Ambiguity

1. Ambiguity Two meanings in Literature and Art

2. Definition of Ambiguity • The presence of two or more possible meanings in any passage. • Deliberately creates confusion by using a word or phrase with two or more meanings in one of the premises of an argument. • Doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation. • Something of doubtful meaning.

3. Examples of Ambiguity • "Prostitutes Appeal to Pope"(newspaper headline) • “Union Demands Increased Unemployment"(newspaper headline) • 'The chicken is ready to eat‘ • 'Tibetan history teacher'

4. Saxophone Player or Woman’s Face?

5. Woman in the mirror OR skull?

6. Vase or 2 Profiles

8. Henry James places meaning just out of reach

9. Chapter 1: the governess • You should be annotating for: • Characterisation • Setting • A Key Incidents • Literary Technique • Symbolism • Atmosphere • Dialogue • Sentence structure • Punctuation • Imagery etc.

10. I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong.

11. Trusting the narrative voice “I had at all events a couple of very bad days – found all my doubts bristle again”. • An unreliable narrator is a first-person narrator that for some reason has a compromised point-of-view. • In all stories with a first-person narrator, the narrator serves as a filter for the events. • What the narrator does not know or observe cannot be explained to the reader. • Usually, however, the reader trusts that the narrator is knowledgeable and truthful enough to give them an accurate representation of the story. • In the case of an unreliable narrator (sometimes called a fallible narrator), the reader has reason not to trust what the narrator is saying.

12. Why can’t we trust the narrator? An unreliable-narrator has limited capacities because of: 1) Tunnel vision -narrator sees only one type of thing. 2) Confused emotions -narrator’s involvement keeps him or her from being an accurate reporter. 3) Naiveté-narrator is incapable of understanding what he or she reports.

13. Excessive positivity vs foreboding doom

14. When studying a text, look for: Moments of Realisation When a character realises something – ask yourself “how might this change things?” Words of wisdom When your protagonist is given serious advice – ask yourself “what’s the life lesson here?” repetition If a word, phrase, object or place is mentioned again and again– ask yourself “why?” Contrasts & Contradictions A character or an event contradicts what has gone before – ask yourself “why?” Memory moment The action stops to share a memory – ask yourself “why might this memory matter?” Tough questions Characters often ask themselves questions – ask yourself “what does this link to?”

15. How gothic is our setting?

16. Notes on: • The presentation of the governess – how much about herself does she reveal? • The setting at Bly – how does James keep to the gothic tradition? How does he break it? • Flora – how does the governess shape the readers’ first impressions? • Mrs Grose – again, how does the governess shape the readers’ first impressions? What hints are there of class snobbery? • Miles – descriptions of him in absentia.