Subject: A diversion
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2000 - 13:40:12 EST
_The Overturned Wastebasket_, act 1, scene 1:
(enter a student, Brad, and his teacher, as from class, to the
teacher's office)
Brad: But, did he really mean all that stuff...I mean, really? Did he
mean it? I think writers just do their story thing, they don't try
to, uh, hide all these things in like symbols and things, and, like,
just hide all this stuff around, so we have to tear it apart, ya know?
Teacher: So, the study of literature from Plato to Harold Bloom is a
collection of happy coincidences?
Brad: Uh, play dough? Huh? I mean, did like Salinger *really sit
there* and --uhuh!-- think "I'm gonna make the Bananafish represent
all this stuff" huhuuh!?
Teacher: Probably, Brad, but let's suppose he did't. Does it matter?
Brad: Well, cuz, it's, uh...I mean, I just don't, uh, well...
Teacher: Suppose Mr. Salinger didn't mean anything by the bananafish.
Suppose he was just ass-bored with the story he was writing about
Seymour, and he stuck the bananafish bit in there to fill out the
middle. Does that mean we have to ignore it? Are we oblidged "not to
go there"?
Brad: Yeah! "Don't go there!" huhuh-aHUH!
Teacher: Let's take it one step further. Suppose Salinger catches
wind of our blasphemous goings-on and leaves us a nasty message on our
answering machine, telling us once and for all to lay off the
bananafish bit, because it didn't mean anything. Or suppose he takes
out adds in _The New York Times_ and _English Studies_ explaining that
the bananafish, the quotations from Eliot's "Wasteland," the allusion
to Helen Bannerman's story...all the symbolic razorblades in the great
wastebasket of fiction don't "mean" anything. Do we obediently set
down our pencils and our copies of _Nine Stories_ and share an orange
and talk about the Shelley's love life instead?
Brad: Shelly? Is she the one that sits in the second row?
Teacher: The one *who* sits in the second row, but--
Brad: Okay, like, my dad said that he took English in college, and he
said all you did was tear stuff apart and like find all these symbols
and stuff. But if the author didn't mean it, then there isn't any
meaning in it.
Teacher: Look, it's my job. They pay me to do this, and you're
getting a cultural education. Hey--what do you think would happen if
we didn't 'tear this stuff apart', as you put it? You'd skim the
Cliff's notes; you'd--
Brad: (slipping) I'd use the frat Cliff's Notes library, man! (a
squealing laugh, then realizing) --I mean I'd, uh...
Teacher: Brad, you're an imbecile.
Brad: What?
Teacher: Nothing. Look, consider this just one way of interacting
with literature, okay?
-- Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu - * Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message * UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
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