Tackling Textuality - Assignment 6

1) There are a lot of sections in this text that can be seen as important when trying to understand what its about. I have choosen some of these sections to paraphrase.

Peter Berry gives us a check-list to show us the diffrent stages a reader, and a teacher, puts a text through when wanting to get a deeper understanding for the written word by analysing it. The first of the ten stages regards looking for diffrent kind of patterns in the text. Berry is talking about "structual patterns", distinctive patterns that follows a character throughout the whole story. It can be the characters way of moving his body or talking that is regarded as a "structual pattern" (Original, Peter Berry page, 1).

Further along in the text Berry writes about how there is not only one story, but several stories to be found when interpeting and analysing a text. There is the given story that is told by the author to the reader when reading the book from cover to cover. By going deeper, turning and twisting the words that has been written, finding diffrent ways of interpeting them without changing their location in the text, the reader can find another story hidden behind the obvious story (Original; Peter Berry page, 3).

When analysing a text, Berry takes help not only of "structual patterns", which was mentioned earlier in this text, Berry also searches for other kind of patterns in the text. Patterns that is created for example by using a certin kind of expression more than once in diffrent parts of the text, it can also be a series of events that can be linked together by a common nominator wich gives the events a speciell mening (Original; Peter Berry, page, 3). The patterns discussed in the eight of the ten stages can be small and not always easy to detect, but they exsist in one way or another in all kind of litertuare.

2) Here are some example of sections in the text that I belive should be qouted directly;

“Once the structural pattern has been perceived, a whole line of interpretation can be built.”(Peter Berry, page 1, paragraph 4, line 7 – 8)

“If a literary work is regarded as being like the sea, then 'meaning' is like the salt - it's one of the ingredients of the water, whereas significance is like its colour, that is, something that changes with the prevailing light conditions.” (Peter Berry, page 2, paragraph 3, line 2 – 4)

“Deconstructive reading is a kind of dowsing tool which is designed to pick up that counter-current that runs beneath the linguistic surface.”(Peter Berry, page 6, paragraph 2, line 27- 28)

“...the best way to conceal something is to reveal it, to hide it in the open...” (Peter Berry, page 8, paragraph 1, line 3 - 4)

“The process of deconstructing a text often involves fixing on what looks like an incidental detail - such as a particular word, or a particular metaphor - and then bringing it in from the margin of the text to the centre.” (Peter Berry, page 8, paragraph 2, line18 -20)

“...the deconstructor aims to show that the text is at war with itself...” (Peter Berry, page 9, paragraph 1, line 6)

3) The text, Tackling Textuality – With Theory, written by Peter Berry is both easy to understand and a bit confusing in between when reading. For eaxample, the introduction to this text and its subject is not as clear as it should be. When reading paragraph one on page one, Berry is talking about tea-leaves, how teachers and literary critics needs to know how to read tea-leaves, why is not clear. Sure I can read between the lines, but you should not need to read between the lines to understand what Berry means, there is nothing that indicates that my conclusion when it comes to the mening of the tea-leaves is the right conslusion, this is something that bothers me. Something that all writers are told over and over again, is the importance of expressing yourself as clearly as possible, in this case I belive that Berry could have chosen a diffrent way of expressing himself.

In between, Berry is very clear about what he means by painting a picture in words so that the reader more easily will understand what he is talking about. For example we have the cat that is being stroked the wrong way, the cat gets angry and trys to bite and scratch the one who strokes him (Peter Berry, page 9 paragraph 1, line2 – 3). This is Berrys way of explaining what is happening when someone is trying to deconstruct a text by deconstructive reading.

To put this text in the hands of someone who is not used to reading this kind of material, can experienc the text as difficult to understand, it can also be hard to follow Barrys line of thought. If it would be used by someone without any knowledge of how to analysie a text, it would need to be simplified. However when presenting his analysis of Shakespaeares sonett 73 (Peter Berry, page 4 f.f) and the poem Transit, written by Adrienne Rich, (Peter Berry, page 9 ff) Berry uses a language and line of thought that is very easy to follow, and which gives the reader a bigger understanding for among others the ten stages which is introduced in the begining of his text Tackling Textuality – With Theory. By doing these analysis Barry gives his text a lift, which helps convince the reader that the ten stages presented in the begining, are possible to use when trying to get a deeper understanding for diffrent types of literary work. It also shows the reader that it is possible to use the areas of history, language, gender and psychoanalysis as a base when analysing a text.