Reading Stage of Development

10/9/08
Blog Analysis

Before the beginning of this semester my choice of literature was mainly classical literature such as Dickens, Verne, Wells, and many other authors that most people think are “dusty”. The writing styles of these authors can be somewhat dull, but what drew me to these novels were the stories that they told. The stories they tell are the foundation on which so much popular culture stands whether that be television, movies, or other books. Although I began reading more modern novels in the middle of high school such as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, my main choice of literature were the classics. My style of reading has somewhat evolved around my choice of literature and I do not think that I analyze the texts as much as I should. I do consider historical elements in older novels, but I never really try to analyze classic novels on their ability to challenge gender. I think my reading ability is quite developed but I think I fall somewhere between relating text to other texts and relating text to world.
My stage of reading development seems to really depend on what I am reading or why I am reading. If I am reading for school purposes I tend to delve deeper into the text and look for meaning; however, while reading for enjoyment purposes I sometimes take the story just at face value. One example that stands out for relating text to world was in my A.P. Literature class in high school. We were given poems to analyze and write our thoughts about them. I was given Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry-Picking”. At face value the poem seems to recount Seamus picking blackberries and him getting cut by thorns and getting stained with juice. At the end of the poem, the narrator tells of how they picked too many and they spoiled. Just by reading the poem one would gather a very confused account of picking blackberries without any real meaning; however, I realized that Seamus, obviously of Irish descent, was probably Christian. In the poem he talked about thickened wine and summer’s blood which relate to Christ’s blood at the Last Supper. In addition, Heaney’s description of getting pricked by thorns relates to Christ’s crown of thorns when he died on the cross. With a second analysis of the poem, one can really understand the religious influence Heaney has in his writing. Besides for the Christian impact on this poem, there were several other themes one could gather from this poem such as mankind’s greed; however, I will not elaborate on them now. The point is, while reading this poem I did not relate this poem to myself or to other text, but rather the religious influence in the text.
Reading for enjoyment I may not had made this connection because I am not being judged on my reading. For example, one of my favorite books, Frankenstein, was ruined in a literary analysis class I took in high school. We analyzed the book through lenses of historical criticism and feminist criticism which allowed me to see the book in a different light; however, my original interpretation was destroyed. I am not trying to say that people should not analyze books, but I think that writing is an art form that is understood in different ways. I originally liked Frankenstein because of how it related to scientific experiments being performed today, but after analyzing it through other lenses the book is nowhere near as entertaining for me. In the case of Heaney’s poem and Frankenstein, my reading is definitely text - world; however, judging by my blog entries I feel it is best to label my reading as text - other texts.
The reason I chose text – other texts to describe my reading development is because although I have text to world tendencies, I seem to relate texts to other texts in my blogs. For example, in my most recent blog, “Gender Barriers in Brokeback Mountain”, I simply relate Butler’s idea of children being indoctrinated into gender roles to the Thanksgiving scene in the film. In this scene, L.D. pushes to let his grandson watch football during dinner so that he will “grow up to be a man”. As I mention in the blog, Butler would recognize this scene as a child being forced into a gender role; boys watch football. I feel that this entry is clearly a stage of text to text because all I do is realize Butler’s idea within the film without ever really coming up with any great idea on my own. In another blog, I discuss the character Falmouth in You Don’t Love Me Yet, and demonstrate how he exemplifies postmodernism. He himself is a postmodern art form because he has a shaved head and wears a suit even though he is surrounded by people wearing t-shirts. In addition, he strives to do art that really has no purpose because it can only be viewed for a short time by him; the Aparty is really only art to Falmouth. Again, this blog is simply text to text because I relate Falmouth to David Lodge’s article “Breaking the Frame” and his definition of postmodernism. Therefore according to these two blogs, it seems to me that my reading development is still is in the text to other text stage of reading development.
The question is how do I move on from simply relating texts to other texts? I think that I have not only the potential, but also have realized ability to truly relate text to world issues because I do it already in my writing and analyzing of certain works such as Heaney’s poem. The main problem I have is that I do it infrequently and inconsistently especially when you compare my analysis of Blackberry-Picking to my blog entries. My thought is that I must focus less on the story itself when I read a novel and consciously think about the time period in which it was written and what the author may have been thinking about when they were writing their work. In addition, I think that when I compare text to other text I should consider what those other texts that I am familiar with relate to in terms of social discourse. In this manner I should be able to draw conclusions about how a new work relates to the world while still be able to focus on the text itself.
Before I began this semester I think my reading skills were fairly well developed, but not as analytical as perhaps is necessary when reading certain texts. When reading a contemporary novel, often times there is much more going on than in a classical piece of literature. In the classic novel there are indeed underlying themes that relate to the time period in which it was written; however, in a contemporary piece the reader is now faced with issues that define gender and question our social foundations. In the past, I have spent most of my time reading classical literature that did not focus on such issues and realize that when reading different genres I will need to address them. Obviously this will take time to adjust to a different style of reading and questioning, but I think that if I follow the strategies I have come up with I should be able to move to new stage of reading development.