CC BY
3УДК 811.134.2.
1 2
Olga L. Zaitseva , Alexandra A. Zaitseva
1 2
' Pyatigorsk State University, Pyatigorsk, Russia,
1 zaitsevao@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8512-1172
2alex02@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5329-4714
Corresponding author: O.L. Zaitseva, zaitsevao@mail.ru
A CRITICAL INSIGHT INTO THE INTERPRETATION OF LITERARY TEXTS
Abstract. The article is devoted to the problem of text perception, as it is the realm of knowledge that presents an enigma to literary researchers and to linguists as well. Only holistic approach to this subject that connects philosophical insight, psychological evaluation together with linguistic study can contribute into the solution of this problem. Cognitive-pragmatic method as applied to the text shows possible ways of analysis that takes into consideration the position of a person (reader) decoding the information (both proposition and propositional) and forming his own idea of the matter or situation, which proves the fact that argumentation, if successful, can take an emotional form.
Key words: literary analysis, linguistic structure, psychological insight, cognitive approach, written discourse analysis
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Ольга Львовна Зайцева , Александра Анатольевна Зайцева
12 Пятигорский государственный университет, Пятигорск, Россия
1 zaitsevao@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8512-1172
2alex02@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5329-4714
Автор, ответственный за переписку: O.L. Zaitseva, zaitsevao@mail.ru
КРИТИЧЕСКИЙ ПОДХОД К ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ ТЕКСТА
Аннотация. Данная статья посвящена одной из сложнейших проблем, связанных с познанием через восприятие художественного текста, через декодирование заложенной в нем информации. Предлагается комплексный подход с привлечением методов психологического восприятия, философского осмысления на основе лингвистического анализа в рамках когнитивно-прагматического подхода. Авторское воздействие на читателей происходит с помощью аргументирования, прямого или косвенного, которое проходит через эмоциональное восприятие текста.
Ключевые слова: литературный анализ, лингвистическая структура, психологический подход, когнитивное осмысление, дискурсивный анализ
The problem of interpretation of texts is the aim of scientific research in many fields of humanities: linguistics, literary sciences, psychology, cultural studies [1,3,4]. In every sphere it is viewed from different aspects, and very often the results show the complexity of the whole thing. Starting with the focus on literary analysis of the text we can turn to linguistic perspective to find an appropriate explanation of the existence of several individual interpretations that a text can lead to.
Writers, while working on a literary piece, concentrate themselves on their own ideas, thoughts and images, and only their talent can help them reach the aim - to get to the reading audience the problems that worry them, and their views and opinions. Even great masters sometimes do not feel sure of the proper depiction of the inner world of their characters. As an example, to prove our judgment, we may take the book "Sons and lovers" by D.N. Lawrence [2], written in the 19th century but is still being read and admired by everyone. The main problem the writer tries to solve in the book is - a motherly love, as opposed to any other type of love. Readers,
surely, have to solve one dilemma: Is Mrs. Morel's love for her son being celebrated or criticized by the narrator? The answer is neither. We'll try to find arguments to prove our thesis.
To perceive the difference between a motherly love and a love between man and woman D.N. Lawrence with his ability to get deep inside into the nature of human feelings (especially those of a man and a woman, irrespective of whether they are a mother and a son, or a man and a woman) catches the subtle string that connects them. Thus, in chapter 7 ("Lad-and-girl Love") he describes the budding of a young flower of love between two teenagers (Mirium and Paul) unconscious of what was happening to them. The writer pictures vividly (and metaphorically) the situation in which they stood one evening at sunset, watching "a hawthorn bush ... splashing the darkness everywhere with great split stars, pure white". The children, standing close together, were "silent and watchfuF, and "... the steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their souls'". A rose of their love, tender and wonderful, point after point revealed itself in that image of a blooming rose-bush. It was strong, and even the dusk that came "like a smoke around couldn't put out the sparkling rose-flowers; some curved and holy, others expanded in ecstasy.
The whole thing moved a young girl and the boy greatly: Mirium's soul quivered, "expectant with wonder" as she stood there looking into his eyes. She wanted a communion with him, but "he turned aside, as if pained", feeling anxious and impressed. Only later when they parted he gave way to his feelings: he ran and ran, and breathed the air in. It was for him like "a delicious delirium in his veins".
D.N. Lawrence catches the difference in reactions and emotions the feeling of love evokes in the souls of the boy and the girl: Mirium - expectant, open, inviting, and Paul - paining, averting, and fearful. What makes him so afraid of her? Perhaps, the author thinks, he hated her "for she seemed in some way to make him despise himself." Where does this hatred come from? What is its origin? The answer to this question we find in D.N. Lawrence's novel. Paul despises himself for his desire to want her as a woman, - the desire he was not ready to welcome, and this desire which was supposed to make him stronger, more self-conscious, "was suppressed into shame, and 'purity' prevented their first love-kiss". What is that 'purity'? What is its meaning?
From the linguistic point of view, the words that we mark in italics enter in a certain cognitive frame LOVE forming one of its modus lines - BEGINNING OF LOVE. We understand modality in a broader sense, as a pragmatic category which reveals the attitude of the speaker/writer towards what he is saying or writing. In this article we can only mention that readers are being led through the book with the help of implicit or explicit expressions of the author's point of view, and it is up to them to catch it rightly.
As the plot develops the writer gives more proposition information about the situation, making his readers think about how curious it is that there appeared and grew up a strange barrier between the two young souls wishing to be always together, walking and talking, and enjoying each other's company. Instead there was of long period of parting, which made Mirium suffer a lot; although he was always coming back again. Mirium felt that coming to her; he was not really with her: something withdrew him from her every minute they were together. Something or somebody didn't let them be free and be a loving couple.
D.N. Lawrence (a master of psychological analysis) seems to perceive the nature of a thing that constantly intruded into their love and friendship. That was a great force that drew them apart, spoiling every minute of their life 'like a sting of a wasp with inflammation to follow '. He names it jealousy, which shows itself everywhere where love resides and blooms; and it may take any possible form, open or hidden.
To find arguments to prove his idea, the author describes the situation when Paul, with his relatives and friends, was returning one late evening from a long walk in the fields and woods. He put his fingers into the strings of Mirium's shoulder bag, thus touching her; and instantly she felt Annie (Paul' sister) behind "watchfulandjealous". But the whole tragedy is that jealousy crept into the heart of Paul's mother. Again the author poses a question: Why did it happen? And it's already another story - a story of a parental or motherly love towards her son. Love for daughters goes in a
different way, not like that for sons.
And the author gives information to support his point of view. He states his idea and in doing so, he not only needs to find facts to prove it, but also has to make his readers believe him. So he resorts to a deeper insight into the problem, offering more detailed information about Paul's mother - Mrs. Morel, who felt herself a proud woman having sons, though she never forgave the eldest son his death. She really liked her youngest - Arthur, who being warm and generous, would probably do well in the end, she hoped. In Paul she had a great belief - he would distinguish himself; she perceived "a great power in him'", of which she thought "he was totally unaware'. She expected that a lot would come out of him. His life was somehow a promise to her; perhaps, a promise for her to see herself realized as a person.
Reading the book we think that the whole idea - to wish to find oneself realized or fulfilled in another person, is in itself destructive. It brings one to the conclusion that, as Mrs. Morel put it, "Not for nothing had been her struggle', which implies that her (Mrs. Morel) life was a complete struggle (perhaps, a failure). What for? Or against what?
D.N. Lawrence in his novel tries to find answers to these questions. He adds another piece of information about Paul's mother to make the readers draw certain conclusions, or at least start thinking about the problem. Happy life ended for the young Mrs. Morel when she gave birth to her first child. It became a monotonous drudgery, with her hateful husband always looming in the background; with all possible sins on earth belonging to him. He was always dull and drunken, as if he were not quite living, not quite being someone. And she waited for the birth of her second son in horror, at times wishing he were not born. Later, when he was about 8 years old, laid up with pneumonia, the thought of his death came to her again. Paul might have felt it, and started to envy his elder brother William, to whom Mrs. Morel gave all her love and warmth. Things changed when Paul was coming out of his teens, William being dead then; his mother shed all her tenderness on him. And her struggle for his happiness began.
Paragraphs, sentences, phrases and words can carry factual information (proposition, or dictum) to introduce readers into the related situation, as well as they may explicitly or implicitly show the author's attitudes and ideas (propositional content, or modus). So, the author supposes that hard life made Mrs. Morel wish to make his son's life easy and happy. It was a never-ending, long-lasting struggle for her right to live in him. Mrs. Morel was a sensitive woman, who could feel changes in her son; Paul was growing up to be a good-looking, intelligent young man, and his drawing skills gave her pleasure and hope for his outstanding life. However, there came another woman in her way - Mirium. And a never-ending and long-lasting struggle against her began.
The plot goes on and the readers learn that Paul was not quite aware of what was happening with him, to him and round him. He sensed his emotions and feelings, they were different. But one prevailed - that was the feeling of Mirium wanting his soul out of his body, and not him; that feeling almost drove him mad. His meetings with Mirium turned into tortures. One time he hated her, another - he wanted to give her passion and tenderness, but he could not. A young man he was, inexperienced and touching; too loving his mother, too blind to see the real reason of his sufferings and to connect them with her. He only knew that when he went to Mirium's and it grew dark, his mother was fretting and getting angry about him, why, perhaps, he never understood. The author tracks down the beginning of Paul's troubles and misfortunes. Paul and Mirium were still growing children, and he often drove several miles to her place on a bicycle. Once on his returning home very late, his mother scornfully remarked that "certainly, Mirium might be wonderfully fascinating, that he could not get away from her, and had to travel 8 miles to meet her".
Though he knew about his mother disliking the girl, he insisted on everybody's accepting their friendship. Mrs. Morel was "too wise to have any open rupture'. Only once she told him that Mirium was one of those "who will want to suck a man's soul out till he has none of his own life". The meaning of what she had said, did not reach him until he became a young man; however, it was implanted in his soul and began to grow little by little. The thing that Mrs. Morel feared very much was the thought that her beloved son would be absorbed by Mirium and stop loving her. Where did
her fear come from? Why did it come?
Constantly asking questions the author tries to keep his readers aware of the things happening to form their own judgments.
Getting through D.N. Lawrence's book the readers are shown how gradually Paul became absorbed by his own mother without being aware of it at all. A great psychologist of human soul, the author draws a vivid picture of unconscious interactions of the three people involved: Paul, Mirium and his mother, in that order. "In contact with Mirium he gained insight; his vision grew deeper, from his mother he drew the life-warmth, the strength to produce".
A psychologically experienced reader (with the help of an argumentative discourse experienced author) would probably say that, indeed, it is only but natural for a son to have so close a tie with his mother, - a tie that cannot exist for ever in the form of tender love and mutual understanding between a young boy and his mother, since boys grow up to be men, and men cannot remain boys. If they do, they break the eternal law of evolution and developing of a human being and get themselves into the abyss of pessimism. So, in Paul's life there appeared another woman, not like his mother, but quite different - young and beautiful, and attractive. Mirium urged the warmth his mother gave him "into the intensity like a white light".
The phrases in italics above show the author's attitude to the whole problem of parental (motherly) love: is it possible for a man to differentiate and at the same time connect two women that he loves - a mother and a wife? As D.N. Lawrence puts it - Mrs. Morel never felt it and never accepted the right of her son to have other, but motherly love, or motherly ties. Here are some extracts from the book:
- "Don't let mater know it", he said (to Mirium);
- "Good-evening, Mrs. Morel", she (Mirium) said in a differential way. She sounded as if she had no right to be there. - "Good-evening", replied Mrs. Morel coldly.
- Mrs. Morel sat jealously in her own chair (one day when Mirium had to stay for the night at their house).
The author's intuition and analytical mind make him enter another cognitive modus in explaining things to the readers - LOVE AND REALITY. He describes all entire things that made life for Paul as well as Mirium very hard. The tension grew so strong that Paul started to hate Mirium, it seemed to him that she made him despise himself. His soul was in the darkness where the only light was "the window of their lamp-lit cottage". It meant - his mother was there waiting for him, loving him, giving him sense of security, warmth, calm ... everything that a mother can, naturally, give to her child, supporting and defending him in the world of people. Can it go on forever following the same unchanged pattern? - Hardly. But a motherly love of such a kind draws her son back to the childhood, the happiness, the fascination, the curiosity, - to everything that a young period in life can offer, and keeps him there. And the author proves this idea by getting inside the inner world of a loving soul hidden from everybody. The third cognitive modus that reveals itself in the book is END OF LOVE.
In the last chapters of his book D.N. Lawrence makes the readers find answers to the questions, which he asks through the whole novel. He gives more information for thought: In search of his own way, looking ahead, Paul sees only his mother ("my girl" as he calls her), noticing changes in her looks and emotions. His relations towards her resemble those between a man and his woman. In her last weeks and days those relations become grotesque: "stroking his mother's hair", "feelingher breath", etc. - all such thing can hardly be attributed to mother-and-son relations; they look more like those between lovers. But that was much later, after all the suffering Paul had come through.
The author of this highly philosophical and psychologically biased book asks the readers: What were his sufferings? What life did he have? And helps them find the answers: He had nothing but racing from one woman (Mirium) to another (his mother). And that marathon run, spiced with unfathomed emotional chaos, brought Paul to a state of being "irritable, priggish, and melancholic", sometimes, though, he rebelled (his love affair with Clara proves it). Mrs. Morel saw
"the sunshine going out of him", and she resented, and put blame for that on Mirium. She hated the girl even more for that; her hatred became open. So strong was that hatred that Paul himself started to feel that Mirium spoilt "his ease and naturalness". That gave him the sense of humiliation and made his further relations with Mirium unbearable. Finally, they broke off.
D.N. Lawrence leads the readers to the final stage of perception: Did Mrs. Morel feel happy? - Surely, yes. The author notices that she began "to look younger, less pale, calmer, and was even more friendly and tolerant with her husband". She did not then worry very much if Paul was late; she stopped sitting and waiting for him by the window as she used to do. But was Paul happy? -Hardly. That she never noticed.
With his sensitiveness to fluttering of human souls, the author perceives the inner features of human life, which shows itself in words, actions, emotions, feelings, ideas, etc. He seems to capture the 3d dimension of life, which is concealed from logical mind. His writer's intuition helps him depict the nuances of people's attitudes and relations, their torments and tortures, exultations and confused minds. He makes readers feel sympathy with all the main characters involved in the narration; sympathy mixed with pity for them because of their strife in life, strife in love - and their plunge in resentment and hatred. Persisting in doing that they (the characters) do not notice the fact that they make people they love suffer greatly, - make them do what they do not want to do, - make all decisions for them. They intrude into their souls and suck the energy out of them, unnoticeably and unnoticed, unconsciously and subconsciously. And they all go along this vicious circle.
Still, D.N. Lawrence thinks that love begets love, and hatred begets hatred. He also believes that a woman's love for a man if unrealized would make her suffer till it finds the way out. We find proof in his final pages: Paul becomes the man she loves with all her heart: she holds him and does not let him go to live on his own. She does not want to 'share' him with anyone. He is hers; she thinks she knows him (which is certainly an illusion to her), but she does not. She worries if she perceives something strange in his emotions (like it happened to her in the picture gallery), if she notices motives, unknown to her. He belongs to nobody but herself. Becoming blind with love she does not see the destruction her love brought him into. It is paradox, but she does not live her life, but his; and he does not live his life, but hers.
So, to come back to the question asked at the beginning of the article, we can consume that D.N. Lawrence neither celebrates, nor criticizes a motherly love (and a woman's love as well); he shows its force, which if understood and used wrongly, leads a man to destruction.
In conclusion it is necessary to state that whenever we interpret a literary text we have to take into consideration at least three aspects: philosophical, psychological and linguistic. Being interconnected they reveal the complexity of the whole phenomenon a text presents. The holistic approach in text analysis will certainly contribute into understanding of texts, which is the way to successful communication between people on intercultural level as well. Our brief critical insight into literary text interpretation opens new door to possible evaluation of discourse features of a text.
REFERENCES
1. Fortescue, M. Thoughts about thought/ Text. Cognitive Linguistics. - 2001. - Vol. 12. - Issue 1. - P. 15-45.
2. Lawrence, D. Sons and Lovers / D. Lawrence. - Москва : Директ-Медиа, 2003. -753 с. - https://biblioclub.ru/index.php?page=book&id=37698
3. Sanford A.J. Cognition and Cognitive Psychology. - New York: Basic Books Inc., Pub. - 1985. - 435 p.
4. Schank R.C. Reading and Understanding: Teaching from the Perspective of Artificial Intelligence. - Hillsdale, N.Y.: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass., 1982. - 196 p.;
Information about the authors
O.L. Zaitseva — PhD, candidate of Science (Philology), Professor;
A.A. Zaitseva — senor teacher.
Информация об авторах О.Л. Зайцева - кандидат филологических наук, профессор; А.А. Зайцева - старший преподаватель.
