Interpreting Literary Figures

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”

-         Susan Sontag

I never understood the sense in interpreting literary figures. I mean, these are works of fiction. The characters may be all that the author tells about them, maybe more. But how can anyone know that for sure? Least of all in cases of characters from a different era.

Besides, are humans really rational? Or are they contradictory? I personally agree with John Gray who said:

“If belief in human rationality were a scientific theory it would long since have been falsified and abandoned.”

And if we aren’t rational, who is to say why a person (literary or otherwise) did what he did? Rational reasons, for spite, to see if he could do it or just to mess with everyone else?

JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame believes that too. Which is why when she was asked if Albus Dumbledore was gay, replied:

“I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.”

Note she doesn’t say Dumbledore is gay, only how she thought of him. Because that’s an aspect that doesn’t get covered in the books, so everyone (including herself, the author) is free to interpret whichever they way like.

So why then do people interpret? I am inclined to agree with Susan Sontag’s lines from her book, Against Interpretation and Other Essays:

“Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit do to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text, they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.”

Finally, what makes a particular interpretation “right”? Before you say that there’s no right or wrong interpretation, remember that such an evaluation is done in literature courses. Of course, some interpretations are definitely wrong. Like that Friends episode where Phoebe takes revenge on Rachel during their book reading course by deliberately misleading her:

Rachel: Umm, well, what struck me most when reading Jane Eyre was uh, how the book was so ahead of its time.

Teacher: If you're talking about feminism, I think you're right.

Rachel: Yeah, well, feminism yes, but also the robots.

Robots? However ahead Eyre may have been of her time, surely she wasn’t thinking of robots in any of her books, was she?