Women, fiction, and authorial intent. And Battlestar Galactica.

[prozacpark]

Between the end of "Battlestar Galactica" and the recent Classica discussions, I’ve been finding myself discussing and thinking about authorial intent…in terms of romantic arcs, entertainment value, etc. I mentioned before how I had issues with Ron’s reading of Kara in the finale, but then Karen analyzed the thing for me in a way that worked, and I

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[ariadnequinn]

Thanks...sorry for the delay. Between grades being due, preparing the students for a test (the first of the new marking period), and play practice, things have been insane...

The first thing I'd like to address is author intent (in general). It always bothered me when a teacher/professor told me that my interpretation of literature was wrong. "That's not what Shakespeare meant." Oh, really? Do you know Shakespeare? Have you had tea and crumpets with him and discussed "Hamlet"? No? Then, as long as I can back my position up...who the hell do you think you are? My interpretation is just as valid as anyone else's...and just because you're older/wiser/taken classes on this topic, it doesn't mean that you know everything about the text.

I can remember having that problem once in high school (the aforementioned "Hamlet" complaint), but that was far too long ago for me to remember my original point. Another instance occurred several years ago in my Medieval Literature class. We were reading "Beowulf," a book I had despised in high school but found an appreciation for in college. I vaguely remember trying to argue that Beowulf suffered from a tragic flaw (pride maybe?), and was thus doomed to fail/die. My professor told me I was wrong...but then I referred to several passages that proved my point. He still told me I was wrong, and made an opposing argument. I told him that I understood what he was saying, but I still didn't agree...and he just stood there, telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about and how dare I question his interpretation. The whole class was pretty much like, "Dude...she gets your point, but she disagrees...and she's backed up her opinion with the actual text. Let it go."

That brings me to a more recent occurrence (still quite a while ago) when I was reading "Anna Karenina." I hated that book. With a passion. But I had an amazing professor who I had a great deal of respect for, so I took as many classes with him as I could. Anyway, he was talking about the fact that Vronsky gets understandably sick of Anna because she becomes so clingy after she leaves her husband. Despite my personal feelings about the character, I couldn't agree with his assessment. The fact of the matter is that Vronsky can still go out and have a life - he can go to the theatre or play cards, or whatever else he wants to do - and she can't. Anna is shunned by society for her infidelity...she can barely leave her apartment due to the depth of people's scorn. One could make the argument that she would have become clingy no matter what, but the fact of the matter is that Vronsky is all that she has. Literally. She has given up everything to be with him...he has other outlets. She only has him. Of course she's going to become all obsessed and crazy. What do you expect? In this case, though, when I spoke up, the professor truly didn't get what I was trying to say, so I didn't get all bent out of shape about it.

To be continued in the next post (I went over the text limit. LOL)

[prozacpark]

Luckily, once I started college, I only had one professor who felt the need to point out that Milton didn't mean what I was reading into the text. Most of the professors I had let me run with whatever as long as I could support it. But yes: all readings should be equally valid given the text supports it. The thing is? Writers don't write in a vacuum, and because they're part of a culture and subscribe to mainstream and otherwise ideas, things creep into their fiction that they might not have intended. And I tend to believe that most of the problematic views of women we see in fiction result from exactly this: the writers not paying attention to exactly what's creeping into their words.

Also, I remember you mentioned that you hated Anna, the character, in another comment? And yet you can see past that hate to understand how the culture actually does have her at a disadvantage in this situation. Most people? Can't see past their like/dislike of a character to see what might be motivating them, and that is sort of reading into the text in different ways.

But that brings us back to women in literature/movies/TV. Did Tolstoy even realize what he had condemned Anna to, or did he just assume that any/every woman would react the same way, regardless of circumstance?

And yes: this is something I wonder about when it comes to authorial intent when reading canon texts. While I can mostly find women to like, there are times when it's impossible. And a lot of the time...you see bits of them that are likable, but you know the writer couldn't have meant it in a positive way, and then there's also a disconnect there in terms of what the author sees and what you're seeing.

[ariadnequinn]

Yes, I mentioned my distaste for Anna once before, although I'm not sure why I did...maybe you said something about it? Or perhaps it's because the AP English students in my school are reading that novel right now...

Anyway, it really bugs me when people can't get past their personal opinions about characters and step back to see the work as a whole. Anna bugged the hell out of me for many reasons (I really don't remember most of them - I haven't read it in a long, long time), but that doesn't mean that I automatically blame her for everything that happens to her...just like I wouldn't absolve a character I like from a wrongdoing. What makes these characters interesting is their complexity...