I have to admit that this text just seemed to go over my head. Everything I read just seemed to go around in circles. As much as I was dazed by the texts there were a few quotes that jumped out at me. One quote was "it may be asserted as a general rule that whenever a reader confronts two interpretations which impose different emphases on similar meaning components, at least one of the interpretations must be wrong"
So they say one opinion may be wrong but how do you know which one it is? The other thing that bugs me is that everyone always seems to have a different opinon of a poem. I have been in class discussions where three different people say that the poet is saying something different. Does that mean that two people are wrong and one person right. Unless there is evidence, how can any of these three people be wrong. Doesn't opinion matter. If only one answer is right, what is the point of discussing what is going on in the poem?
Hirsch also drove me mad. I understood most of what he said, but he always seemed to either contradict himself or try too hard to cover his own backside.
Posted by: Dave Moio at February 6, 2007 10:57 PMIt is not necessarily who is right and who is wrong, Sue, but more of what is important to the meaning of the text. Overall, our interpretation is important, but one has to look at the intent behind the literature in some cases. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a manic depressive who was struggling with life, and committed suicide when she was 75. There should be no way that we cannot make a relation between the character in her story and Gilman herself. I become more and more of a believer that the woman committed suicide at the end of the story, mainly because of Gilman's life, along with the context clues, and the concept that John would not faint unless he saw his wife hanging from a rope in that disgusting room.
Posted by: Jason Pugh at February 8, 2007 11:50 AM