There was another aspect about our discussion that got on my nerves. As we were leaving class Mr. Mullins said most of the groups' protagonist/ antagonist theories were wrong. In books that are contain ambiguous parts or indeterminate endings, how can anyone be sure their specific interpretation is correct? The only way to truly know is to ask the author. I feel that it is unfair to say that our interpretation was wrong just because it is not the most widely accepted interpretation. Now, some interpretations are just completely off topic and ridiculous, and I understand why those interpretations are not widely accepted. However, I think if someone has enough support to back up their interpretation, then it should be acceptable.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Ambiguous Stories
Last English class we discussed the short stories "The Child by Tiger" by Thomas Wolfe and "The Destructors" by Graham Greene. Both of these stories contain characters with ambiguous motives. In "The Child by Tiger" we never figured out why Dick Prosser went off on a killing spree, and in "The Destructors" we never figured out Trevor's reason for destroying Old Misery's house. That bothers me quite a lot! I'm accustomed to everything being laid out clearly in books, but this is just totally different. I understand what both of the authors were trying to do; they want their readers to use their imagination and determine the motives of those characters. Maybe I have trouble with this because I don't have a big imagination and I'm not very creative.
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If I did use the word "wrong," I apologize as that was not my intention. I think it was the next class (which may have been after you wrote this) that I explained my point.
ReplyDeleteThe groups that analyzed either Blackie or the gang of boys as the protagonist were anything but wrong. Those pespectives are valid, acceptable, and totally supportable. However, my point was that if we use Trevor as the protagonist, he is the MOST supportable (using all the the details of the story for a unified vision) AND the conflict and theme that perspective creates allows us to engage in the MOST complex and interesting analysis of the story.
It's all about "going beyond the obvious," as I've been saying in class. The first two perspectives are valid, but they leave the reader a little short on things he/she can do with the analysis.
Thank you for your explanation, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my blog. I am more of a math and science person so it is hard for me to grasp that there can be so many different interpretations of the same text, and that they can all be correct.
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