Fish, Chandler & Eagleton

Chandler, Fish and Eagleton all relate to each other and tie into what we have been discussing in class because all three discuss and describe how we interpret different pieces of writing using our own prior knowledge and common sense. Fish not only describes how we interpret pieces of writing, he also writes how we use prior knowledge that it seems we have just acquired to interpret and distinguish different actions in everyday life. For example, when a student raised his hand in class everyone seemed to see it as being obvious that the student had something to say. These students had to be educated where the raising of a hand must mean they have something to say. However if someone were to walk in the classroom and had never been in a classroom before, or did not have an idea of what happens in a classroom might think that the student was gesturing at something on the ceiling or he might be stretching his arm. The people that knew what the student was doing were automatically placed in a category. “Every object or event that becomes available within an institutional setting can be so characterized.” (Fish). Our class discussed the same concept; that we automatically place things into categorizes unconsciously. 
 
Fish also mentions that his students knew it was a poem they were dealing with and soon after “the distinguishing features then followed…it20is not that the presence of poetic qualities compels a certain kind of attention but that the paying of a certain kind of attention results in the emergence of poetic qualities.” Therefore, as Chandler mentions, once you know what type of writing or ‘genre’ you are faced with, you begin to think of the qualities of that type of writing and apply to that which you are given. “poetry-seeing eyes” as Fish stated it. Eagleton also describes different types of literature and how we, as a whole society, place literature into categories or label them. We as a society label our literature based on its ‘value’ to us. “Value is a transitive term: it means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria…” (Eagleton). Therefore, on a much broader scale we label and categorize things based on what it means to us. We interpret anything and everything based on our common sense and past knowledge of what we know about the situation.  
 
An example of what Fish explains as basing a situation on our own unaware prior knowledge is when someone might give another the gesture we refer to as "thumbs up". When someone gives you a thumbs up it is a positive gesture that mean many things, perhaps a job well done or letting you know that everything is good and they are okay. Whereas if someone does not know the meaning of that hand gesture may think that is just a way to stretch out your thumb, or worse, they may think the thumbs up is another version of "giving the finger". It would all depend on what the person knew about "hand gestures" or what they did not know. 
 
Laura made a good point when she talked about how different people view things and interpret things differently, like Eagleton said about literature. One persons idea of good literature may be the complete opposite of my opinion of good literature. This doesn't just go for literature either. Laura made a good point on sarcasm. Some people may take sarcasm as being rude and others may laugh about it and use it as a way to break tension or, like Laura said, "lighten the mood". I completely agree that sarcasm is one of those things that it depends on how the person and the situation take it, just as when reading a type of literature; it depends on the person, and how they chose to take it.