The power of interpretation
Thought I'd put this in as a discussion opener;
The literary theorist, Roland Barthes once said something along the lines of ;
Quote: A narrative is finally assembled not in the mind of the writer but in the mind of the reader.
(Quote paraphrased from memory.)
Do you ever find yourself reading a fiction book and forming a clear impression of what it was about then discussing it with someone else later and finding you had a whole different interpretation to theirs? (ie: what the theme was, which characters points of view were portrayed as positive/negative etc, what the motifs and symbology of the narrative were etc.)
Would you say this is because;
1) Interpretations are always subjective and personal in nature because of what we personally bring to the book as readers
2) The author's perspective isn't the final or indeed only perspective and should not be assumed to be so
3) Modern literature by its very nature leaves us with an ambivalence as to what the story's true meaning is
4) with the recent (last 25 years) obsession with TV and its often 'soundbite' delivery, we're losing the ability to delve into the deeper layers of literature and are giving books only a superficial reading
5) any one of a zillion other reasons
I'd like to hear some of your thoughts
Edited by: Sanduleak at: 1/14/02 9:36:08 am
andyarmi Traveller in the arts
Posts: 1
(1/14/02 12:36 am) Reply
Re: The power of interpretation
Hi Sanduleak
All the points you make are valid about the ambivalence of the text. I'll try and add to your starting-point. Barthes' essay 'The Death of the Author' (in Image, Music Text) and his book S/Z are probably the best references for this theory.
What I understand is that Barthes is using Saussure's earlier linguistic distinction between the word (the signifier) and the mental image provoked by the word (the signified) which are subjectively linked by the reader/hearer in the mind. Barthes simply applies this theory to the text - which is a chain of significations, and thus provokes 'meanings' that are even more subjective.
As soon as the author writes something it is no-longer under his control. Once the text has been deployed upon the page it is no longer the author who is speaking but language. Only LANGUAGE SPEAKS. But language cannot operate without the reader - it is simply a bunch of signs on a page. Whilst these signs may be arranged skillfully by the author - the MEANING only exists in the readers' mind/s. Each word we use has a history, each sentence/chapter/novel is a mixture of sayings and writings - the author is simply mixing them. Our understanding and experience of language affects the way we interpret these words, and also the way we link certain parts of a text - discerning a reoccurring motif, putting together a cubist portrait of a given character from the sections throughout the novel that refer to him/her.
Looking at meaning residing in language. A rock is not a stone - because we have two words to distinguish these two objects. These two words produce our experience of their reality. If the word 'stone' did not exist then we would not recognise the difference - we might have to describe them as two rocks, or a rock and a 'small rock.' Furthermore 'Rock' means one thing to a musician and another thing to a geologist. So our access to reality exists only through language and signs. The meaning is drawn from the words, and the meaning we derive from language depends upon the other words that compliment or contradict each other, that are available, and that we associate with a given word.
So if I write "the farmer had a large c o c k" there are
at least two meanings the reader could find and both could be right or wrong. I mean, how big is 'large'?
Interesting post. Thanks. For me there are two parts to the subject that we can explore; the meaning (in terms of the relationship between signifier/signified) of the structure of the language itself and the meaning (in terms of how the reader relates to and understands the characters and their motivations and the 'theme' of the narrative as a whole.)
1) The structure of language.
The key point about signifiers is that they are in fact always subjective, contextual and in fact arbitrary. The sound image (in Saussurian terms) rock which we automatically associate with the aggregation of solid matter composed of one or more of the minerals forming the earth’s crust only forms that association because someone somewhere pointed to the object and made a sound which then comes down to us by the cultural osmosis that feeds our language structure. Signifiers, even onomatopoeic ones, are still just arbitrary associative devices that someone came up with.
Written language is simply a more sophisticated series of notations than the puerily pictorial ones that make up paintings of deer and hunters on the walls of neolithic caves.
(As an aside, it's because of the arbitrary (and evolving) nature of language that I'm always amused when someone rails against neologisms with the "that's not a real word!" argument.)
2) The reader's interpretation of the meaning of the events in the narrative. The 'meaning' in human terms, the ' why of it'.
Even if we were to agree of some absolute relationship between signifier and signified, the meaning of the story itself always resides in the realm of subjectivity for the simple reason that the author and reader and two different people and bring elements of their own history to the text. In modern fiction (since the time of Joyce, say) characters' motivations have not automatically been made explicit and are subject to the speculations of the reader. So too the world 'outside the border of the canvas' (to paraphrase Michael Ondaatje.)
Quote: As soon as the author writes something it is no-longer under his control.
I agree. I also posit that the author should not particularly concern themselves with this issue, at least not as a negative, as it is one of the fascinations of fiction and indeed all 'art'. My personal take on Roland Barthes' position that "a narrative is finally assembled not in the mind of the writer but in the mind of the reader" is that this very phenomena is what gives the text its ultimate contextual relevance and even its richness.
In this form, the reader doesn't just read a book, they experience it, in the same way they experience a day or a week, with all the accumulated signs and images that are commited to (and generated from) memory, both individual and cultural. And motifs and symbols (from a read text) are allocated greater or lesser significance and variation of meaning in the same way we interpret the information garnered by all our senses in the everday.
~~~
Quote: How big is large?
Fisseha Traveller in the arts
Posts: 1
(9/13/03 12:02 am) Reply
Re: The power of interpretation
Hello,
I'm very much interested but unfortunately not have a formal training in literary theory. I just thought I would benefit from this forum, for which reason I posted this message.
Quote:As soon as the author writes something it is no-longer under his control.
And yet, one must bear in mind that:
Quote:Works signify their author, but [though] indirectly, in the third person
, as Levinas has it to say. Indeed,
Quote:The Other signals himself but doesnot present himself. The works symbolize him. ... Absolutely speaking, the interpretation of the symbol can assuredly lead to an intention divined; but we penetrate into this interior world as by burglary and without conjuring the absence. ... The author of the work, approached from the work, will be present only as a content.
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