Thursday, February 15, 2018

Wait, Why Not?

               When we went over Reader Response Theory in class this past week I began to be more and more curious about something. What is an interpretation that is typically non-refuted in a piece of classic literature that you disagree with? From Catherine Linton’s disputed ‘ghost’ in Wuthering Heights to the debate on whether Sethe’s baby in Beloved is a supernatural entity or a painful memory brought to life by surviving trauma in a terrible era; what is something that is generally interpreted that you just can’t get on board with?

               I’m mostly interested in this question because I think that when we are starting to really analyze literature at a young age we see interpretations that our teachers simply won’t let us disagree with. Is there only one correct interpretation within the view of Reader Response Theory? Has there been a time where you believe you have found irrefutable textual evidence of a theory and you have been put down because it isn’t “correct”?

Top Spinning GIF
Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/spinning-top-inception-9mmWez1yhWNXO

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