Tuesday, 21 March 2006 - 5:10 PM PST

We talked a bit about over-analysis today. When does analysis become over-analysis? What is the point of our projects as well as Barthes' article ("Soap Powders and Detergents"). In writing your essay, make certain to elucidate whatt type of analysis IS appropriate (i.e. don't just make a flat statement that all literary analysis is stupid. if you feel that way, you need to offer me a defense of your reasons for taking this class).

Tuesday, 21 March 2006 - 5:13 PM PST

Alright, now on to some stuff you guys actually enjoy (for the most part). Post a short analysis of a section of Huck Finn which we have already read. Choose a short section or scene and cite the text. Avoid paraphrase, and if possible think of how a deconstructive critic might read Huck.

Tuesday, 21 March 2006 - 10:30 PM PST

There is a moving line between analysis and over-analysis. When you kill authorial intent, the only way to over-analyze is to move away from textual evidence. However, textual evidence can be itself subjective, or a subject of the literary critic. A literary critic can stretch the meaning of the text (to fit their schema that every literary piece revolves around a certain subject), but if the critic has enough clout; the analysis will most likely be credible in the eyes of the literary world. It will not be judged to be an over analysis.

The point of our projects is to “deconstruct” an object. Ideally, we are to reveal how that object affects us or how it represents something that affects us such as our culture. There is no point to analysis unless it gives us a better understanding of reality.

Tuesday, 21 March 2006 - 10:32 PM PST

"So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different." This section occurs at the end of chapter three. Huck’s words create a contradiction. He says that Tom told a lie, but he also says that Tom fully believed what he said. For Tom to do this he must have been blind to his lie, or it must not have been a lie to him. Huck also brings together the concepts of belief and thought. He makes the correlation that whatever you think, you believe. He thought that Tom told a lie, but he also thinks that Tom believed his lie was truth. Huck functioned in a relativistic world before his time where he and Tom could have simultaneously valid, personal truths.

Tuesday, 21 March 2006 - 10:39 PM PST

Ok! Cracking down..
First off, I see nothing wrong with analyzing something. Analysis helps the reader understand more of what they're reading. It's hard to say when analysis becomes over-analysis, because every person has their own idea of how far analyzing something should go. Being indepth is important when your writing an analysis paper. If you're not writing indepth, then you're not exactly writing an analysis paper are you? Yah, I didn't think so. When people get to the point in their paper, where they start talking about why cardboard is used to make cereal boxes.. That has gone much to far. No one cares that cereal boxes are made out of cardboard, or why bars of soap are different shapes. In fact, nearly everyone doesn't care that cereal is designed to attract to younger generations and no one really cares about the history and propoganda of soap. As to why we are learning to write analysis papers? It's a part of the course for one thing. And while most of the well-read challenged people who don't care about analysis. Forget them. The philosophers and the journelists and the essayers are the ones we're looking to impress. (Not to mention Mr. Helms.)

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 12:26 AM PST

“Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to any- body, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself. “ (pg.4)

Mark Twain doesn’t waste anytime in Huck Finn attacking organized religion as he quickly alludes to the excused hypocrisy of the devout widow right away in the first chapter when Huck wants to smoke, but the widow won’t see of it even though she herself uses snuff. This minor incident could be seen as a representation of Twains own apprehensions and feelings about religion due the insincerity he sees in the entire thing.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 12:33 AM PST

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” ~Mark Twain

Overanalyzing is a very widespread disease in the literary world. I’m not going to be naive and say that all literary analysis is worthless; obviously the breakdown or deconstruction of literature is necessary to understand the deeper meanings of the text. Though personally I believe that there’s a point were critics begin to dissect a text so much that they destruct it, killing whatever life the text once had in the process. It's all fine and dandy to pick apart each and every aspect of a novel, uncovering the different hidden truths, underlying messages or contradictions, but at the end of the day if you can't just sit back and appreciate a novel for what it is (aside from all of the analyzing) I think you’ve ultimately destroyed the truth.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 12:38 AM PST

"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "you've put considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you." (pg 18)
It's always interesting to see how insecure a parent gets when he begins to realize that his son might know more than he does. When the parent becomes insecure, he tries to change around the story, so it looks as though the child is being smart mouthed or some other such thing. Even though we know this isn't the case, Huck's father is justified simply because he's the father. There's no way around it. Reading this passage always makes me angry. Twain shows just how ignorant adults can be. He's trying to say 'Hey look everyone! Adults can be stupid too!' Huck loses his chance at a better life, simply because his father is a stupid, ignorant and colded hearted man.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 9:31 AM PST

I think that the basics for literary analysis is finding out what the author wanted to convey through his paper. Most everyone has a reason for writing what they decide to write. It's up to us, as the reader, to unearth whatever it is that was intentionally placed on paper. But aside from analytic basics, i don't think there can be any REAL form of over-analysis. Analysis brings about deep thinking, and i don't see how deep-thinking can ever be a truely bad thing. Sure, it sucks when it's 5th period on friday and you've got one more class 'till you can liberate yourself from the dark grip pressed upon us by the education system, if not only for a few days. But overall, I see thinking as a form of bettering one's self and discovering the truth about who you really are. However, staying on tract is an important thing to remember. If we're studying the reading in chapters 9&10 in Huck Finn, try to stick to discussing the passage or maybe what Mark Twain was trying to say in it. Going off on some random tangent about weather the lucky charm lepricon or tony the tiger would win, however enlightening it could be to one's charactor, is aside from the topic at hand and should be saved for later. But for the sake of clarification, Tony would kick Lucky's butt.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 9:38 AM PST

“Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.” (Voltaire)
Let us once again discuss the purpose of literature. It is futile to hypothesis about this without a common definition of the meaning of life (is it to enjoy as much aesthetic pleasure as is possible, or to make a meaningful contribution to the cycle of humanity?) If the former than all deconstructive analysis is relatively pointless over-analysis. We should enjoy literature in the form of a book club. Read and enjoy. If the latter then there are answers to philisophical questions in everything and we should dissect every aspect of every written work exposing its flaws and destroying its orginal meaning. Ah, but as with every questioon the answer is not one or the other it is a healthy balance of both.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 9:44 AM PST

"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're ." (13)

This youthfull response to what the word "ransom" could mean brings to mind the that america has apparently been portraying since mark twains times is a valuable insight as to how we as american act and think. And mrs lewis is about to come inher and yell i gtg.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 10:18 AM PST

Analyzing a text is a good thing to do. When this analysis or deconstruction becomes an over analysis, you can usually tell. If you're reading an analysis of a text and you begin to question the motives of the critic, or his analysis goes so far that it turns into a bunch of dribble, that is an over-analysis. Or when you're writing a paper and it goes through a bunch of steps, so many steps that you go way past your point and the text becomes so meaningless, not only to you but to everyone else, that is an over analysis. It's great to analyze, to find the unconscious thoughts of an author, or to find more about the book, but when you break down a story to the point where it has no meaning, or it is no longer an expression of a human's soul or thoughts, that my friends is an over-analysis.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 10:32 AM PST

"You dont know about me without you havin read a ...which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before"(page1)

In this quote the author Mark Twain not only seperates himself from the narrator, but also goes so far as to criticize himself, and talk about how he lied in the last book. Or rather he didn't lie, he only stretched the truth. A deconstructive critic may say that in this first paragraph the author deconstructs the last book, but also because the author of Mark Twain is also the author of Huck Finn, he might be alluding to the fact that he will go on to "stretch" the truth even more in this book. Even in this first paragraph the book has already deconstructed itself. It calls into the falsitity of art because it's falsifying itself, but this paragraph is also like in the movie Derrida. There, Derrida is watching a movie of what he said before, in this example, Twain is looking at what he already wrote. Although you cant see either of their thoughts, Twain exemplifies the "frame within a frame" example.

Wednesday, 22 March 2006 - 10:36 AM PST

70 words less than fifty of which are your own (and only half of thos actually about huck finn). Nice try. Better luck next time.