Snape, Snape, Loverly Snape...and authorial intent

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 148236

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at ...> wrote:
 
> If you take JKR's comments about her characters seriously, some 
> possibilities begin to strike one as less likely.  And then the room 
> is open that a reading of a character may not only never come into 
> the forefront and be confirmed (such as the 'Snape is only being mean 
> to keep his cover'), but may actually be shot down.

Yup.  And this is where I think her comments are most valuable--in 
trying to predict how the books will end.  She has not struck me as 
someone who wants to deliberately lead her readers astray.  She just 
stops talking if she thinks she's giving too much away.

So, when she says that there's a redemptive pattern to Snape, I believe 
her.  As I do when she says that she thinks he's a sadistic teacher.  
I'm assuming that the denouement will be some combination of the two.
 
> It all depends on what each reader is reading for, as well.  Lots of 
> people are happier with fanon than canon.  But 'author is dead' is 
> hardly an overwhelmingly dominant critical position anymore.

Not according to the vast majority of contemporary literary critics.  
This doesn't mean that the author isn't relevant at all.  It just calls 
into question that the author is the "authority" on their own work.  
Much of the time, authors are not consistently in control of of their 
own meanings or intentions. 

D.H. Lawrence said "Trust the tale, not the teller."  In that mode, I 
find Snape far more complicated, sympathetic, and compelling that 
Rowling herself seems to.  She, in fact, always expresses shock and a 
certain degree of horror when her fans confess an attraction to Snape 
as a person.  

But that Snape is there, most *obviously* there, whether she "means" 
him to be or not.