Literature is art, and art is beautiful.
Like beauty, which is famously "in the eye of the beholder", the meaning and value of a pice of art is a very personal matter. Still, there is a natural inclination to ascribe meaning correctly, and there is a general consensus that one interpretation or another must be "the correct one". This is what makes it fun. Each piece of art represents a reflection of the human soul, transmitted across time and space; a puzzle for us to solve, a game to play, and perhaps, to win. The general consensus is that an interpretation of art is 'good' if many people agree with it, but this is not necessarily the case. Try it for yourself, and evaluate the outcome.
The first step toward learning how to interpret art is to develop our faculty of discernment. Few people understand this faculty correctly, because they have become too accustomed to its use. They take it for granted. Put simply, discernment is the faculty which allows you to tell right from left, up from down, happy from sad, etc. from etc. It is eminently useful, and we practice it by examining collections of items to find the odd-one out and such, until the third or so grade of elementary school, at which point we move on to maths. We like maths, as a society, because the divisions between the elements of maths are so clear and simply expressed. We want people to be able to discern such simple differences, but we do not want them to be able to discern too well, lest they start making judgements. Yet, being able to do so is an incredibly valuable skill.
Discernment allows us to notice and identify components in a piece of art which are worthy of interpretation. It allows us to identify choices which creators have made, and allows us to ask why they chose to create the piece of work like so and not otherwise. When we ask these questions, it allows us to consider the potential meaning behind the piece.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words - in that case, to save time reading, it will be convenient for us to begin to practice this art of interpretation on several images before we set about applying it to literature. Take a look at the following works of art, and pay careful attention to any details you notice. Discern the important features, and ask yourself why the author decided to include it in their work. What could it mean?
If a piece of art makes you feel one way, it isn't hard to imagine that it makes others feel the same way. So, feel free to interpret art for yourself, and be confident to assume that you are correct and that others will agree with you. If this sounds paradoxical to what was said before (about it being in the eye of the beholder), that's just how it is. If you look at the same piece of art later, and decide on a new interpretation, that only means that such layers of meaning are possible.
Everyone understands everything according to their current modes of understanding. As they develop, they understand according to future modes of understanding.
The most important thing that you can do, is to activate your curiousity. Without curiousity, there can be no development. As we look, read, and live, we must ask ourselves continuously:
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