Emily asks, "who’s to say preconceived ideas are a bad thing? These ideas make up who we are, and can make a text more meaningful."
This makes sense to me; it would surely be impossible to come to a text with NO relevant preconceived ideas, and if we did, we would presumably be so stumped by the text that it would essentially meaningless.
But it's easy to imagine preconceived ideas which do interfere with a reasonable interpretation. I'm reminded of the Kit Ramsay character (played by Eddie Murphy) in _Bowfinger_, who counts the number of Ks in scripts; if the total number is divisible by 3, then that's a sign that the script is racist (because the script contains lots of KKKs).
So what counts as a "legitimate" preconceived idea to bring to a text, and what counts as an illegitimate one?
Wes
5 comments:
I'm sure Peter Barry would pounce on me for this statement, but I think any preconceived idea is legitimate if consideration is given toward a context of some sort.
Barry contends that preconceived ideas get between the reader and the text. I cannot imagine simply diving into and appreciating a text like Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," for example, without taking into account the civil rights movement in its social and historical contexts.
Understanding a text like Joyce's "Dubliners" may also prove futile if the reader does not consider Dublin, Ireland in a socio-political context.
With that said, perhaps an illegitimate preconceived idea is one that does not at least consider context. Is it even possible for us to not consider context when reading literature? My answer is no, as I think we've simply been conditioned to do so.
I would have to throw in agreement with Marcus when he writes: “Is it even possible for us to not consider context when reading literature? My answer is no, as I think we've simply been conditioned to do so.”
We need to be able to consider the context (my definition being geared more towards the author’s socio-political environment) of a particular text if we are to acquire a deeper meaning from it. Text may have meaning by itself but a deeper meaning can be gained through understanding the author’s world and what would have influence him or her to write what they did: like James Joyce’s Dubliners or Charles Chestnut The Wife of his Youth written during the Harlem Renaissance. Every text and every writer is influenced by his or her environment.
I also agree with what I think Megan said about Barry's tenet that critics form a bridge between the readers and the text. Readers will have their own interpretations of the text. Of course, since literature and reading both do not occur in a vacuum, they will be influenced and biased due to their own preconceived notions and expectations.
Emily Franzen
To Marcus--ANY preconceived idea? So if I acknowledge the context of conflict between the English and the Irish--thereby giving consideration to a context of some sort for "The Dead"--it is OK if I come to the text with the preconceived idea that the appearance of arbitrary combinations of letters determine the text's "secret meaning"? In this case, I count all the combinations of "SF" (for Sinn Fein) and "RB" (for Rule Britannia); if there are more SFs, then "The Dead" is Irish nationalist propaganda; if there are more RBs, then the story is an justification of British rule. You really want to grant the legitimacy of that argument?
One way to start wriggling out of my trap: there is a difference between establishing a minimum condition for a legitimate reading (such as taking historical context into account) and establishing a boundary condition beyond which a legitimate reading cannot go. So if you wouldn't want to defend my "counting letters" reading above, what's wrong with it? What boundary have I crossed?
Wes
I think the way to avoid preconceived ideas that have no basis in the text and could give an unintended interpretation is to approach a first reading of a text with as few preconceived notions and expectations as possible. That way, one can absorb the plot and start to develop ideas about the text and possible hidden meanings based mainly on historical context and the text itself.
When the readers go back over it to search out the hidden meanings, the hunt can take place with a handle on the text. In the Dead, there is no point where SF's and RB's show up obviously, but references to snow, Irish politics, and self doubt are abundant.
Readers should not pick an arbitrary code to find in a text when the author had no intention of making such an obscure code. Even in a Freudian analysis of Joyce and the Dead, I doubt the unconscious could count letter combinations throughout the text.
The text should point the readers in a direction to understand the meaning. So, it is the reader’s obligation to be attentive to the text’s hidden meanings and the text’s obligation to give hints to the readers as to what should be analyzed and what is “just a cigar.”
I think preconceived ideas *define* the relationship between the reader and the text: these ideas are the resources for interpretation that the reader has, the ideas that the text must manipulate in some way in order to form a meaningful commentary (supportive or otherwise) to the reader.
They are, effectively, the culture that is shared, or perceived to be shared, between the reader and the text. Because literary interpretation relies upon systems as complex as language and culture --and, more importantly, our ability to utilize both of them in a constant process of comparison--the individual meanings we arrive at vary, and may even vary from the meanings each of us arrives at upon a later reading.
If society, via these systems of culture and language--convinced the Eddie Murphy character who counted Ks in scripts that his actions were ridiculous, or that he should use another method, he very well might use a different form a interpretation to determine the racially-centered intents of scripts, might change entirely what he was evaluating, etc.
A "legitimate" preconceived idea is one that helps you to interpret/analyze the text. A *useful* legitimate preconceived idea might be one that is held by a larger shared community (larger than your 'community of one,' at least).
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