Misreading Books and Movies

September 20, 2005 8:45 AM

Many people, including myself, read personal observations and see references to current events in literature that do not reflect the authors thinking on a subject. An example is the Robert Frost poem Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening as being a reflection on suicide. Frost has denied that this was his reference. Some current book and movie viewers and some reviewers also see references to current United States politics in current books and movies. Revenge of the Siths and the latest Harry Potter novel are examples. What is this called? Can it be recognized when someone is putting spin on a work that the author/director never intended?
posted by Raybun to media & arts (35 comments total)

Intentional fallacy?
posted by the cuban at 8:48 AM on September 20, 2005

It's not spin, it's interpretation. A work can take on a meaning that the author didn't intend. There may be parallels between the work and contemporary or historical events that the author wasn't aware of, or knowledge of the events could subconciously influence the author's creative process. If most people interpret "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening " as being about suicide, it is about suicide, regardless of what Frost intended for it to be about. I think this is called "received meaning," but I can't find a cite.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:54 AM on September 20, 2005

Interpretation?

I mean, there are various schools of literary criticism that point out that this is a natural outcome of works surviving past their author's lifetimes, and is not really a bad thing.

Most Shakespeare productions, for example, would suffer if we were allowed to only use Shakespeare's cultural references. Mainly because we wouldn't find them as relevant to our own lives.
posted by occhiblu at 8:55 AM on September 20, 2005

Many modern literary theorists would argue that the author isn not an authority on his/her own work.

It's a defensible point of view. If there are connections to be drawn between Harry Potter and the US politics, then the relevance/significance of such connections are there regardless of authorial intention.
posted by yesster at 8:56 AM on September 20, 2005

Jinx, kirkaracha.
posted by occhiblu at 8:56 AM on September 20, 2005

Requisite wikipedia entry on authorial intentionality.
posted by goatdog at 8:58 AM on September 20, 2005

(You might want to check out Barthes' "Death of the Author" for background -- I know postmodern theory has been beaten up, but a number of its less-controversial premises, including the idea that the reader has as much interpretive input into a text as the author, are worth checking out.)
posted by occhiblu at 8:58 AM on September 20, 2005

Also, authors aren't always honest about, or even aware of, their own intentions. Sure, Frost said the poem wasn't about suicide, but what if it really was, and he didn't want to admit it? Or what if the idea of suicide was bouncing around in his subconscious when he wrote the poem? I found a bunch of my old college notebooks a while back, and was shocked to see how, um, vaginal many of the marginal doodles were. I surely didn't mean them to be, but, wow, it was pretty clear what was on my mind.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:02 AM on September 20, 2005

It's called lots of things. But first, to clarify: what you, Raybun, are doing is sometimes called the intentional fallacy, which is when you interpret a work based upon what you think the author 'intended.' In fact it is often very hard to know what an author intended, or even what intention means in creative work. That doesn't mean you can't try!--It just means that, even though Robert Frost says the poem isn't about suicide, that doesn't mean the poem isn't about suicide. It just means that Robert Frost said that in some interview.

Meanwhile, there are two terms that I think could apply to what you're describing. One is "symptomatic reading." This is when you read an artwork as though you were a doctor looking for hidden diagnostic clues -- you think of the artwork as a 'sympton of culture' (to quote Marjorie Garber). So in this way, you could say that "Godzilla" is about atomic warfare, even if the filmmakers weren't specifically planning to make a movie about atom bombs, since atom bombs were on the collective Japanese mind around the time "Godzilla" was made. Same goes for, say, "The Blob" as a movie made during the Cold War era--it reflects anxiety about Communism.

Another term that might apply is "reading against the grain," which some critics of art use to describe the type of interpretation that seems to go against the obvious (or seemingly obvious) intentions of the artists. A good example of this might be the occasionally bandied-about idea that "Top Gun" is actually a gay romance.

But, more generally, I think that kirkaracha has it: it's not spin or misreading, it's just interpretation. You can argue against that interpretation by pointing to what's in the artwork, but not by saying that you know the author intended it the other way. Usually an artowrk can be understood lots of ways without bending its meaning too much.
posted by josh at 9:05 AM on September 20, 2005

You mean "Top Gun" isn't a gay romance?
posted by goatdog at 9:11 AM on September 20, 2005

I'd say that when the critic's interpretation is published, it becomes projection.
posted by luriete at 9:12 AM on September 20, 2005

In keeping with MrMoonPie's train of thought, requisite wikipedia entry on New Criticism. Some authors are quite dishonest about the origins of their work. More modern forms of literary criticism are good tools to have in one's pocket.

on preview, goatdog sort of beat me to it.
posted by hototogisu at 9:19 AM on September 20, 2005

FYI, George Lucas said that he wrote Revenge of the Sith with current US politics in mind.
posted by trey at 9:43 AM on September 20, 2005

Actually, Stopping By Woods is easily interpreted as Frost's musings on his closeted homosexuality. He knows his friend is gay, but "his house is in the village." His woods (here, pubic hair) fill up with snow (semen). The woods are "lovely" (a decidedly gay choice of adjective), and "promises to keep" and "miles to go" are reasons to stay closeted.
posted by KRS at 9:53 AM on September 20, 2005

When I was in college, I was originally annoyed by just this sort of thing. Once, at a film screening, after the maker explained what the meaning was, the head of the film department said "I disagree, this is what it meant..."

Later, I came to appreciate that different people can see different meanings in things, While it doesn't help understanding overall, I think it makes art more interesting and personal. If something was only about exactly what the author intended it to be, we would rarely be able to internalize meaning for ourselves.
posted by drezdn at 9:55 AM on September 20, 2005

Wait. I've read Frost's 'Snowy Evening' so many times I practically have it memorized. Not once did it occur to me that the poem might be about suicide. Can someone explain?
posted by driveler at 9:58 AM on September 20, 2005

Authors have also been known to go back to their own works later and find meanings in there they didn't consciously put in. Just like with everything we do, we don't always have a perfect sense of where our reactions are coming from. So claiming that an author has a perfect understanding of his or her own work can be misleading.

As drezdn points out, too, art really only becomes great if it resonates with many people. Otherwise it's really just a memoire or chronicle of the artist. Great art should be more of a conversation.
posted by occhiblu at 10:01 AM on September 20, 2005

Also, consider the parable of the blind men and the elephant:

In the farthest reaches of the desert there was a city in which all the people were blind. A king and his army were passing through that region, and camped outside the city. The king had with him a great elephant, which he used for heavy work and to frighten his enemies in battle. The people of the city had heard of elephants, but never had the opportunity to know one. Out rushed 6 young men, determined to discover what the elephant was like.

The first young man, in his haste, ran straight into the side of the elephant. He spread out his arms and felt the animal's broad, smooth side. He sniffed the air, and thought, "This is an animal, my nose leaves no doubt of that, but this animal is like a wall." He rushed back to the city to tell of his discovery.

The second young blind man, feeling through the air, grasped the elephant's trunk. The elephant was surprised by this, and snorted loudly. The young man, startled in turn, exclaimed, "This elephant is like a snake, but it is so huge that its hot breath makes a snorting sound." He turned to run back to the city and tell his tale.

The third young blind man walked into the elephant's tusk. He felt the hard, smooth ivory surface of the tusk, listened as it scraped through the sand, then as the elephant lifted the tusk out, he could feel its pointed tip. "How wonderful!" he thought. "The elephant is hard and sharp like a spear, and yet it makes noises and smells like an animal!" Off he ran.

The fourth young blind man reached low with his hands, and found one of the elephant's legs. He reached around and hugged it, feeling its rough skin. Just then, the elephant stomped that foot, and the man let go. "No wonder this elephant frightens the king's enemies," he thought. "It is like a tree trunk or a mighty column, yet it bends, is very strong, and strikes the ground with great force." Feeling a little frightened himself, he fled back to the city.

The fifth young blind man found the elephant's tail. "I don't see what all the excitement is about," he said. "The elephant is nothing but a frayed bit of rope." He dropped the tail and ran after the others.

The sixth young blind man was in a hurry, not wanting to be left behind. He heard and felt the air as it was pushed by the elephant's flapping ear, then grasped the ear itself and felt its thin roughness. He laughed with delight. "This wonderful elephant is like a living fan." And, like the others, he was satisfied with his quick first impression and headed back to the city.

But finally, an old blind man came. He had left the city, walking in his usual slow way, content to take his time and study the elephant thoroughly. He walked all around the elephant, touching every part of it, smelling it, listening to all of its sounds. He found the elephant's mouth and fed the animal a treat, then petted it on its great trunk. Finally he returned to the city, only to find it in an uproar. Each of the six young men had acquired followers who eagerly heard his story. But then, as the people found that there were six different contradictory descriptions, they all began to argue. The old man quietly listened to the fighting. "It's like a wall!" "No, it's like a snake!" "No, it's like a spear!" "No, it's like a tree!" "No, it's like a rope!" "No, it's like a fan!"

The old man turned and went home, laughing as he remembered his own foolishness as a young man. Like these, he once hastily concluded that he understood the whole of something when he had experienced only a part. He laughed again as he remembered his greater foolishness of once being unwilling to discover truth for himself, depending wholly on others' teachings. But he laughed hardest of all as he realized that he had become the only one in the city who did not know what an elephant is like.
posted by driveler at 10:17 AM on September 20, 2005

March of the Conservatives: Penguin Film as Political Fodder:
"March of the Penguins," the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing."
posted by matildaben at 10:28 AM on September 20, 2005

lovely" (a decidedly gay choice of adjective)

Holy Crap! I didn't know parts of speech had sexual preferences. Learn something new every day. I heart AxeMe!
posted by grateful at 10:35 AM on September 20, 2005

Authors tend to leave things intentionally vague and therefore welcome different interpretations. For example Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway never explicitly talks about abortion, but it is without question discussing the hardships involved with abortion. "Hemingway’s aesthetic theory . . . stated that omitting the right thing from a story could actually strengthen it. Hemingway equated this theory with the structure of an iceberg where only 1/8 of the iceberg could be seen above water while the remaining 7/8 under the surface provided the iceberg’s dignity of motion and contributed to its momentum." I was also taught that Frost's poem was about suicide, but did not know that he denied this.
posted by pwally at 10:40 AM on September 20, 2005

The important point is this: an author's commentary on the meaning of a text is extra-textual, which makes it an additional, competing interpretation, and one that, itself, is subject to interpretation. If you want something to mean what you want it to mean, don't write it down: and perhaps not even that's enough, paging Dr Freud.

(This came up a little bit when Stanley Fish wrote a piece on 'original intent' in the context of the Supreme Court.)

What's it called if you read something into a text that wasn't explicitly put there by the author? It's called 'reading'. There's a reason why classical models of literary or poetic inspiration regard the author as a medium rather than an originator.
posted by holgate at 10:42 AM on September 20, 2005

In all fairness, academics and critics also research first drafts, where Frost had written, "The woods are fabulous, taupe, and deep..."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:46 AM on September 20, 2005

You mean 'Top Gun' isn't a gay romance?

Well, it is, in Quentin Tarentino's interpretation:

It is a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man. You've got Maverick, all right? He's on the edge, man. He's right on the fucking line, all right? And you've got Iceman, and all his crew. They're gay, they represent the gay man, all right? And they're saying, go, go the gay way, go the gay way. He could go both ways.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:51 AM on September 20, 2005

Elephants by Hemingway never explicitly talks about abortion, but it is without question discussing the hardships involved with abortion.

This seems silly to me. He never explicitly talks about abortion, but it is WITHOUT QUESTION a discussion about abortion? Presumably you mean that when MOST people read this it, their minds will conjure up ideas, thoughts and feelings about abortion. But what if someone doesn't. Surely he's not wrong. He's just eccentric. If the work doesn't actually mention abortion, how can you prove to him that it's ABOUT abortion?
posted by grumblebee at 11:54 AM on September 20, 2005

eisegesis.
posted by goethean at 11:55 AM on September 20, 2005

The darkest evening of the year...
To ask if there is some mistake...
The woods are lovely dark and deep...
and miles to go before I sleep...

The darkness and snow, while not necessarily indicative of suicidal intentions, certainly represent something other than light, and fire, and warmth. To admire, or perhaps prefer, the darkness and snow, to enjoy them as a preference, is a reversal of normal experience.

While not suicidal specifically, there is an element of nihilism. The loveliness of the dark, cold woods has a lure that is not the normal human impulse... in literature we've consistently used dark and cold as words to describe death, loss, the rejection of human or humanistic impulse...

Many of Frost's poems can be summed up as "I really like nature." Some of his poems though have a definite nihilism or antihumanism or darkness to them, "I have outwalked the furthest city light", "so dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay", and perhaps the most damning, "I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great, and would suffice."

There's more than an admiration of nature in Frost's work.
posted by ewkpates at 1:15 PM on September 20, 2005

See also. (at least the second half, that mentions Stanley Fish).
posted by kimota at 2:14 PM on September 20, 2005

ewkpates, I am not saying you are wrong, but your reading of Frost's poem is full of assumptions:

To admire, or perhaps prefer, the darkness and snow, to enjoy them as a preference, is a reversal of normal experience.

Are you sure? Most people that I know find BOTH warms/indoors and danger/outdoors alluring in different ways.

While not suicidal specifically, there is an element of nihilism ... in literature we've consistently used dark and cold as words to describe death, loss, the rejection of human or humanistic impulse

You're assuming that I play a sort of comp lit game when I read Frost's poem; that I compare it to other writings and interpret it as a member of a group (and compare it to other members of the group). I don't necessarily do that.

There's more than an admiration of nature in Frost's work.

I don't necessarily care about Frost's work. I care about this poem, and I don't care who wrote it or what else he has written.

Throughout the history of literary criticism, there have been all sorts of pendulum swings towards and away from intent; towards and away from comparison; towards and away from biography; towards and away from history/culture.

But in the end, does any of this matter? It matters if you're trying to pass a test in someone's lit class. Then you'd better play by his rules. But beyond that, you'll interpret the poem the way you interpret the poem. You can't interpret it the wrong way. Your interpretation may be, at worst, quirky, but it can never be wrong. It's YOUR interpretation.
posted by grumblebee at 2:14 PM on September 20, 2005

Also, a term that hasn't been explicitly mentioned: reader response. (Just for the sake of being somewhat comprehensive.)
posted by kimota at 2:17 PM on September 20, 2005

(I thought I read that Lucas said he developed the Star Wars story arc in the late 60s/ early 70s and was influenced by the Cold War and spread of fascism. The fact that it ended up paralleling current events was coincindental, although not uninteresting.)
posted by achmorrison at 3:51 PM on September 20, 2005

Um, grumblebee, the story never mentions abortion, but it is quite clearly about abortion, at least to any adult reader. This is, however, clearly Hemingway's intent -- abortion is something not talked about. It isn't the same thing as reading something into a work that the author did not intend.

My favorite story along these lines is Isaac Asimov's anecdote about his story Nightfall. He was invited to an academic discussion of the story, listened for some time as students propounded various interpretations, and finally objected that he had never meant any of those things. The professor smiled, and asked him, "What makes you think that just because you're the author, you know what it's about?" Asimov didn't have a response.

That said, there's actually a value in an intentional misreading, and not just ironic, as Tarantino with Top Gun. Reading "Woods" with suicide in mind makes you reframe every line and look at it in a different way. You question the very basis for the common-wisdom interpretation, and probably do yourself some good by at least stretching your mental muscles. That said, it's not good to go too far with an exercise like that. For myself, "Woods" is not so much about nature as about being away from civilization -- villages, friends, and "promises". As such, a suicide interpretation isn't that far over the line; in fact it's probably closer than the "traditional" idyllic interpretation given to schoolchildren for recitals.
posted by dhartung at 5:02 PM on September 20, 2005

Personally, I take a Thomas Kuhn-style line on these questions: while it isn't possible to have a definitively right answer to the question "what is this artwork 'about,'" it is possible to have a clearly and definitively wrong answer.
posted by josh at 6:39 PM on September 20, 2005

It could be argued that we find things in literature that the authors didn't consciously intend to put there simply because, well, the world is a fairly small place in many ways and there are only so many things to write about.

Take "Snowy Evening" as an example. Frost doesn't think he was writing about suicide. Okay, fine. But what if, instead, he was writing about the desire for rest, the need for an escape from drudgery and fear? Well, maybe the desire to commit suicide is more or less the same as the desire to escape drudgery and fear, and Frost just doesn't know this because he hasn't ever been suicidal.

Or take the Star Wars example. Lucas is doing films about an evil empire. Well, there have been countless empires over the course of history. And empires have certain characteristics, act in certain ways. So every story about an empire is fairly likely to have something in common with every other story about an empire.

And of course, people tend to write about the same types of things. Death. Power struggles. Good vs. evil. You know the drill.
posted by Clay201 at 1:40 AM on September 21, 2005

I'm sorry to be blunt grumblebee, but you are just wrong. You don't have a right to an opinion or a perspective. You have a right to defend these things... but not maintain them by default.

Communication occurs in a context. That context contributes to a greater or lesser degree to the meaning of the communication. With writers this is even more the case, because good writers not only communicate in the context of their own work and their own times, but in the context of literature itself as well.

You can "not care" what else a writer has written, or even "not care" about literature at all. If you want a basic understanding, let alone an understanding of the arguments of more than one particular position, you have to care.

I've found that those with little education like to claim that meaning can't be objective, that understanding is a mine field that we can't possibly cross. This is just silliness.

I find it particularly painful, and ironic, that it is a beautifully self limiting kind of silliness.

I can see a church by daylight, cousin.
posted by ewkpates at 9:58 AM on September 21, 2005