Paper 2 topic: What do you think of the assertion that the meaning of
a text is fixed and does not change over time?
To analyze this question, it is needed to
be informed of the context of production of both texts studied: Fatelessness
and To Kill A Mockingbird. Fatelessness was written in 1975 and the story takes
place on the Second World War, which the author went through. All aspects on
the text are meant to demonstrate the suffering felt by the Jews (the author
included). On To Kill a Mockingbird, written in 1960, but positioned in the
1940's, the main theme is the racial inequality and the discrimination for a
lawyer that is defending an African - American descendant.
These two contexts of production are
essential for the understanding of the question. These texts have a reason why
they were written and a form how were they written. It is certain that the
meaning of the text does not change over time, but it's an equivocation to
assume that the comprehension of the readers over decades is not altered. This
has to do with the concept of context of reception; the context in which the
reader receives the information.
What needs to be understood is that the
aspect that is essential on the comprehension of a text is not what the
reader understands, but what the author wanted to express and how. In other
words, what is important is not what the reader is able to savvy, but what the
author intended to show with each one of the literary elements he/she
implemented. This has a direct relation with what this texts are trying to make
the author feel. The objective of the author is what is being questioned if the
assertion wouldn't be true. There needs to be an understanding on what did the
author desired or intended to communicate or express throughout the piece in
order to deduce what the meaning was.
Fatelessness and To Kill a Mockingbird
are two books that have a big similarity: both texts are based on an author's
negative personal experience. Imre Kertesz and Harper Lee both suffered and
experienced what they relate or narrate on their texts. This could suggest a
similar objective on their pieces: to show what it was like, to make the reader
understand what kind of feelings were involved.
¿How could time change the objective the
author has? If this is true, and the objective cannot change over time, the meaning
desired on the text would be unaltered. If this is true, the meaning is not
altered by time. Although the meaning the author wanted the text to have is not
altered, the understanding of different readers at different times could be
different, or at least, their perception of the things going on is different
than the author's. Equally, the importance they give to different actions,
words and other elements is dissimilar to the importance the same author
offered to these. In this sense, the reader could get to the conclusion that
the meaning of the text could have been altered over time, as some things that
were transcendent those days are not important at all in today's context. For
example, a lawyer defending an African - American descendant is not something
weird today, to the extent that is perfectly normal to see African - American
professionals being lawyers. Although all this is true, it's not accurately
stated. The conclusion the reader should have drawn is not that the meaning if
the text has changed, but the meaning he (the reader) is able to understand
from his own perspective and previous information about the topic.
It can be said that all the problematic
of the assumption is originated by the ambiguity on the term
"meaning". Is it arguing about the meaning the author is able to
assign to the text? Is it having a relation with what the author wants the
readers from different times and contexts to understand? Or is it asking which
is the meaning of the text itself, what is it about and what elements can be an
aid to identify this meaning?
The truth is, the third question proves
to be the most accurate one. The meaning of the text is one: the one it
objectively has. Every person may understand something different from different
texts. For example, in a poem or a song there is normally more than one
interpretation, even though the author only considered one. Therefore, the
meaning that was meant to be understood is the same, regardless what each one
of the readers may have distinguished on its own.
It can
be said that the assumption of the question is true. The meaning doesn't seems
altered at the passing of the years (on Fatelessness, we still know the
objectives and reasons why the author wrote it and the arguments behind why),
but different readers from different times may interpret dissimilar things and
assumptions (for us today, would be intolerable that a person decided to
extinguish a whole race like in the holocaust, but as we know it already
happened is not weird nor controversial nor taboo to speak or write about the
Second World war). The meaning is fixed, the understanding is moldable.
Word count: 872
