Sunday, October 9, 2011

Heteroglossia applicable to art/images?

Aesop’s fable of The Man and the Lion:

“A man and a lion traveled together through the forest. They soon began to boast of their respective superiority to each other in strength and prowess. As they were disputing, they passed a statue carved in stone, which represented ‘a lion strangled by a man.’ The traveler pointed to it and said: ‘See there! How strong we are, and how we prevail over even the king of beasts.’ The lion replied: ‘This statue was made by one of you men. If we Lions knew how to erect statues, we would see the Man placed under the paw of the lion.’”

Recently, in another class, I was introduced to this story and realized that it complicated my idea of signification in terms of the existence of an actual truth and the difference between ideas and perceptions. Although this is clearly a fictional story, it draws attention to meaning and how an understanding of reality is dependant on the manner in which an idea is presented, as well as the way it is comprehended and perceived. Specifically, in “Discourse in the Novel,” Bakhtin argues his definition of heteroglossia as being, “another’s speech in another’s language” (Bakhtin 324). Even though the fable is not dealing with the use of words, it focuses on an image that provides a different meaning to different viewers therefore, allowing the term to be applied.

For example, in the story, the traveler automatically assumes that because a statue, or image, exists in agreement with his argument, then it must be the truth; however, when seeing the same figure, the lion recognizes that it does not represent reality in his opinion, for just because lions are unable to create such images, does not mean that they are an inferior species. It is likely that the creator of the statue built it to show the dominance of men over animals, but as it can be seen, men and animals interpret his intention differently. Bakhtin notes that oftentimes, speech, or in this case a work of art, “serves two speakers at the same time and expresses simultaneously two different intentions” (Bakhtin 324). Even though the maker of the statue intended to portray a certain meaning, the image was interpreted differently amongst characters of different perspectives.

Overall, this issue has become increasingly complicated and difficult to understand. But, it seems that because different words, symbols and signs are capable of resulting in multiple meanings, ideas are then representative factors of individual thought that can, and ultimately will be understood and comprehended in various ways with respect to the perspective of the audience. Because of this, it then appears that there is no such as thing as one “truth” or “reality”, for one cannot simply be determined, but there are many that are based on the uniqueness, individuality, personal thought, and opinion.

1 comment:

  1. I think its interesting how the story brings about this idea almost of the "language" of art. What exactly is the message that an artist is trying to send with the sculpture he molds or the painting she creates? Obviously, as you mention, not everyone sees the same meaning in a work of art, making it unclear exactly what a work of art is trying to say. This, as you also talk about, sheds an interesting light on Bakhtin's thoughts on heteroglossia especially in terms of "double-voice discourse." Bakhtin might say that much like a novel, art is a genre of language, which honestly is exactly what it is. Language is expression, and art is a form of expression for the artist or author. This story actually does a very interesting job of deepening Bakhtin's discussion in a way.

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