Literary Interpretation is Meaningless Generally, I would have to say that literary interpretation is a complete waste of time. Take for example, two common themes in interpretation: plot symbolism, character symbolism and character motivation. With plot symbolism, the each event in the story is taken in its entirety and a general theme is to be derived. Each progressive scene may represent progressively more difficult obstacles to surpass in a journey towards love or honor or truth or whatever. Then, the final scene would represent the author's message regarding these worthy goals. If the final obstacle proves overwhelming, the we may assume the author is making some statement about the unattainability of love or whatever the goal was, and vise versa. In character symbolism, each character or group of characters is assumed to represent some particular class or group or idea. Thus, the author's depiction of each character is deemed very meaningful in realizing the hidden meaning of the work. A negative characterization of one group is of course taken to be illustrative of the author's disdain for the idea represented with that group. Then, coupled with the plot symbolism, one group of persons or a person taking the role of the hero finally triumphs and brings with it the underlying symbolic ideas. Another form of interpretation takes the form of discerning what it is that motivates the characters, and consequently what it is that motivates the ideas and values of the representations. What is the main factor that causes our hero to find courage enough to overcome such adversity? In their usual form, interpretations such as these are completely meaningless and a waste of time, though it might not seem like it at first. For, what if a writer is to be considered a genius and a man of all ages? If we take the view that books have interpretatable meanings and these meanings are given by the authors, and the author's opinion is valuable, then of course interpretation is an intellectually worthwhile venture. Saying that the author's opinion is valid and saying that interpretation is meaningless are not mutually exclusive expressions. The point is that with interpretation, we are using the fiction to provide evidence for some statement we feel the author is hinting at. Aside from the view that this mode of search will always be biased towards the reviewers views is the horribly ridiculous for of argument taking place. A conclusive statement is generated, and the reviewer will say, this event and this phrase uttered by so-and-so and the climax and the ending all point towards my interpretation. So what? It is just so trivial because the interpretation is so particular as to exclude any generalizability whatsoever. Parenthetically, I must here state my criteria for determining what is meaningless. Just as with science, because I am concerned only with attaining knowledge, if something cannot be generalized it is worthless because it adds nothing to man's knowledge base. It is also likely that there is no profound hidden meaning in works of ficiton. After all, if the there really were something profound to be said, why hide it? Most likely, a feeling of profundity was felt and engendered with pages of ambigious and unspecific hints toward something author himself was not sure. It's the old trick of "muddying the waters so that they appear deep." Verbosity and eloquent speach is certaintly entertaining, but it is certainly not an avenue to take in striving for truth and meaning. The first thing you learn in philosophy is to use as simple and few words as is absolutely necessesary (yet not too few as in most eastern philosophy). Every word has a history of thousands of years and is constantly picking up new shades of meaning. Most of our arguments are the results of the many meanings of these words. Just look up the verb "be" in the dicitonary. So then, fiction and poetry may be quite good in entertaining/distracting, but they are completely illogical and even pretentious roads to take in a search for truth. We do not gain anything by even if it were possible ascertaining the hidden meaning of a novel. All we know is that this is what the author had in mind. In order to gather true knowledge we must judge whether or not this knowledge fits only within the novel or can transcend the book and be regarded as humans in general. So, interpretation may be useful if it is transcendable. Whether or not the view was observed by the author or not has no significance whatsoever on the validity of the conclusion being drawn from the book in question. Likewise, the truthfulness of the claim is completely independent of the plot, characters, and motivations described in the book. It's terribly illogical. It's like saying, "proposition x is a worthy proposition because a fictional heroic character was a proponent of proposition x, and defeated the proponent of proposition y. More so, a famous and well respected author is also a proponent of proposition x. Therefore, proposition x is true." We need to transcend fiction and use actual logical argument in order to determine the truthfulness of any statement. Literature may be useful in this task if as in some famous books argument is used in the book itself. But mere description and plot has no relevance at all to a general statement regarding humanity. Yet, fiction by definition cannot be all argumentation and must therefore be always at least partly meaningless in relation to our strivings towards truth. This is not necessarily a negative conclusion. Literature was invented as a simple device to ward away boredom and perhaps even give pleasure and laughter. This humble beginning must be recognized by interpretators. They need to understand that literature is only a vague part of the intellectual progress made by a culture. A good book is judged by its interestingness and movability (Also, I think meaning can and should be ascribed within the confines of a particular work, but should be done so subjectively. This whole paper has argued against the objective benefits of particular interpretation - there are none. It is objectively worhtless. But, subjectively, a novel may be very meaningful to a person who interprets it according to their own life experience and using it as motivation in furhtering their life experience. The point is that the two levels of meaningfulness - subjective/person and objective/scientific are both important but only within their respective areas of logical validity). These aspects should be removed from discussion of more important matters of truth that transcend the particulars of fictional works. For an interpretation not to be meaningless, it should simply start with a book-given idea as a premise and use actual argument in proving it, not more fiction. Basically, from a purely logical standpoint, literary analysis is always to be preferred over literary itpretation; while straight philosophy is always to be preferred over both.