6 - Annabelle Nash: No, the Curtains Aren't Just Blue (Literary Analysis)

Literary Analysis is becoming seriously underrated.

Every time someone looks into a movie, book, or even the plot of a video game deeply, there’s always that one person who says, “You’re looking too deep into it. The author didn’t intend that. Come on, this movie is just for fun; it’s not supposed to be meaningful.” Or even, “Subtext doesn’t exist.” Perhaps you have seen this meme that pokes fun at English teachers for over-analyzing a throw-away line in a book.

Yet I disagree. If you have evidence to prove there is a deeper meaning behind a story, whether it be through metaphors, visuals, dialogue, or the structure of the story, then you can make an argument that the author intended that theme, or at least that the story was written with this message in mind subconsciously. It’s ridiculous how people argue that subtext doesn’t exist and it was made up by literature graduates.

The media speaks to us. The messages behind stories, whether they were purposefully written that way or not, can teach us about ourselves, society, and the human condition. To argue that things we write have no meaning is preposterous, especially when (good) authors dedicate their lives to studying story structure in an attempt to write stories in a satisfactory, meaningful way.

Even if you haven’t studied themes in stories like I have, you subconsciously notice whether a story is well-written or not. Have you ever watched a movie that was wonderful in every aspect, like acting, editing, and character, but something was just . . . off? It was probably because the theme was written unsatisfactorily in the story, some writing flaw. Good writing gives you a good (even if you don’t have the knowledge to explain it) feeling at the end of a story, not an unsatisfied one. J.R.R. Tolkien would always get annoyed when people asked him about the hidden meanings in The Lord of the Rings (the exact opposite of his close friend, C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia), and he claimed that there were none. However, because The Lord of the Rings is well-written with the conflicts of power and friendship, it does have meaning in its text.

To argue that “stories are just fun, they aren’t supposed to be analyzed” is foolish, because you can have fun watching a movie while also being critical of the media you consume. Of course, not so critical that it’s ridiculously nitpicky (take a satirical YouTube channel like CinemaSins, for example), but critical enough to recognize bad writing or good writing, and enough to learn about ourselves and our media.

So, yes, the curtains seem “only blue.” But what does it mean?

Word Count: 450