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

Comments

[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...