When we study English Literature and read books in depth and study every single sentence and its possible meanings and the symbolism and metaphors and foreshadowing of them, do you authors actually intend for them to be seen as that? I’ve heard students say so many times that they can’t possibly mean that because it’s so in depth that the teacher is making up the meanings of a story that weren’t intended. But, do you? are they intended?

Sunday, February 19, 2012

turnippy asked: When we study English Literature and read books in depth and study every single sentence and its possible meanings and the symbolism and metaphors and foreshadowing of them, do you authors actually intend for them to be seen as that? I've heard students say so many times that they can't possibly mean that because it's so in depth that the teacher is making up the meanings of a story that weren't intended. But, do you? are they intended?

1. It doesn’t matter if the meaning was intended. The job of reading is not to uncover what the author intended to say. Reading is an exercise in empathy and also an opportunity to think about the big questions of human history: What are our obligations to one another? How does the social order in which we live shape our understanding of ourselves? What ought we value? What constitutes a noble life? Can we construct meaning in human life while still acknowledging the universe’s apparent apathy toward us? What does it mean to love another, and what do we owe those we love? Is it different from our obligations to those we don’t love? What are the consequences of an unexamined life?

Those are interesting questions, and reading fiction critically is a way into them. So when you are looking at the green light in Gatsby, the question is not whether Fitzgerald intended that as a symbol; the question is whether the symbol can bring us to a place where we can have more interesting thoughts about the human condition.

2. Generally, I think that yes, authors intend their books to stand up to critical reading, even on a sentence-by-sentence basis. (You have to remember, authors spend a lot more time—a lot more—with a story then a reader does. Like, even if you spend two weeks in class thinking about Gatsby, you can rest assured Fitzgerald spent a lot more time thinking about it.) But again, I don’t really think it matters.