Pre-Post for 9/9

Pierre Macherey’s “from a Theory of Literary Production” initially struck me as something confusing, but as I proceeded to re-read it I unpacked it and found it was something very close to my everyday life. I understood Macherey’s work that he believes all text is open and open for interpretation by everyone who is faced with it. In addition to the text itself, Macherey dwells on the missing text and to me that is what is most significant. It is possible that im completely wrong in my interpretation of Macherey’s work so hopefully im not completely off. Specifically I think its important to digest the open text/multiple interpretation part of the reading. For example, in my daily life, I interact with many people. Some of those people are my relatives or close friends, but others are acquaintances and classmates that only know me by my face and nothing beyond it. I find myself constantly worrying about how I speak to those people who aren’t as close to me in comparison to those that are. Im worried that because they don’t know me they may take what im saying the wrong way. I know that in some situations I come off too harsh to people who don’t know me when I think I am just being honest. Therefore, Macherey’s idea of the open text/ multiple interpretations is something I believe is present in everyone’s daily life. It is impossible to have everything and everyone interpret everything and anything the way we mean for it to be understood. More deeply, I took Macherey’s absence of the text notion as something much more personal. Recently in my Listening class we studied the silence or absence of being within relationship, whether it is a friendship or romantic relationship or even a parent to child relationship. I came to the conclusion that silence for me personally when im around those I love is a sign that I am comfortable enough with that person to say nothing at all and not feel awkward. For other people silence may mean awkwardness and discomfort, again it is also a concept up for interpretation. Macherey really opened my eyes to a new understanding of the open text/different interpretations, but he also confirmed the way I interpret silence was understood by others to an extent.