We really do want meaning.

One of the questions asked in class today was, "Do we interpret to find the original meaning in its context, or to find meaning for ourselves?"

I said that the core reason we do it is to find meaning for ourselves, but that this necessarily involves finding meaning in the context.

When I came to this conclusion, it brought me way back to earlier in the semester. When Powers asked,

"Do we read to understand ourselves more?"
"Do we read to understand what it is to be human?"
"Is reading itself what it is to be human?"
"Do we read to find meaning for our lives?"

These questions were attractive to me, and probably to all of us as English majors. But I hesitated. I didn't want to answer too quickly because that put reading on a pedestal. Gave reading the dibs on meaning for humans. What else do we do to understand ourselves? I asked. We also talk. Debate. Play music. Study science. Invent. Analyze. Perform in plays. Does this not also help us understand ourselves, carry what it means to be human, and give us meaning for our lives?

But while I didn't want to be exclusive with the what-it-means-to-be-human factor, I also couldn't throw it out. Because as I thought about reading and meaning and the factor, I realized that when we get to the end of a novel, we think. We let it sit (those of us who read for more than an assignment). And we don't stop until we find a meaning. 9 out of 10 people who read poetry (the following statistic is completely invented but the rhetorical point is true) need to ask, "but what does this poem mean?" much to the annoyance of some poets and some schools of criticism.

The point is, we're not satisfied until we find meaning. If we read a novel and we come to the end and can't put a finger on who we should empathize with, and why, and what we should feel and for what reason, we feel as if we have wasted our time. I'll take a Biblical example first. I hated reading Kings and Chronicles for anything but humor value. Because someone would come to a king, ask for something that seemed reasonable, and randomly get their head cut off because of some huge offense. I'd throw my hands up and say, "What the $#@&* God? This is supposed to have meaning to me?" In my first reading of Brave New World I was frustrated because I didn't know if I was supposed to be paying more attention to Bernard or John. And let's just say I had fun with Mrs. Dalloway. Fun meaning, since it was not an option for me to read something without pulling meaning from it...I just pulled stuff out of the air, it seemed.

For that reason, that profound discomfort and anxiety with a meaningless text (or a text we can't find the meaning in), I necessarily attach our reasons for reading with finding meaning. I won't limit finding meaning to reading, but I know it is necessarily involved.

So you see, sure we need to know a text in the original context. But we don't interpret to say, "I wonder what it meant for them," and stop there. You never stop there. You don't find a string of an idea and then not attach it to yourself. You learn by associations, meaning making connections...meaning applying. Educational psychology teaches us that.