Assignment 4

A Summary of Peter Barry's "Tackling Textuality - With Theory"

Keywords:
Close reading
Deconstructive reading
Relationship between literature and language
Dissimilarity
Surface reading

According to Peter Barry, the author of the article "Tackling Textuality - With Theory" published in "The use of English" volume 52, number 1, Autumn 2000, teachers and literary critics must be able to read all sorts of texts. Barry proposes a check-list for tackling textuality and also emphazises the importance of close reading. Those ten check points are all needed during literary studies:

• Micro-patterns; we look for things to pair up or to contrast to each other. It is an overall structural pattern, a frame.
• Dissimilarity; what as first sight seems to be the truth in the text, but during a close rading could appear as the total opposite.
• Overt and covert content; being obliged to distinguish between what is written and what is covert. The meaning of the words, because everything is not always what it sems to be at first sight.
• Difference between meaning and significance; the meaning is inside the text and the significance shifts; it is what we feel during our reading.
• The genre; it could make the author do certain strategic moves with the text. For instance could the characters do or say things to accelerate the action depending on the genre.
• To read the literature as metaphorical: Barry mention it as an "interpretive move" whereas we first read the text as the truth, but during reading find some clues making us realize it being a metaphore. It is very common reading poetry, according to Barry.
• Reading the surface; how we often takes the surface reading as a truth. But we should go deeper in the text, otherwise we only see a part of the text.
• Micro-patterns; we look for patterns in the text and things breaking them because it is where the significant point is.
• Different stages in the text; a book or text is often divided into chapters, verses, acts or books. This makes the reader aware of certain points in the text, such as phases, incidents and conclusions.
• Semantic changes; we read during a certain linguistic period, but that period is changing. Some words have received another meaning over centuries and we must be aware of that as we read a text. Barry give an example in Shakespeare's "Henry V" where "womb" is meaning "stomach".

But those ten points are not enough according to Barry, and he gives four principles to use for looking both inside and outwards the text. He is pointing out those principles because even if close reading is the central part in literary studies and how we usually approach a text, it does not cover it completely. We have to look at the cultural context, gender and language as well as metaphors and genre.

The four principles are:

• Literature and history; the historical references when the text was written .
• Literature and language; the underlying meaning of the text, the undercurrents.
• Literature and gender; if the writer is a man or a woman.
• Literature and psychoanalysis; the mental process between literature and underlying emotions. The best way to conceal something is to disclose it, to "hide it in open".

The most important principle of those four is literature and language according to Barry. It is important because it render us as readers to use deconstructive reading. Barry explains it by using a cat as an example; the old style reading is like stroking the cat the right direction so it purrs and feels comfortable and gentle, deconstructive reading is like stroking the cat backwards so the cat hisses and no one knows what it its up to next. Barry says it is as "the text is at war with itself". The close reader makes peace with the text and the deconstructor fights.

Lastly, the intension with this reading is according to Barry; " Firstly, the complexities it gets itself knotted up in really are there. And secondly, trying to unravel them is enlightening, and sometimes even fun".

Assignment 3:

TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH UNHAPPY PIGS.

Today unhappy pigs are a fact all over the world. We have read in the paper about those poor pigs being chewed on by each other, living in small dung filled pig pens - sometimes with a dead congener lying beside them. Another problem is the long, stressful transport to the abattoir. If we do not solve this problem with unhappy pigs we will get a lot of antibiotic in our meat, more multi resistant bacteria and bored, stressed pigs causing each other damadges. An unhappy pig will also give us inferior quality of the meat. Why not legislate about loose housing, local abattoirs, small packs and stimulation? That would result in happy pigs with a curl on their tails.

Pigs need to be outdoors. Pigs need to grub, graze and take a mud bath now and then. Therefore loose housing is an excellent way of breeding. Grubbing is a natural behaviour which pigs must get an outlet for. A mud bath is how pigs refreshes themself and rub their skin. When the pigs are able to grub for worms and insects, and graze twigs and grass they both get stimulation and a variety in their diet.

Secondly, pigs are happier in small packs. When the pigs are crowded they will injure each other and starts to chew on each other - mostly on the tails. In a small pack they will have enough space and it will result in less chewing, fewer parasites, less pneumonia and less resistant bacterias. A healthy pig is a happier pig.

Finally, long transports to the abattoir makes the pig stressed. A stressed pig is an unhappy pig, and we should not eat meat from a stressed and unhappy pig so local abattoir would be preferable. In a small, local abattoir it would be a more decent treatment of the pig and it will be happier without cattle prod treatment.

I am well aware of that some people might argue about the costs of those solutions, and that they are unnecessary because the pig is going to be slaughtered within eight months anyway. However, if I am going to eat a pig I would certainly want the pig to have a great life before I cook it for dinner! I do not want to eat an unhappy pig who suffered in a dirty pen, stuffed with chemicals, tortured by a cattle prod. I want to eat a healthy dinner from a happy pig. And I will pay for it! What do you want?

To get happy pigs demands a legislation of loose housing. A pig have natural behaviours it must be allowed to exercise for stimulation. Those behaviours are to grub, graze and take a mud bath. But that is not all there is if we want happy pigs. A pig also need to live in smaller packs to stay healthy and have enough space so they will not get stressed and start to chew on each other's tails. A pig also get stressed by long transports so we need small local abattoirs. If we fail to get happy pigs we will eat meat stuffed with chemicals and with inferior quality. And most of us will feel bad about the pig suffered with illness and injuries, living in a dung filled pen all life just to get tortured by a cattle prod in the end. Loose housing and local abattoirs are the solution for happy pigs.

Assignment 2: A Goat Deserves to be The Christmas Gift of The Year 2010.

The Christmas gift of the year 2010 should be a goat! I bet you think "why on earth a goat?" Well - a goat is a very good Christmas gift for both your friend who is the recipient of the gift card and the poor, starving family in Africa who recieve the goat when you give it through a help organisation. The recipient of the gift is actually not just one person - it is several persons in the end. I could not think of any better Christmas gift for 2010.

All the Christmas gifts we buy every year is probably in the most cases things we actually do not want to buy, and - cross your heart - not would have bought if it was not for Christmas gifts. A lot of them are things we buy just to have something to give the recipient and unfortunately not always well considered. Instead of a boring, expensive or unnecessary present you can give your friend a gift card of a goat named after your friend and with a picture of the goat - all for just a small sum. This gift will make a great difference for them who it will concern; the family will be able to give their children nutrition, and your friend will feel the true Christmas spirit.


By giving a goat for Christmas you will make your friend happy by not getting a present he or she do not appreciate and do not know what to do with. The most people do not have a place to lodge a goat and your friend will be thrilled when the goat is going to live in Africa. Your friend just looks at the photo of the goat and do not need to feed it or clear the dung out! Instead the pregnant goat gives a starving family nutrition by its milk and a possibility for the family to earn money on the excess.

But it must be boring not recieving a lot of gifts on Christmas? Some people might think so, yes. And some people might also want to have a lot of presents no matter what it will contain. But I hope and think a majority of people would be pleased if they do not get a mixer, new socks or new slippers. Instead they most certainly feel pleased when their gift makes a difference in other people's lives. And that is just the real spirit of Christmas - to care for someone else, to show charity and to give by heart!

So why not make a difference for not just one person with your gift, but to several persons? Why not give something well considered and with a loving purpose instead of all those expensive, not always appreciated gifts. Buy a goat and make your friend a happy, giving person. A goat most certainly deserves to be the Christmas gift of the year 2010.