what to write. While I am not saying that we should entirely return to mailing letters instead of texting–because, in all honesty, that would be quite insane–it may not be a bad idea to mail a letter every now-and-then. After all, the ‘letter-mailing experience’ is positive for the sender and the receiver–the sender will be excited to hear back from the receiver and the receiver will be happily surprised to receive a letter, especially in these days, when it is quite a rare occurrence.
