"Thus the work cannot speak of the more or less complex oppositions which structures it; though it is its expression and embodiment. In its every particle, the work manifests, uncovers, what it cannot say. This silence gives it life."
Macherey presents to us a gap, and within this gap is not what a certain text is meant to fill, but this margin is for interpretation coming from the reader. To decipher the legitimacy, or find a useful meaning of many productions, there is or must be a tacitly latent implication caused by what the text does not say. This evokes questions of what that specific text means, but more importantly, the evocation of that first question, we look for significance. Why does this only explain so much? What does this mean? And then finally, we interpret, we relate, but more importantly we propose differences as well as parallelisms. However, this isn't caused solely from that one text, but from a mix of other sources that are immediately thought of or actually used, creating a significant interpretation that is intertextual. This is my understanding of Macherey's appeal, that silence creates pre-textual interpretation. "To know the work, we must move outside of it."
After class I needed to immediately reread this passage, because I found difficulty in understanding its meaning prior.
Questioning is a precursor to interpretation. Interpretation is a result of silence.
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