flâneur

Is literary criticism just a school of sophistry?

woman-of-letters.com · 2,206 words · saved by 1 readers

Once upon a time, a high school sophomore was assigned to write a paper about the use of symbolism in The Great Gatsby. This sophomore was quite STEM-oriented, and she really questioned the premise of this assignment. Her understanding was that a 'symbol' was an image in the text that had some kind of meaning that wasn't directly obvious. But the question was: "Meaning to whom?"

Once upon a time, a high school sophomore was assigned to write a paper about the use of symbolism in The Great Gatsby. This sophomore was quite STEM-oriented, and she really questioned the premise of this assignment. Her understanding was that a 'symbol' was an image in the text that had some kind of meaning that wasn't directly obvious. But the question was: "Meaning to whom?" The girl herself did not see any particular meaning in either of the two famous symbols in the Great Gatsby. Neither the green light nor the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg had struck her as being particularly noteworthy…

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