Prompt #6, blog #3

In literature, as in real life, it’s rare to come across two or more people who have identical interpretations of the same text. Even if the text has an ending or particular area that largely is definite or ambiguous, there are several levels of readers of whom this extra level is lost on. Take, for example, this picture from Alice in Wonderland of the caterpillar upon his mushroom. In the classic story, one may interpret this illustration as having either a man’s face (with a pointy nose and chin) or an actual caterpillar’s face (with both front legs of the caterpillar being above his arms). As a child, I always defaulted to the humanoid face, although often thinking it odd; every few years I would again discover that this picture had the capabilities to represent him as a more proper caterpillar, and, at the age of each discovery, it became the gem of my reading. While we tend to illustrate stories in our minds when we read them (I, as a rule, tend to illustrate much less than others I know), this picture forces us to attend to how much humanity (vs. realism, although I hesitate to use such a word in relation to Alice in Wonderland) we like to assign the caterpillar.

When you’re trying to read a text for analysis, however, it’s much more likely that you’ll initially uncover this prized double-meaning. One done as subtly as the above illustration really encourages thought outside of the reading. The trick to dealing with ambiguity, I believe, has not so much to do with picking a certain direction the story should go but analyzing your initial reaction to a piece of largely ambiguous text, and approaching the many possibilities to search for meaning. Why am I able to react to the caterpillar as more or less human? Does defining him as either change my reading experience? Do I feel differently towards him as a character because of my interpretation? With the proper push, ambiguity can be very rewarding to the more analytical reader.