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Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall Chapter 5 The Meaning: A Review of Reader-response Theory Recognizing, reading and interpreting signs is all well and good, but to what extent can the sign serve as an indicator or a predictor of what events are to follow? At what point does the interpretation reach beyond the meaning of the sign? To address these issues, a close examination of the principles of Reader-response theory and semiotics may help interpreters avoid reading more into the signs than the signs express. What does the work really mean? What was the original meaning of the work? How can there be so many meanings? How does one know the real meaning? When does one cross over into irrelevance or into a “wrong” interpretation? These are especially important questions in terms of intentional and unintentional meanings and/or misinterpretations of Holocaust-related images. For instance, Leni Riefenstahl’s great and infamous Triumph of the Will was both hailed as a spectacular documentary and criticized as a propaganda film. For some, the film was a factual representation of the popularity of Hitler’s Germany. Other evaluators of the film suggest the film’s intent was not factual but contrived to glorify and enhance the popularity of Hitler’s Germany. Which interpretation is correct? Is Triumph a documentary film or is it propaganda? Or is it both? Traditional semioticians would argue that interpretation is limited by the content and structure of the work and should not go beyond what was intended. 164 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall Questions about the credibility of interpretive prerogative have continued as interests in critical attention have shifted away from historical, biographical and intention-focused systems of analysis. Traditional semioticians argue that meaning derives from, and therefore critical attention should be focused on the intention of the work, for therein lays the meaning of the work. Reader-response theorists, however, argue that “intention” is undiscoverable, that valuable meaning can be derived from a review of what is perhaps unintentional in the works. Such an interpretive strategy suggests that what the authors or creators intended need not necessarily be included in the interpretations of their works. Some Reader-response critics go even further to argue that meaning does not even need to be derived from the work alone, but that readers bring meaning to the text. These theorists argue that literary criticism should, therefore, concern itself with both the intended and the received meanings of literary works and that interpretation does not need to be explicitly supported by the text to be valuable or valid. These critics note that when writers write, the writers may believe they know why they consciously chose certain words and created certain images to produce a thematic notion that they wished their readers to encounter. What neither writers nor readers can really know, these critics argue, is if these words and images reflect an expression that comes from some place deeper in the writers than even the writers had intended or perceived. If such a depth is conceivable, then searching out the writers’ consciously intended meanings may not reveal the truer, deeper meanings of the works. Based on this premise, Reader-response critics argue, it is possible that writers might create more than was intended. If so, then, no certain answer is possible. Reader-response theorists such as Jonathan Culler argue all reader- 165 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall generated interpretations are valuable, even if only for interest’s sake (110-112). In fact, this theory suggests that only those readers who go beyond the superficial and beyond the consciously intended meaning will get to the deeper “heart of the matter.” But, how far away between the lines of the text or image is too far? In addition to expanding the scope of literary analysis, Reader-response theory may also expand the significance of the work. Given that writers wish to have an effect on their intended readers, an analysis of all of the responses generated by the work can provide writers with information about how the work has been received and if their conscious intentions or some other goals have been achieved. I am no longer surprised when an artist, being asked if this or that was the intended meaning of the work, evasively says he or she is pleased that such a thought was evoked. When artists define a work they limit the work. In this regard Maupassant admonishes readers to remember how silly it is to believe in a single reality when we each have one born of our senses and one born of our mind (11). As do modern Reader-response critics, Maupassant seems to encourage readers to bring meaning or to create meaning and to allow the work to be associated, for good or ill, with even more than can ever be known about what was intended. Finally, Reader-response theory is a literary theory that crosses over traditional disciplinary boundaries and is as applicable to textual fiction as it is to line, form and color in painting and the elements of mise-en-scene in filmmaking. By accepting that readers may not only perceive meaning in a work but also create meaning, Reader-response criticism also crosses over the traditional boundaries of what is interpretively credible and not credible, while trying to avoid outright “mis- 166 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall interpretation” (emphasis intended). When is it fair to say this or that interpretation is “not in Kansas anymore,” has gone beyond reason? To explore the origins, concerns about and the advantages of employing a Reader-response approach to analyses of multimedia materials, this chapter will begin by briefly looking at the literary connections shared with textual and non-textual messaging. Then, the chapter will proceed to a review of the writings and comments of such literary critics as Umberto Eco, Paul de Man, Richard Rorty and Jonathan Culler, all of whom focus on the need to acknowledge or ignore the limits of interpretation. Finally, two Reader-response constructed exercises will illustrate some of the benefits and drawbacks that continue to make Reader-response theory a valuable, though contested, tool in the search for meaning. Historically, Reader-response theory extends from the late 19th through the early 20th century and expands the traditional range of literary investigation. This system of analysis reaches beyond what earlier critics considered “[…] the business of literary criticism […] to discuss the literariness of literature, to discuss that which makes literature different from other kinds of discourse” (Lemon 25). Literary criticism’s literary heritage encompasses elements of the “formalist,” the “structuralist,” the deconstructionist, and semiotic approaches as well as the ideas of such literary theorists as Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Pierce (discussed more fully in chapter 4), who both agreed that virtually everything was a potential sign. Though semioticians were not the first to include imagery as a viable focus for literary criticism, they did argue that the study of signs revealed deeper meaning than traditional analysis had produced, that poetry was something other than prose, that 167 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall poetry created images and images were the stuff of art—and that therefore the art of “thinking in images” (Lemon and Reis xvii) was fair ground for literary criticism. These early semioticians argued that signs are used by someone to signify something to someone else and that in traditional, textual, literary terms they can be created by manipulations of the plot structure of a work, the setting of a work, the development of a character or of any other element of fiction within the work. Signs may even be found in the words, the spellings of words, and the colloquial and idiomatic language use of fashionable expressions. These same components of composition, structure, narrative and characterization are also visually used in the productions of such media as painting and film. Thus, the choices made to use particular words, images, and signs, as well as the choices of how, when and where they are used, make up the stuff from which meaning can be manipulated and derived. Because these choices may have been conscious or unconscious thematic expressions, they are well within the realm of literary criticism. Indeed many literary theorists today acknowledge a need for multimedia literacy. While describing his sense of visual literacy, for instance, Joseph Piro suggests that “Rather than seeing it [literacy] as a behavior connected solely to the written and spoken word, it needs to be thought of more in terms of Eisner’s definition as ‘the ability to encode or decode meaning in any of the forms of representation used in the culture to convey or express meaning’” (qtd. in Piro 128). The suggestion that visual images are also literary is doubly relevant to Reader-response theory. First, the very notion of applying a literary theory to a visual image challenges the normative meaning of “literary” theory while at the same time 168 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall challenging the very meaning of the word “text.” The notion of visual images as literary works suggests that an image is a story and comprises a non-alphabetical textual narrative constructed with medium-specific devices such as color, line and figure placement to mention just a few. These devices should be read as letters and words and signs. The notion that “visual text” is a part of the semiotic heritage of Reader-response theory accepts that a “picture is worth a thousand words,” and that those words make up stories that include and are intended to convey or evoke meaning. What is at question here is whether or not a single work can have multiple meanings, different meaning for different people or even different meanings for the same person at different times. Reader-response critics contend that individual readers or viewers who are differently prepared to read/view/receive a work come to the work with different educational, cultural, political and vocational backgrounds and are, therefore, likely to focus on different signs in the work. These different perspectives Reader-response critics claim will respectively suggest different meanings and give rise to different interpretations. Does this mean that any and all interpretations are equally credible interpretations? Will such a theory lead to critical chaos or even worse—misinterpretation--as “readers” later modernize and revise previous interpretations? The connection of the visual arts to Reader-response theory adds to the volatility of the debate over what is and is not “over-interpretation” (Eco 52) by questioning the very nature of “text.” 169 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall Thus, a primary contention among critics is over the boundaries of interpretation. Even among the deconstructionists, Reader-response criticism is notorious for its every-interpretation-is-a-valuable-interpretation approach to criticism. Literary and art critics alike probe the question of just how open the critical passageway is from a literary analysis’ search for the author’s intent to an analysis of the symbols purposely or unconsciously embedded into the text, the painting, the film or their respective structures. Even more debated is the notion that no reader-received interpretation leads to misinterpretation. At what point, less liberal critics wonder, does reader-created interpretation become irrelevant or go perhaps beyond criticism to speculation or revisionism? While Umberto Eco is an early and adamant supporter of moving away from the confines of classical formalism, as articulated by Victor Shklovsky, who, as has been noted, is said to have argued that the purpose of literary criticism is to discover and emphasize the “literariness of literature” and “to discuss that which makes literature different from other kinds of discourse” (qtd. in Lemon 25). Yet, Eco is not amenable to letting literary criticism move beyond the discovery of the author’s literary intention. He is not at all sanguine about drawing conclusions about the author’s unconscious psychological motivation if such an analysis cannot be supported from material in the text itself, unless such a tendency has been evidenced from a historical perspective of the author and his or her earlier works. Interpretation, for Eco, must be rooted in the intent of the text. For instance, in his work on overinterpretation, Eco posits the following case: If we are to decide whether the phrase ‘the rose is blue’ appears in the text of 170 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall an author, it is necessary to find in the text the complete phrase ‘the rose is blue’. If we find on page 1 the article ‘the’, on page 50 the sequence ‘ros’ in the body of the lexeme (word) ‘rosary’ and so on, we have proved nothing, because it is obvious that, given the limited number of letters in the alphabet that a text combines, with such a method we could find any statement we wish in any text whatsoever. (“Over” 56-57) While Eco, as a semiologist, not infrequently says that everything is a sign, he also believes there is a limit to what can be said of a work. Signs cannot mean just anything. Writers, in an effort to communicate their ideas, write to model readers, and interpretation cannot go beyond the model writer’s intent without making the interpretation irrelevant, disconnected from the text. That is, when interpretation goes beyond what can be supported in some intentional form or other from the text, the interpretation is valueless. If one shows someone else a chair, and the viewer says it is a refrigerator, it is a wrong interpretation, for even if the chair does provoke in the viewer a sense of “refrigerator,” the chair is not a refrigerator. Instead, Eco argues the author intends for his intended readers to discover and consider what is in the work, and critics must “[…] respect the text, not the author as person so-and-so” (66): a chair is a chair and because even if a refrigerator manufacturer made it, the chair is still not a refrigerator. Or, more seriously, because Martin Luther fought to liberate people from the Church, his anti-Semitic tracts were no less anti-Semitic (see chapter 1). In light of such examples, Eco will not fully open the door to readeroriginated interpretation, nor will he fully transfer the making of meaning to the 171 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall reader. He seems to argue that if the work had no intentional meaning, then the work was originally meaningless, and if that then it is a whimsy to later create a meaning that had never been intended. However, some Reader-response theorists, such as Paul de Man, push the door more widely open than Eco and include Reader-response-generated interpretation, though also only to the extent that support for the interpretation can be found within the text. For such “pragmatists” as de Man, finding meaning is never the result of “[…] forcing certainties but discovering and maintaining multiple possibilities” (560), that the earlier formalist theory’s systematic analysis of a text was far too limiting and had perhaps become trite. After all, he seems to ask, “What is there to be gained from the seek-the-pieces-and-put-the-puzzle-together-and-get-meaning approach to literary criticism?” Nothing but, “Imprisonment and claustrophobia […]” (561). While de Man moves away from the author’s intention to include readers’ discoveries, one of his critics notes, he still adheres to the guidelines that one can “[…] find out what the text is ‘really’ about” (Rorty 103), and thus sets the literal text itself as a boundary to credible interpretation. An even more accepting advocate of Reader-response theory, and one who opens the interpretive door yet more widely is Richard Rorty as he argues, there is no…”code of codes” (91) for which Eco, and to some extent, de Man may be searching, but that every reader brings his or her own schema through which the text will be “read.” He notes that pragmatists, such as he considers Eco and de Man, who can escape from their pragmatism… 172 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall […] will eventually come to think of [themselves] as, like everything else, capable of as many descriptions as there are purposes to be served. There are as many descriptions as there are uses to which the pragmatist might be put, by him or her self [sic] or by others. This is the stage in which all descriptions (including one’s self-description as a pragmatist) are evaluated according to their efficacy as instruments for purposes, rather than by their fidelity to the object described. (92) Indeed, Rorty goes on to point out about texts and meaning that “We don’t exactly make them, nor do we exactly find them […]” (100). Instead, he notes, “These assertions are always at the mercy of being changed by fresh stimuli, but they are never capable of being checked against [his italics] those stimuli” (101). He concludes by arguing that “[…] you should not seek more precision or generality than you need for the particular purpose at hand” (104). While de Man wants a pragmatic connection to the text, Rorty argues that for validation’s sake interpretation cannot be checked against the text or anything else. The text and the interpretation are what they are, and may be considered something quite different in another context or through the eyes and thoughts of the next reader. But, for purpose of instruction or exhibition of analytical skills, text can be limited, though the practice may wrongly suggest the text is limited in any way. Jonathan Culler, however, seems to throw the door wide open. Culler writes, “[…] I think that the production of interpretations of literary works should not be thought of as the supreme goal, much less the only goal of literary studies, but if critics are going to spend their time working out and proposing interpretations, then 173 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall they should apply as much interpretive pressure as they can, should carry their thinking as far as it can go (110). Culler goes on to point out that there are different purposes for literary criticism, such as understanding of the meaning and understanding of the system [my emphasis]. Culler notes that these two goals are not in conflict, but “What is confusing in literary studies is that many people are in fact attempting to analyze aspects of the languages, the system […] while presenting what they are doing as an interpretation of the literary work” (117). Those who engage in such practices, he writes, “[…] are just using literary works to tell stories about the myriad problems of human existence” (117). What is most liberating is his basic deconstructive premise that “meaning is context bound—a function of relations within or between texts—but that context itself is boundless: there will always be new contextual possibilities that can be adduced so the one thing we cannot do is set limits” (120). In an attempt to illustrate some of the different interpretations and how they might be derived through the application of formalist, deconstructionist and Reader-response theories, this paper considers two images: Heartfield’s poster of horizontally juxtaposed images, Wie Im Mittelalter So Im Dritten Reich (Fig 1) (As It Was in the Middle Ages so It Is in the Third Reich) and, Judy Chicago’s The Banality of Evil (Fig 2), in which fact and fiction co-exist in the same space and time. 174 (Figure 1) Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall The formalist or intentionalist (Poirier 253) theorists believe the goal of literary investigation is to discern and identify the author’s intended thematic focus. In this context, then, one should be able to identify the common variables in Heartfield’s double image and derive from them his intended meaning. Obviously, both of these images, for instance, include the human form within a circular form. The art historian H. W. Janson notes that Heartfield extends the meaning of the first image, which Janson describes as “a Gothic image of humanity punished for its sins on the wheel of divine judgement” (879). Such would be a formalist analysis of this first image. As such, the formalist interpretation of the second image would find what is common to both images, as well as make the connections that generalize and extend the meaning of the first to embed meaning in the second. Thus, the message of second image must be interpreted according to the context of the first, next to which the second has been juxtaposed. Such an interpretation would seem to demand that the reader/viewer see the second image as humanity being punished by divine Nazi judgement. However, the second image, Janson suggests, is a misinterpretation of the first. Janson does not seem to believe that Heartfield meant to suggest that Nazi judgment was divine but that humanity has historically been wracked by both divine and Nazi judgement. Such an interpretation derives from a fairly classical semiotic approach because each of these images is filled with signs that could be argued to have discernibly communicated the author’s intended meaning. All the images are accounted for: the wheel and the man in the first, enclosed in a circle suggesting the singularity of the divine in its being without a beginning and is endlessness. In the 175 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall second image there is also a circular background; there is a swastika instead of the wheel, and there is the man wracked across it. The interpretive question raised here is what does the second set of images add to the first? There is also the caption, “Wie Im Mittelalter So Im Dritten Reich,” that emphasizes an intended connection between the two images, and thus focuses attention on their sameness. Yet, as Janson sees it, the images are not parallel. Perhaps he believes this because he believes that Nazi judgment is not divine judgment, that this image reflects neither the eternal longevity of divine judgment nor the infallibility of divine judgments. For Janson, Nazi judgment may be neither eternal nor infallible, and for these reasons he sees the second image as but a mistaken extension of the first—a false analogy. Within the context of these images, if one considers what it might have felt like to the bearers of Nazi judgments, a different context is established. In this altering of perspectives causes different interpretations of the work to emerge from within, beneath and perhaps from beyond the physical, observable, identifiable characteristics of the text or images. What did Nazi judgments seem like to those who were judged? Did they not seem eternal? And, for those who died as a result of Nazi judgment…was not Nazi judgment eternal for them and for those to whom the dead were lost? Perhaps Janson discriminates too vigorously; perhaps, as Eco suggests, what is important is that interpretation does not go beyond the author’s intent. Janson’s argument is that Heartfield’s intended meaning must be found beyond the meanings of the symbols themselves. In this way, Janson’s interpretation seems to go beyond Eco and de Man and unintentionally illustrates Jonathan Culler’s 176 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall argument that sometimes meaning is birthed from what the reader or viewer discerns beneath or between the lines in some unique and authentic way. Those critics who wonder about the value of those interpretations that do not attend to the author’s intention might find comfort in noting that there is a valueadded effect to looking beyond the intention of the artist. Since the image of man’s being wracked on the wheel of divine justice prompted Heartfield to make an associative analogy that emphasizes the suffering caused by the Nazis, so viewers who are unfamiliar with the historical allusions might draw an altogether unrelated interpretation of the work. For instance, one might argue that because the Swastika was derived from an earlier form of the Star of David (Gilbert 24) Heartfield’s poster illustrates mankind suffering at the hands of Jews. Such a reading makes clear what could be considered one of the dangers that lay in unlimited interpretive license, though knowing such a thought could be formalistically structured may have a value of its own. To explore the range of responses a Reader-response exercise can evoke, one might consider how Heartfield’s poster might be interpreted in light of some current political, religious, economic or more personal context. Another Holocaust related image that can be used to explore the contributions of Reader-response theory to expanding the boundaries of interpretation is Judy Chicago’s Banality of Evil (Fig 2). A formalist analysis of this image would make note of the details included in the image. Such an analysis might mention, for instance, that the people in the foreground seem to be relaxing, having a drink and a cigarette. Such an analysis 177 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall would also note the soldier in the middle-ground, his head in hand, perhaps lost in an introspective moment or just tired. In the background such a formalist reader would note the soldiers and their dogs herding people into a barn-like structure. But, what does it mean altogether? For someone familiar with the events depicted in the image, seeking the author’s intent in the image can reveal the irony of the banality in the foreground, while such inhumanity goes (Figure 2) on in the background. The guards herd their naked victims into what is ichnographically reminiscent of a gas chamber. Those whom Richard Rorty labels “pragmatists” would be concerned, however, that by revaluing the various parts of the composition so as to argue that this image illustrates the consequences of drinking is an untenable interpretation and would underscore the interpreter’s need to appreciate the limits of credible interpretation. While every critical reader must be wary of going beyond reasonable interpretations of any work, there is an engaging immediacy about interpretively going beyond what can be reasoned about the work that enlivens the very practice of interpretation and promotes multimedia communication structures and literacy. For instance, Reader-response advocate and practitioner, Joseph Piro, presents a description of an anonymous 3rd grade teacher’s attempt to improve her students’ literacy, and her use of classical paintings to engage students in creating meaning in 178 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall the work by “unfreezing” the work and asking students to tell “what happened” (133). The process has four basic steps: “[…] engaging the reader, entering the story, exploring the story and evaluating the story” (128). Such a process would certainly find support in Becky Francis’ description of Stanley Fish’s Reader-response assertion that “meaning is not embedded in the text; instead, there are as many meanings as there are interpreters” (qtd. in Francis 50). Ms. Francis’ claim that “[…] a majority of readers will interpret the text in a particular way,” seems plausible. Perhaps even Eco and De Man would be consoled to know that asking people who are unacquainted with the related historical details what this scene describes might serve to validate that the author communicated his/her intention (50). But, as Rorty and Culler suggest, the same investigation may lead, perhaps more importantly, to some interesting and valuable insights that would not have been generated had the exercise been limited to what the image “really” says. To begin such an exercise with Judy Chicago’s work, an effective Readerresponse prompt might ask readers to respond to the work by describing or explaining “What happens next?” And to go on from there…. Suggested exercises 1. Identify a Holocaust-related image and discuss its semiotic elements and how the work might be interpreted to illustrate a contemporary or current concern. Explain why the interpretation is credible and why it is not “overinterpretation.” 2. Discuss Edvard Munch’s The Scream in terms of its relation to Holocaust-related paintinging. Discuss how the work might be the result of “overinterpretation.” 179 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall Summary Notes Reader-response I. Noted Contributors II. Significant Concepts III. Textual/Visual Expressions (Titles etc.) IV. Language: Interesting, foreign/discipline specific 180 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall Works Consulted Cheu, Hoi. “There is No Class in This Text: From Reader-response to Bibliotherapy.” Textual Studies in Canada June 2001, 37-44. Academic Search Premier, Gale Group, 10 Feb. 2003. Culler, Jonathan. “In Defense of Overinterpretation.” Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Ed. Stefab Collini. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1990. 109-123. Eco, Umberto. “Interpretation and History,” “Overinterpretation,” and “Between Author and Text.” Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Ed. Stefan Collini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 23-88. Fish, Stanley. “Is There a Text in This Class.” Major Statements. 4th ed. Eds. Charles Kaplan and William Davis Anderson. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 573-585. Francis, Becky. “Relativism, Realism, and Feminism: an Analysis of Some Theoretical Tensions in Research on Gender Identity.” Journal of Gender Studies 11 Nov. 2002. Academic Search Premier, Gale Group, 12 Feb. 2003. Lemon, Lee T and Marion J. Reis. Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. Man, Paul de. “Semiology and Rhetoric.” Criticism: Major Statements. 4th ed. Eds. Charles Kaplan and William Davis Anderson. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 559-572. Maupassant, Guy. “The Writer’s Goal.” Glimpses III. Ed. Chauncey G. Parker III, Carrollton: Alliance Press, 1997. 9-11. 181 Chapter 5 Writings on the Wall Poirier, John C. “Some Detracting Considerations for Reader-response Theory.” The Catholic Bible Quarterly 2000. Academic Search Premier, Gale Group 17 Feb. 2003. Piro, Joseph M. “The Picture of Reading: Deriving meaning in Literacy through Image.” The Reading Teacher Oct. 2002. Academic Search Premier, Gale Group 17 Feb. 2003. 126-134. Rorty, Richard. “The Pragamatists’s Progress.” Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Ed. Stefan Collini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 89-108. Illustrations 1. Heartfield, John. As in the Middle Ages, so in the Third Reich. Retrieved from H. W. Janson. History of Art. New York: Abrams,1995. 878. 2. Chicago, Judy. Banality of Evil. Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light. New York, Penguin Books, 1993. 182