Through The Looking Glass

Everyone reads texts differently. It’s like how technically I don’t see the same colour red as you, I can’t interpret a story the same way as you. As an individual we all grow up in different contexts, environments and social standings. Your personal experiences help shape how you view the world and what you interpret from it. Different audiences see different texts. What you see as a tragedy I could interpret as a comedy. It is all subjective. But this doesn’t stop us from trying to understand the same ideas. Just as well as we can’t make up meanings, we are socially bounded by societies interpretation of a common theme. There are dominant meanings that dictate how we should shape our opinion on a text, and there are also normalized, resistant, and alternative readings.

Textual analysis is an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of a text, and it is up to us whether we accept or reject them.