Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Silence

In speech and writing, the audience can never be absolutely certain of the author’s intentions. Individuals who are a part of the audience can interpret the message in many different ways. Pierre Macherey describes that what is important in the writing is what is left out. To me, this "silence" is what leaves room for interpretation and understanding of the text. Macherey says, "Speech eventually has nothing more to tell us: we investigate the silence, for it is the silence that is doing the speaking" (17). The silence is where the audience is able to generate their opinion of the author's intended meaning. Something that I found relevant is a song lyric because they can vary from a very abstract message to a more straightforward message. The artist can then leave the listeners to interpret the lyrics for themselves and formulate meaning in that way. Macherey explains that what is written exists to uncover what is not written, “In its every particle, the work manifests, uncovers, what it cannot say, this silence gives it life” (16). Without this room for interpretation, the text would just be relaying facts to the audience instead of inspiring thought or further contemplation.

Macherey’s writing relates back to Roland Barthes notion of the “gap”, which refers to the room for left for analysis between the author and the critic. We will fill this gap based on our own personal experiences and internalizations, which is why various critics will formulate a different message.

In another class, the discussion in the room took a very emotional turn, which resulted in silence. The silence remained for a couple minutes until the professor stepped in and explained that silence in the classroom is not always a bad thing. For me, the silence meant trying to internalize and making sense of the class discussion. In this case, I feel that the personal contemplation was more important to the class discussion than continuing to speak on the subject.

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