Yes, to my DH, literary analysis always feel fraudulent and highly speculative, to say the least.
DD similarly feels that much of it is tremendously overwrought... you know, that originally Jane Austen was probably not actually thinking
terribly hard about the "symbolism" of particular word-choices, or anything. KWIM? On some level, it's like looking for deep meaning in Louie-louie or going into numerology with the phone book or something.
She's learned to fake it somewhat, no question-- but she's definitely a person who finds
rhetoric an easier thing to learn, as much FUN as literary analysis is in discussion, anyway. She likes discussion in groups quite well-- but kind of takes the attitude that it means whatever you WANT it to mean to you personally, and that doesn't make it analysis. Overthink it if you want, but it doesn't change the original work of art/literature. This is like asking "What do you suppose da Vinci
meant with that in the Mona Lisa?"
She
really hates being told to write literary analysis in definitive terms and voice when she writes, though, using formal writing conventions. First person opinion-- not a problem... but definitive statements as though they were FACTS? No. I have to agree with her there-- it IS just her opinion, and it's subjective, her interpretation. So she writes it as so, but then gets dinged for being soft or 'passive' in her statements.
"One might conclude that..." and not "It is clear that..."
(My girl is SO like a scientist.)
