Prompt: Instead of author’s opinions, readers should decide what a story means by closely reading the evidence in a short story. Do you agree or disagree?
Talk about loaded questions! This one can be argued, and in fact has been argued, convincingly in either direction. In “Some Words With a Mummy” Edgar Allen Poe maintains that readers (in particular critics) take too much liberty in interpreting/dissecting an author’s words to the point of completely distorting his meaning. “Resuming existence at the expiration of this time, he [the mummy/author] would invariably find his great work converted into a species of hap-hazard note-book—that is to say, into a kind of literary arena for the conflicting guesses, riddles, and personal squabbles of whole herds of exasperated commentators…so completely to have enveloped, distorted, and overwhelmed the text, that the author had to go about with a lantern to discover his own work.” Here the mummy is explaining the process of embalming philosophers alive with intention of periodically reviving them so that they may set straight the inevitable misinterpretations of their work during their decades at rest. Poe’s satirical tone, expressed through the voice of the mummy, is clearly a reflection of his frustration over this struggle between author and reader. Indeed, he intimates that even historical writing is unreliable, for despite the care authors may take in putting down accurate first-hand accounts of the traditions and culture of their time, no text is immune to the corruptive effects of readers’ opinions.
John Updike articulates a similar exasperation with the presumptuousness of readers. In response to a barrage of questions from readers asking for an explanation of his “meaning” behind various texts, Updike rebuffs the assumption that writers (in particular, writers of realism) must have a meaning at all, maintaining that instead the intention may merely be to depict life in all its complexities, “that the absence of a swiftly expressible message is, often, the message …that what he [the writer] makes is ideally as ambiguous and opaque as life itself” (Updike 21). As another writer of realist prose, Ernest Hemingway is in agreement with Updike’s opinion of an author’s intention behind writing. In an interview entitled “The Direct Style,” Hemingway reveals his belief that “When you write … your object is to convey every sensation, sight, feeling, emotion, to the reader” (Hemingway 170). Again, the sentiment is that the duty of a writer is merely to portray commonplace scenarios as accurately as possible, to reflect the real world as a whole, with no hidden agenda necessarily implied. Indeed, Hemingway states, “As a writer, you should not judge [or impart judgment], you should understand.” Clearly, Updike’s and Hemingway’s opinions on the “meaninglessness” of writing go hand in hand with their writing styles as authors of realistic fiction, though Updike expresses a slightly more indignant tone on the matter (if I may presume to compare tones). For my two cents, I agree most readily with Hemingway. It is the responsibility of the author to convey to readers all the thoughts and sensations as accurately as he or she perceives them so that (and this is the part where Poe and I part ways) readers may take those details and derive their own meaning from them, their own explanations for a happenstance or epiphany in the story. Yes, each reader’s understanding of a story may be different, perhaps some more on point then others, but none will be wrong, because our interpretations of texts are drawn not just from the words on the page but also from how we as individuals relate to those words, taking into account our own life experiences. Effective writing should elicit an emotional response, which becomes the basis upon which a reader formulates “meaning” for the text. So, despite some authors’ disapproval, as the case may be, the derivation of meaning must be a mutual undertaking, equally shared between author and reader.
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