literary interpretation

4 responses so far ↓

•   sprinkles // 23 September 2008 at 11.39 pm

  “In the Cage” reminded me of the essay by Bennett and Royal, “Readers and Reading.” Throughout the novella, the protaganist learned about people through reading telegrams that they wrote. All of her relationships were based upon her readings. She formulated assumptions about people based upon what she read about them. In addition to the physical act of reading, the girl also “read” people based upon her observations and interactions. Reading was so important that, through a combination of reading his telegrams and reading him through observation, the girl became obsessed with Captain Everard.

  The style that “In the Cage” was written in almost made me feel as though I was reading about a girl’s reading. Although this style was unique and captivating, it left me unclear on various lot points. Mainly I was confused about the girl’s relationship with Mr. Mudge. Can anyone clarify that for me?

•   david // 24 September 2008 at 12.58 am

  Probably because it was the subject of my essay, Brooks’ piece on the Metaphor constantly popped up in my mind while reading the story. “In the Cage” depicts the obstructed reading of what goes on outside the cage in which Everard and Lady Bradeen are chosen as the living metaphors amongst the dead (the poor masses that are of little interest to the girl). The dynamic between word (the telegraphs) and person informs the protagonist’s reality, creating a fiction that belongs to neither of the preceding variables. This tension, as Brooks describes it in his essay, is articulated by the narrator: “she pressed the romance closer by reason of the very quantity of imagination it demanded.”

  Something tangential I wanted to bring up just for the hell of it: What are the implications of James writing about a female reading? Are there any? If, as we’ve discussed in class, the reading audience has been trained to identify with the voice of a male author, might there be some significance in James’ account of a nameless “girl” and her personal interpretation of what exists beyond the cage?

•   roark48 // 24 September 2008 at 10.35 am

  I just finished the novella, so my thoughts about the prompt and the story in general are not quite formed yet. What first struck me about the way in which the novella represents the act of reading is how literally it does so. From inside her cage, she reads and interprets the snippets of lives occurring beyond the cage. At least at first, she is physically separated from this world, as a reader does not occupy the same reality as that of the characters in his/her book. She merely receives information, interprets it, derives pleasure from it, and makes it her own. I found it interesting that what she does inside the cage is like a guilty pleasure for her–she likes the “sense of having their silly, guilty secrets in her pocket…” (130). She says she likes to hate them. She’s addicted to her behind-the-scenes role in their world in a way that resembles a reader’s addiction to a romantic novel.
  The world she interprets is a source of fascination and intrigue, but unlike fiction, the people she’s “involved” with are real. I really liked at the end how she realizes “how much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent answers…” (188). The notion of the reader feeling “like the very fountain of fate”, and inserting herself as a character in an external world, is intriguing to me.

•   spotofbother // 24 September 2008 at 8.30 pm

  One thing I forgot to bring up in class: I think that her impending marriage and Mr. Mudge could be considered another cage for our young heroine. A lot of what she does and her reasoning seems to be because she wants to somehow get out of a sensible but totally bland marriage.

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