Thanks Renee for letting me know that I was not the only person who found Textual Power really difficult to understand. In fact for me I thought none of the matters was sinking in until I read Professor Sample’s question, which was a great help for giving me a direction to begin my post. On page 24 Scholes mentions “our job is not to produce “readings” for our students but to give them the tools for producing their own”. My guess is the Andrea Mantegna’s painting would be considered a tool for understanding and criticizing Hemingway’s fiction. For students who don’t understand art very well, like myself, I would argue that in fact that painting does not help me push from interpretation to criticism. I am a big fan of Hemingway’s works. His simple, yet intriguing sentences can already spark different criticism and interpretation. Mantegna’s painting does not necessarily add or subtract from my understanding of the work, unless it is fully discussed in a classroom setting, and I am able to hear the views of others in class.

Although I do not deny that for many other works a painting or “marginal cultural allusion” can actually help students begin criticizing a work. For some students maybe a painting is not enough to spark criticism. For example when a teacher asks students to compare a work of Shakespeare, like the text of Romeo and Juliet with the most recent Hollywood version of the story, students can easily begin the criticizing and interpretation process because they can relate to the recent version that uses guns and other familiar cultural props. They can then compare the differences and understandings of the original text. This activity helps students explore the different interpretations, and how to criticize.

“essays say what they mean and stories do not” (p.22).

I likedhow Scholes spells out the different tasks of essays and stories. I realized one of the reasons stories are so highly appreciated among all ages and cultures is that it allows the audience to come up with their own interpretations based on their own cultural experiences. I always wondered why my creative writing instructors were not very concerned about format and grammar, and why being good at punctuation does not necessarily make you a good writer.

I especially enjoyed chapter five as Scholes walked the reader step by step through the bull fighting story explaining exactly how Hemingway walked with the reader to experience bull fighting.

But then from chapter 5 and 6 I really began to lose track of the text. Scholes’ comparison of the different formulas and commentators like Jameson, de Man, and the hermetic theoreticians threw me off. Even the quotes on page 83 which seemed very simple to read seemed like a different language. I’m looking forward to understanding them in class tomorrow.