Open For Interpretation

Since tonight is a double post, I want to stay on a single subject. Specifically, the last subject. My previous post was about how sometimes you can take one story and derive several lessons from it. This post is about a similar, but vastly different subject: interpretation.

Interpretation is what you think the lesson is. It's how you specifically react to a story. "The Giving Tree", for example, can be seen as a story whose lesson is that a true friend will give anything and everything because they want you to be happy. But it can also be seen as a perfect model of an abusive relationship where one person takes and takes and never appreciates the gifts, yet always asks for more, and the other side is so blinded or deluded that they will even allow themselves to be killed for the abuser.

With interpretation though, everybody is looking at the same thing. In "The Giving Tree", everybody read the same parts, saw the same actions and results. They see the relationship, but they have different beliefs on what that relationship is.

In the story I used in the previous post, the lessons came from different aspects of the story. One of them was about the quality of friendships increasing with fewer numbers. Another was about the difficulties in changing your identity.

Creating a story that is open for interpretation is not difficult. Usually, it simply requires less-than-thorough description. Show characters doing things, but don't have anybody expressly say why. Then it is for the readers to guess or assume why.

I have mixed feelings about such stories. Sometimes it can lead to incredible misunderstandings (which would be poor communication). Sometimes, though, it can lead to very interesting discussion points. It can lead to philosophy and questions. And if you are doing that, then maybe you are doing something worthwhile.