Authorial Intent / Authority vs. the Reader's Interpretation

[Hime]

I don't think that an author has much power to control how people read his/her works. After all, once you've experienced something you can't go back and "edit" the way you reacted just because someone tells you you're wrong. I've had people react to my work -- writing, dancing, etc -- in a variety of different ways, and sometimes they've seen things that I didn't consciously mean to do, but that I would have if I had thought of it.

That doesn't mean that every interpretation is equally valid, of course. Interpreting "Teletubbies" as an attempt to further the gay agenda would be a good example of a reader who is so obsessed with his own issues that he can't see the text (or its context) itself, only the beliefs he projects onto it.

[glatt]

The one I feel the most sorry for is Alanis Morissette with her Ironic song. It's a good song with good lyrics, but she ended up with a permanent testament to her stupidity immortalized with that one. Can't listen to that song now without feeling sorry for her. Not the message she wanted at all, I imagine.

[lizzymahoney]

If you are a natural at writing, or you've studied the craft for years, there are ways to lead the reader into thinking the way you want. Timing, pacing and word choice are effective means of direction.

Once the ink has dried, the writer is SOL to control readers interpretations. Mores change. Language changes. References that might have been a little obscure become leaded, obtuse, or archaic.

It's true what many here have said. In my paraphrasing, the written word is a form of communication. Any communication demands two parties. While a written work is not as simple as a tree in an existential forest, it might as well vaporize if no one ever will read it. So two parties. The reader's perspective can be swayed by the writer's already written words, but if the reader has a different paradigm the work can and will mean something other than what the writer intended.

This is not bad. It just is.

I don't know what Ray Bradbury's feelings are about this topic. I understand how he could say that "That isn't what I meant at all!" Sort of a J. Alfred Prufrock lament. It's also likely that his own perspective and interpretation of his own work has changed with the years. I trust he knows what he intended, but the distinctions get softer in time and other aspects become more important.

Some years back I took a Psych 101 class as an adult student. The instructor was older than me, but it's conceivable that he and I read Walden Two initially around the same time. He assigned it for the class and we discussed it. Okay, he and I discussed it, trying to get the apathetic students to participate. It surprised me how no one understood the times in which it was written, or that B.F.Skinner might have had external concerns when he wrote it. Even the instructor was saying how racist Skinner was... Political maybe, but racist?

A significant character was described as having mahogany skin. Her hair and dress were described from time to time, with small details of a type not given to other characters. Skinner was trying to not be overt, trying to move past the issue of civil rights and look at a utopia of acceptance and equality. In 1948, he was way ahead of his time. I don't care what the man's politics or psychology were, he was pretty damn astute for that time. However, fifty years later in 1998 or whenever, none of the other people in a class could see what Skinner had intended. That wasn't Skinner's fault. It wasn't the other peoples' fault. It was a product of the intervening years and the change in mores.

Should we have an addendum to copies of Walden Two being printed now? Nah, it is what it is and people will continue to interpret based on their perceptions. Walden Two will fall out of favor and be seen as archaic, until 80 years from now when someone does a lengthy analysis of it and proclaims it as emblematic of the times.

And I think that's how Skinner would have wanted it.