idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, itās not because you wonāt be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsbyās green light or whatever, itās because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if youāre wondering what happens when you DONāT develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com
this post went from 600 to 2400 notes in the time it took me to write 3 emails. iām already terrified for whatās going to happen in there
k but also, as an addendum, the reason we study literary analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning, whether it was intentional or not, and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of language and literary devices and so forth! and that ties directly into being able to identify, for example, the racist and antisemitic dogwhistles often employed by the right wing, or the subconscious word choices that can unintentionally illustrate someoneās bias or blind spot. LANGUAGE HAS WEIGHT AND MEANING! the way we communicate is a reflection of our inner selves, and thatās true regardless of whether itās a short story or a novel or a blog post or a tweet. instead of taking a piece of writing at face value and stopping there, assuming that there is no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the page, ask yourself these two questions instead:
1. what is the author trying to say? 2. what does the author maybe not realize theyāre saying?
because the most interesting reading of any piece of literature, imho, usually occupies the space in between those questions.
