Skip to main content

On the process of critical analysis

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

A powerful quote from Bob Dylan. It reminds me of Billy Collins.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Recent analysis in the reading literature class got me thinking about this point. Are we really doing justice to the piece of literature that we are reading by analyzing it? Or are we not doing justice to what the author had planned for us.

In our constant process of finding meaning in everything, we tend to find a little too much meaning in everything. So much that sometimes I feel that most of us are like the portrayal of John Nash in the movie, A beautiful mind. Of course, we do not imagine that the CIA has engaged us to find hidden messages in newspapers, but we do tend to try find meaning in everything. Be it in the behaviour of our friends, or in any picture that we see, or movies, or songs, or books. The list is endless.

But how accurate are the meanings that we claim to derive? I remember that once, my art teacher in school assigned us an assignment involving abstract art. So we simply took some paint, splattered it across the page, and by some luck, if you twisted your head in a particular way, you might see a human like form. The piece was deemed to symbolize unity in diversity, and we were acclaimed as the best group of artists (can there be a group, seriously?) and the splatter was on the art corner of the school for a week.

Now, the above example was not to just dismiss abstract art. I respect art deeply, but I do not like trying to find meaning where none exist. The same exists for literature. Recently, we were analysing Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht. This was put as an example of epic theatre, wherein the author tries to distance the characters from the audience. I do not really understand much of this. If Galileo, in the first scene is shown washing himself, how is this a distancing device? What I do know, however, is that the effect of reading the play was fantastic, and we could imagine the dramatization of the play. Is the latter not what the author desired more than the former? That we enjoy his play, be it epic theatre, or realistic theatre, or the theatre of the absurd?

I remember a quote by Don McLean when asked about his song American Pie, You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me... sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.

That is the way he intended the song to be. Just a song dedicated to Buddy Holly. It is us who seek meaning from it, seek answers to our problems. I believe this is how we should view most of the stuff in the world, accept things the way they are, and not beat it with a hose to fine out what it means.

So, read this piece for what it is. There is no hidden meaning in between the lines, I assure you.
Labels:

Comments

  1. KM28 October 2011 at 13:58

    i would not claim to understand your post completely, and if i do then i would not have understood your post at all. the statement seems like a paradox, but nonetheless. i figure that you have tried to raise a point and my only comment will be- 'we analyze to ultimately satisfy ourselves, having assumed that everything in this world is made to contribute to our life in some way. and we may choose to let it or not let it. or even let it in a particular way.' well, nothing wrong there at all; in fact it helps develop a certain taste/a pattern of choice. after all it is true that a man cannot choose to entertain his senses by the vast amount of recreational works present around him. he must analyze to decide what should he keep and what should he let go. after all, saying a particular genre of music is 'made for u' or that a song 'gets to u' is analyzing it... btw, gud piece of literature.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Skand Hurkat28 October 2011 at 14:43

    Well, my arguments were along these lines: There is a danger in looking for meaning where none may exist;
    and, if it works for you, it's good, period. There is not much point analysing whether or not it is good and the reasons for this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Skand Hurkat28 October 2011 at 14:45

    Oh, and I forgot to mention, thanks for the feedback Karnamohit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. KM28 October 2011 at 15:08

    then i guess i haven't yet understood the meaning of danger in this context... and you're welcome :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Harry Potter and why I dislike the series

There could not be a better time for this post. There could not have been a worse time for this post. Now that the penultimate movie of the series is out, and my facebook wall filled with people who loved the movie. But this is something I really wanted to say, and I shall say it anyway. Harry Potter is pathetic literature. Now, you must be wondering why I say that. There are many reasons. Firstly, the storyline itself is flawed. When a writer sits down to write anything, he/she must set up some essential rules about what is happening. These rules must remain constant irrespective of how many times he/she changes his/her mind. This is so that the readers are allowed to have some sensibility in what they are reading. In the fourth book, Rowling goes ahead and kills Cedric. Then, at the end of the book, the horseless carriages are there again. Nothing special. We all knew that they are horseless. But then comes the fifth book, and BAM, the horses are actually winged beasts that only thos...
18 comments
Read more

On the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

This is a post that I have been meaning to write from quite some time. Long hours spent typing code on my computer left my hands fatigued, and left me with a lot of pain in my wrists and fingers. That is when I decided to use the Dvorak. But I have got the same bad habit as Dr. Watson, to tell a story backwards. Of course, you must be wondering what the Dvorak is. The story of keyboards starts with the invention of the typewriter. Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, tried with a two row piano style keyboard. But then, he got into many difficulties with the design. Then he finally settled for a four row design. This was similar to the QWERTY layout that most computers and typewriters today possess. The engineers at Remington, to whom Sholes had presented his design modified the layout a little further, and then the QWERTY was born. As typewriters became popular, people got used to the layout, and started practising touch typing, i.e. typing without looking at the keys...
Post a Comment
Read more

The paradox of government

I'm fascinated by the concept of government, and the paradoxes it presents. On one hand, governments grant us a certain set of rights or liberties. On the other hand, they work to strip us of the very liberties they promise. Now, I don't mean that all governments strip people of liberties, but there are liberal regimes, and there are sufficiently restrictive and dictatorial ones. Both models may have results to show, it does not mean that people in a restrictive regime are unhappy (refer to Dan Dennett's TED talk , where he states that ideas or memes can be dangerous when taken from one part of the world, where they are widespread, and, using the virus analogy, where people are immune to the memes; to a part of the world where they are foreign, where people may not be immune to the memes and where people may get infected). History has shown that people were sufficiently satisfied with autocratic governments with a benevolent dictator, and that people in other parts of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more