Katelyn A. Question 7

Ambiguity is defined by Merriam Webster as “a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways.” Thomas C. Foster explains this idea throughout the entirety of his book, as he is attempting to explain to his readers that there is more to a text than meets the eye. Reading like a Professor, as explained by Foster, meanings going deeper than the surface and making associations through different texts, evaluating characters, and seeing the bigger picture of the story and the morals behind it as in many myths (referenced in Foster’s chapter, “It’s Greek to Me”). Of course, the areas of literature in which this is most prevalent is symbolism and allusions (mainly to other texts as heavily evaluated within just the first seven chapters). Foster uses the example of an essay called “Ulysses, Order, and Myth (1923),” in which the original tale of Homer’s Odyssey is warped into modern usages which are meant to convey the same message: “Odysseus’s trip to the underworld, for instance becomes a trip to the cemetery; his encounter with Circe, an enchantress who turns men into swine, becomes a trip to the notorious brothel by the protagonists” (Foster 91). This essay is one of many which draws from literary ideas and translates them into realistic or modern situations or ideas with symbolic meaning. This symbolism is very obvious in a novel such as J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, in which the name and the character arch from the book derives from Robert Burn’s poem, Comin’ Thro’ the Rye. The poem itself makes multiple innuendos and tells about a supposed prostitute at the edge of authority. The protagonist, however, Holden Caulfield, misinterprets this as catching rather than “meeting” (Burns) bodies. He describes this vision of him standing at the edge of a cliff at the edge of a rye and catching all of the children who play there. For him, this is symbolic of his inherent need to help others before himself and distract himself with the emotional follies of others, as he had done with his little sister, the prostitute, and so on. Of course, this may also reflect his subconscious need for service, as he is in constant regret of his actions and response to events throughout the story. In this way, he may be attempting to find a purpose in helping others rather than satisfying his own tendencies. An older audience, however, may see this miscommunication between the original poem and Calufield’s interpretation and relate it to the theme of the book in that the protagonist is a portrayal of young innocence and a tale of finding oneself and purpose (a “coming-of-age” story). Another example might include Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, in which the protagonist switches back and forth between being in jail carts as a prisoner of war to being in a cage as a zoo animal on an alien planet. Ambiguity allows for the audience to draw their own conclusions about a work of literature or art, in that they may find a moral which may be learned from it, or they may discover something about the plot or characters. In the case of allusions, it may allow for the audience to draw from their prior knowledge of other works to develop new ideas about a plot or even predict what may happen based on what they know. In the case of symbolism, ambiguity allows for interpretation of literary elements so as not to leave the story cut and dry. It allows for each element instead to have a deeper resonance with the reader, in that they play a larger role in the purpose of the text. In a text about the perils of war, being described as a zoo animal probed by aliens rather refers to the feeling of being a prisoner of war caught between a fight of two nations and being examined and tortured for the good of the other side (Vonnegut). A short-story about a green man dressing up as Santa Clause and stealing presents may also be referring to the perils of greed and consumerism (Seuss). The audience may better appreciate the text when they are able to use their imagination in figuring out the true meaning or creating their own personal meaning for themselves, seeing ambiguity permits as many as possible, whether this has to do with someone’s literary knowledge or what they are looking for out of a particular story. In addition, many lessons are taught to children through ambiguous symbolism, such as in Seuss’s stories, because they place a learning concept into theoretical or situational terms that allow them to better understand the impact. These personal meanings and lessons allow for timelessness in any work, as audiences many adapt this flexible story according to their own cultures and beliefs.