Barthes/Sontag/Foucault

Amanda Jones

Barthes/Sontag/Foucault

Thesis

Wyshock

“It is only the shallow people who do not judge be appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

• Oscar Wilde

This quote is the opening to Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag for me the three reading have everything to do with this quote. After reading the three essays about authorship and the importance or non importance of it, I fell that there is a inherent need to know what it means, who did it, where did they come from, there is no real reason to have the knowledge other than personal gain. In the quote by oscar wilde we are people of judgement and it is in out nature to make a label on an abject weather it be a piece of art, such as a painting for photograph, or a literary piece of work and anything that stands up on its own and says this is what I am saying. I feel that as humans we can not help but make this “judgement”,though there are the “shallow” who believe that it is wrong.

The other reading's The Death of the Author, and What is an Author? Made me think of what is the point of having an author because once you take it away it is still the same piece. The only difference is the desire to know. This Summer I read a book called The Help in the book the young girl decides to write a book about the Help in Jackson, Mississippi and there point of view, it is written during the segregation laws therefore it is a dangerous task that is being undertaken. In the end it is a anonymous book that is published and has one piece of info that the protagonist would only know. Before it is read she tells the town it is about there city and all of her white friends with help when she reads the secret info she turns her ideas that the book is about Jackson around. So that she is not exposed. To me this book is a perfect example of how obsessed we are in finding out the truths and having knowledge that was not granted to us. I am noticing that as I write this response I understand that it is not always necessary to read into a work so deep that you then almost destroy the piece for yourself, there is no real emotion or connection to the work. My final thoughts of the three essays are, that it is a gift to not have all the answers in front of you, and though I do believe it is important interpret I also believe that it is important to let the nervous and new ideas come at you in a genuine way, not forcing something that is not there.