by Thomas Mullen, author of Last Town on Earth (Random House, 2007).
When reading works of fiction, students often think that there’s a right answer for how they’re supposed to respond to the book. Surely (as they’re sometimes taught in high school) there’s a specific meaning F. Scott Fitzgerald had in mind with The Great Gatsby’s “green light,” and therefore there’s a right way to read the book and a wrong way. A novel is a riddle, just a more creative version of a math problem, and students need to figure out the right answer, explain it in a paper, and then they’ll earn their A. At which point they’re free to put the book away and never think about it again.
But English isn’t Algebra, and sometimes there are lots of right answers. Or maybe—gasp—there’s no right answer. Or perhaps it isn’t the answer that’s so important as the journey the reader takes to get there. The travels with the characters, the experience of viewing the world through someone else’s eyes, the various lessons this act imparts—these will all lead different readers to different opinions, emotions, revelations. This is true not only with our interpretations about whether a literary symbol has a certain meaning but also our determination as to whether characters did the “right” thing or not. Continue reading