Q13

[zainrizvi]

Principle underlying his view of literary interpretation

I thought it was (C) because he cites evidence that other people in the world do not have the same view as him, therefore his view is wrong. Why is that wrong? Because only view can be correct.

(D) seems like a trap answer choice to me that uses all the words from the passage.. but I'm not sure how this principle underlies his interpretation.

[noah]

We're asked about a principle underlying how the author thinks about literary interpretation. It's tough to pre-phrase this answer, but I do know that the author has spent a bunch of time criticizing Bettelheim's view.

(A) is unsupported/out of scope--we never hear about folks getting trained in literary interpretation.

(B) is unsupported--we never hear about who can and can't find latent meanings. This is tempting because we might assume kids can't, but the passage doesn't support this answer.

(C) is too strong. We do hear that Bettelheim's view is problematic, but we don't hear that only one meaning is truly correct.

(D) is supported by the passage. The author spends some serious time in the second half of the passage talking about how Bettelheim and his band of screwed up adults interpret fairy tales they way they do because of their ideas about evil children.

(E) is out of scope/unsupported. Deliberately placing meaning? Hunh?

[tzyc]

Hi,

I'm confused with the question...is it asking what the author thinks about psychoanalytic literature? Or what psychoanalytic literature thinks about how pychologists's opinions toward fairy tales? Or the 2 ways of interpreting a story the author gives?

Thank you

[noah]

Hi,

I'm confused with the question...is it asking what the author thinks about psychoanalytic literature? Or what psychoanalytic literature thinks about how pychologists's opinions toward fairy tales? Or the 2 ways of interpreting a story the author gives?

Thank you

It's actually neither. The principle most likely to underlie the author's characterization is an idea (a principle) that seems to be an assumption in the author's opinion (characterization) of literary interpretation.

For example, if I said that we shouldn't give the highly-sensitive job to Jim, since he's living in New York, living so close to millions of others, we might say that the principle underlying my characterization of New Yorkers is that the closer together people live, the less trustworthy they are.

I hope that clears it up.

[tzyc]

Hi Noah, thank you for your reply.
I understand what principle is, but I think what I wanted to ask was...what "literary interpretation" in the question is...(Which one of the following principles most likely underlies the author's characterization of literary interpretation?) It seems like the reference comes from 52~? And it seems it talks about how the author thinks about the reason Bettelheim holds the interpretation of fairy tales?? So literary interpretation=interpretation of fairy tales??

Thank you

[noah]

Ah, I see what you were asking. Sloppy reading on my part.

There isn't a specific place in the passage to which this question refers. However, as I said above, we see a lot of discussion of how literary interpretation is influenced by the assumptions and beliefs folks have.

In short, we're asked what's underlying the way the author talks about how Bettelheim and his cronies interpret fairy tales.

[tangdanni422]

In lines 39-45, the author is saying Bettelheim's reading produces meanings that are very different from those produced by readers with different assumptions and expectations. It looks like that the author thinks the assumptions and expectations of a reader can affect his or her interpretation of a story. This kind of supports D.