For me,
this class has been utterly mind-blowing. This class took me from a person who
thought they knew what literature was all about and what “meanings” I was
supposed to take from this class and these texts, to a person who understands
that there is no one way to define literature, no one meaning to take from a
class, no singular reading for a text. It took me from a person who thought I
knew what I liked and why I liked it, to someone who now understands those
things better than ever before. This class, I would say, has been
transformative for me as a student, a reader, a writer, and a person.
From
this class I have come to see that every author has one meaning and
understanding of the text that they have written. That every person reads a
text in a different way, bringing different things to the text that affect the
way they think about it. That there is not (and cannot be) just one way of
reading a text, viewing a text, and understanding a text. What I got out of the
class is that whatever way I read the stories that I am presented, is not the
one and only way to read it. Not everyone sees it that way though, and I think
that is not only what makes this class beautiful, but also what makes this
class difficult.
The
struggle of this class has been that half of the class gets it—half of the
class sees that there are many different readings of a text and ways of
understanding a text—and half of the class can't quite wrap their heads around
that—they need just one, specific, intended meaning for the text. The best part
about this class is that both of the types of people are correct in their way
of seeing it, and that’s totally okay! Flannery O’Connor so beautifully says
everything that I have wanted to say to the class all along.
The
point of the stories that we are reading, the point of the class that we are
in, is to read a story. It is not to find some deeper, authorially intended
meaning. It is not to understand the things that Dr. T understands and takes
from, the story. It is not to take the text and turn it into “a kind of
literary specimen to be dissected” (O’Connor, 108). The thing that I learned
from this class was that each text is a story. I learned that the point of reading
a text is to enjoy a story, and interpret it in my own way. I think that
as a student, we often lose this along the way. We forget to enjoy the story
and discover what the story means to us. I have learned from this class that
each and every story is to be interpreted in whatever way each student reads
and analyzes it.
More
than discovering what literature really is and has the capability of being, I
discovered more about myself in this class. This class opened me up to
understanding things about myself that I had never really thought about before.
This class allowed me to open doors about myself as a reader and really think
about why I love to read and why I love reading the things that I choose to
read.
We don’t
always have to look at a story in an analytic way, sometimes we can read a
story for enjoyment, and gain understanding through that enjoyment and I think
that that’s what Flannery O’Connor is trying to get us to see. She is trying to
get us to understand that we can understand a story purely through enjoying it,
and through that enjoyment we can find deeper meaning. There doesn’t have to be
a “right” meaning, nor can there be.
I think
the point of this class was for each of us to expand our understanding of
texts, literature, and stories, and in doing so to expand our understanding of
ourselves and why we enjoy the texts that we enjoy.
YAY POST-MODERNISM!
