Post Class

In our class on Thursday, we discussed the different ways text can be read and the importance of language. It is so interesting that by just switching the placement of words or adding certain punctuation marks can not only change the flow of a sentence but its entire meaning. As we discussed the meaning of:

“There remains the possibility of saying something else (15),” we had said that you can’t make someone see what you are saying. People perceive things in their own unique way and pick out a frame from what you are saying and it won’t always be the frame you want.

An example of this is when Richard Nixon gave a speech about the Watergate scandal and said to the nation “I am not a crook.” This made people think that he was a crook.

We talked about perversion and reading between the lines, which in my opinion, is extremely important when thinking “Will my audience understand what I am trying to say?” By turning the text inside out and reading between the lines, we are able to see the different angles at which what the text could possibly be trying to say.

We also talked about how camera changed everything. Providing us with an image to associate our language with. Therefore, once you use certain language, you can’t help but evoke certain images. It is how your brain works.

We also covered the importance of silence. Silence pushes us to think outside and involve our own theory in order to process what is being said. Two of the quotes from the reading that resonated most with me were,

“What is important in the work is what it does not say” (10).

And “To know the work, we must move outside it.”

To me these provided advice and reasoning to the use of silence in a piece of work. What I find difficult though is knowing where that imaginary line is that marks the stopping point of a text: When you’ve said too much or not enough, when its time for the reader to take what they’ve read and let it marinade in their mind.