(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

That essay thing? It concludes by analysing the illustration that goes with the poem to prove that the sisters subconsciously wanted the goblin men to go away. (a) The illustration, to analyse the poem. and (b) characters DO NOT HAVE A SUBCONSCIOUS. Plus (c) of course they wanted the goblin men to go away at the end of the poem, and to come to them at the beginning and middle.
And the best bit is this whole analysis is based on the picture showing goblins walking towards them.
Because in the poem it says goblins walk "Backwards up the mossy glen"
so clearly goblins facing towards them mean they're actually going away.

... there is not enough head desk in the world

Comments

[lizw.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a dreadful essay, but I'm confused by the idea that characters don't have a subconscious. It seems to me they have a subconscious in exactly the same sense that they have hearts and stomachs: they're fictional humans, so they have fictional versions of everything we know humans have, and the text may or may not contain hints about what might be going on inside their fictional bodies or their fictional minds.

[beccaelizabeth]

If the text hints at a character having conflicting desires or different layers or something then yes, they have a subconscious they're not so much aware of. So I wrote that wrong.

The thing is, the essay was not analysing the text at that point. It was analysing the illustration. In the illustration there were two sleeping women and a circle above them with goblins in it. It concluded this meant the circle was what they were dreaming, ie the contents of their subconscious. and then it analysed it. at great length. for several pages. But the circle was an illustration. It was not a dream. And it was not a dream belonging to those characters. And so it was not a window into their subconscious. And we could have skipped those pages with no loss to our understanding of the poem Goblin Market.

Also, if I'm reading a story and treating characters as people for the length of the story I'll happily read them as if they've got hearts and stomachs and a subconscious. But if I'm close reading a text for class they only have a subconscious, or indeed a stomach, if I can provide a quote to back up my interpretation of them as stomach owning persons. ... which in Goblin Market I'm pretty sure I can on account of it being about eating. ANYway, is just, treating text as people strikes me as odd in some contexts.

[beccaelizabeth]

Also, now I'm thinking about it, I'm agreeing with you and me both at once. That'll take some sorting out in my head.