Literary Analysis is Absolutely Pointless

A piece of literature is marked by its ability to entertain several different, contradictory, unreconcilable interpretations at the same time. If there were one and only one correct interpretation of a work, it is unlikely that any reader would ever discover it, and if the author is not the one who dictates the meaning of a text, then it is not likely that anyone would ever discover it. This is because each reader is imbedded in a different cultural context, operating on different moral and political assumptions and with different propensities for reacting to and interpreting social behavior. The interpretation each reader creates is dependent on them as a subject, themselves determined by causes outside of their control.

If there are several correct interpretations of a work simultaneously, as there must be, then analysis is pointless. To use such things as "evidence", and such words as "because" and "therefore" is meaningless; to make the claim that a proposition is true, it's negation must be false. If two different readers can assert opposite propositions without either being wrong, then the "analysis" is meaningless. For example, if two different readers of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" can both claim, with evidence, that Tom Sawyer is a fundamentally bad child, and that he is a good child, or more pointless still, whether the wardrobe from the Narnia Chronicles was a symbol for imagination, maturity, The Bible (I've seen this) or whatever else can be reasonably or unreasonably invented, if two readers can claim this then there is no semblance of logical coherence.

I enjoy fiction once in a while, but the absurd degree to which the discussion of cool stories has been formalized, replete with "literary devices", and "textual evidence" is perplexing. Fiction is an enjoyable and effective means of conveying ideas, sentiments and emotions, but what can be conveyed in a whole book through meticulously designed character interactions and event sequences, can in the end only stand on the merits of its evidence and rational soundness. The fictional nature of fiction makes it a terrible gauge or indicator of anything real, or of anything actually true. If any will claim that it is an art, then they can live with the consequences. It is entirely subjective, and so bears no epistemic value.