On page 7 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, author Thomas C. Foster quotes legendary psychologist Sigmund Freud's famous line: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Sigmund Freud, known for his wild and abstract yet logical statements about the meanings of objects, like cigars, in the dreams of those who he psychoanalyzed, used his famous quotation to re-assure people that sometimes, an object, be it in art or literature, is just an object with no further significance. Freud's famous quote goes to say that sometimes there is no archetype, symbolism, or metaphor in an element of art. Now Freud's cigar quote holds enormous truth in relation to modern art as well as modern writing.
Today's art scene seems to be convoluted by those who search too far and too hard for an inner meaning or a hidden piece of information that may or may not exist in an art work that has been left purposefully vague. Due to this developing direction of modern works, a piece of modern literature, like a modern painting, can be deduced to nothing just as easily as meaning can be found. Personally, I find the vagueness of modern poetry, literature, and art alike to be what makes modern art great and frustrating simultaneously as vagueness in something that may potentially have inner meaning allows for the observer of said art to make their own conclusions. Frustratingly however, the person observing the same piece of modern art's interpretation is almost guaranteed to be entirely different than your own rendering both observers equally right and wrong.
The coexistence of differing theories about art and literature however, remains a vital component of artistic experience. The same indistinct idea of self relation to art that makes the validity of modern works arguable keeps the current state of art thriving. However, as a stubborn person reading about how to read and intemperate literature, I feel unsatisfied by a professor telling me that the best way to approach meaning in literature is with a blurry understanding of Freud's literal cigar and the figurative cigar.
The difference between the literal and figurative cigar is the difference of a Chagall painting, and a Pollock painting. A Chagall is decorated with enormous amounts of symbolism and metaphors and strong story telling while the Pollock painting is beautiful to look at. Both are valid, both are significant. However, the two styles are regularly jumbled together as people desperate for self connection in art search for meaning in Pollock's paint splatters while observers look for the aestheticism in Chagall's hectic settings. The same seems present in the world of literature as noted by Foster's brief history of the diverse and also vague role of a meal in a story.
As noted on page 8 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, the common meal, or even the food being eaten ant the meal, can be the most or least important factor of a story. A meal, being loaded with traditions of respect and curious, as well as being a personal time to consume, creates a a setting of complicated interactions between charterers. However, in a modern work of literature, the role of said meal, be it major or insignificant, can be overlooked quite easily without a sense of unattractive and blunt simplicity in presence. the role of the major and minor parts of a story, to me, seem lost in the vague rules of modern works, thus leaving Freud and Foster's conclusions on inner meaning unsatisfying.
Art has never been and never will be as finite as other parts of life. However, as the description of what art can and can't be expands, the generally avoided sense of blunt depiction that comes with overly clear messages may need to be re-introduced for the sake of cohesiveness in art.
Written by Carsin Ablon
