On page 16 of The Theory Toolbox, the author states that to call a work “authored” means that it “…offers a maximal amount of interpretative ambiguity or possibility.” Consider a work you have enjoyed and that you believe could be interpreted in multiple ways. How did you interpret it? How do you believe others may have interpreted it? Do you believe this “interpretative ambiguity” contributed to its validity as a work?
ENGL 299 | Intro to English Studies
Dr. Myra Seaman | Spring 2017
While reading the section “Author/ity”, of “The Theory Toolbox”, I thought that the focus on power that the author hold within Literature very insightful. Popular work that I personally enjoyed was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby”. I have read this novel for my own pleasure and classroom purposes and overall I believe readers come to the general consensus that the novel covers the side effects of what is considered to be the “American Dream”. Despite this, there is a element within the novel that has caused great debate between my friends and classmates; this regards Daisy’s, Gatsby’s love interest’s, motivations, behavior, and the significance of this in the novel. From my interpretation of the text, Daisy’s decisions were motivated by her social environment and limited by the social constraints in her era. The opposing interpretation of Daisy’s behavior in the text revolves around greed and indifference. For this example, I think the point made on page 16, ” ‘authored’ in an academic sense seems to be to say that it offers a maximal amount of interpretative ambiguity or possibility”, can be found in the various ways little things in the texts can be interpreted whether or not they relate to the overall meaning of the work. I do believe that “interpretative ambiguity” among the character’s motivations may be one of the reasons that “The Great Gatsby” is a studied piece of Literature.
I was very interested in this section of “The Theory Toolbox”, because it did make me think about the different ways I have interpreted books and how I have interpreted them differently than some of my friends and fellow classmates. For example, I loved reading “The Epic of Gilgamesh” in high school. It made me think the idea of coming out of innocence and how tainted the “real world” can make even the most pure of souls. But it was also a testament of relationships and pride. All of this ran through my head in each page and each chapter made me think of how this epic is a representation of many different things that can connect many different people. As the authors of “The Theory Toolbox” quote Paul Auster on page 16 from this book “Leviathan, “A book is a mysterious object…an once it floats into the world, anything can happen”. Books can be interpreted in various different ways and there can really never be one “right” way to do so. What we get out of books is our own, no matter how different it is from someone else.
The Author of the passage on authority was meaningfully ambiguous in their definition as an assertion that the power derived from a text is its ambiguity. One such work that I have read, was Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” The text mentions the true nature of the procedure only once, and the rest of the text could be analyzed differently. With the inclusion of the line “it’s a simple procedure, really… just letting a little air in” it is revealed that the topic is abortion. Throughout my class, besides those that looked up the authorial intention, everyone read the story with a different meaning, from people going to rehab to a lobotomy. As far as the validity of the work, in the end, I believe with the close reading, there is only one meaning to the work. Hemingway simply utilizes the iceberg principle to make the text more believable, with the characters bashfully skirting around the elephant in the room.
This question reminds me of a poem discussed in my ENGL 202 class last semester . The poem, “The Eve of St Agnes” by John Keats involves a young man and woman in a “Romeo & Juliet” styled forbidden love. The man sneaks into his lover’s room and hides in a closet to be the man she awakes to after dreaming of St. Agnes; a legend that a woman will dream of her future husband on this evening. While in the closet he watches her undress and pray before going to sleep. Now, my interpretation was to take it literally as the author’s intent to present a romantic encounter between the two young lover’s. However, another classmate thought the man’s actions were disingenuous and his presence in the closet was “creepy”. This small example elaborates on how an author “functions as a guarantee of meaning,” even if the intentions are clear or not (16).
I read the Divergent series (I know what you’re thinking) and interpreted the character Peter, completely different then a lot of other people seemed too. A lot of people hated him because he was pretty mean and self centered. But I liked him for some weird reason; He seemed like he was trying too hard to present himself the way he was. Later on in the series I learned more about his past, and it made more sense as to why he acted the way that he did. After that, more people seemed to like him. I do think it’s interpretive ambiguity contributes to it’s validity of the work. I think when a work makes you think, and question why things occurred the way that they did, or why characters are the way that they are, that it’s doing what its supposed to.