Epileptic Trees/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** On the subject of Fahrenheit 451, what is the answer when both the popular explanation and the author's explanation are blatantly incorrect? (remember that it is said in the book that television isn't the cause of the problems)

*** It's whatever you can construct a coherent argument for. That's the point.

* Actually, after years of trying to get an English degree, I'm pretty sick of people trying to say definitively what the author meant by something-or-other. The professor who concluded that everything in every book we were assigned was a metaphor for sex was the breaking point. You ''can't'' know the deeper meaning of everything! Or even if there was a deeper meaning intended. Everyone comes to a work with their own world view that colors what they read. Author intent is important, but it isn't always terribly clear.

** Your post brings to mind an English Lit professor I had in my Freshman year. She would ask a student for their interpretation of something or other, then proceed to attack said interpretation as "wrong" and pontificate on her "correct" interpretation.