Fictional works that have main characters with synesthesia and non-fiction books to non-specialist audiences reflect the condition's influence in popular culture and how non-synesthetes view it.
For example, Edgar Allan Poe physiologically incorrectly explained synesthesia via a connection between tympanum and retina.
In addition to its role in art, synesthesia has often been used as a plot device or as a way of developing a particular character's internal states.
Fyodor's synesthetic experience of language is compared to that of nineteenth-century French Symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud (as expressed in the latter's poem, Voyelles about the perception of colored vowel sounds).
For example, in the novel, The Whole World Over by Julia Glass, the character Saga experiences words as having color after she has an accident that causes a head trauma.
In the latter novel, the 13-year-old character, Mia loses her synesthesia after her beloved cat dies, but regains it after she works through the trauma.