Different Interpretations Within a Story

It's not uncommon for authors to have their works contain a sense of ambiguity. In fact, this is true for many pieces of popular media, such as films or video games; the story is presented in a decently vague manner, leaving many parts of the story up for interpretation. My idea of a story might not be your idea of the same story.

So, why do authors tend to do this? There are many reasons, such as to create a sense of mystery, to leave the reader with something that they can define for themselves, or to affect the story’s tone. Their writing style can leave readers with different ideas of what is happening in the story.

Let’s look at an example of one story that can have multiple interpretations: My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke. This is a poem about the speaker as a little boy, and his father who had arrived home severely intoxicated. With the way the poem is written, one might interpret the story as the father, who is drunkenly happy, and his son waltzing in the kitchen together; since the father is drunk and the boy has never done this type of dancing before, they’re both not very good at it. On the other hand, the poem can be interpreted as a “waltz” between the father and son, but instead of a dance, it’s the father abusing his son in a drunken haze.

This is only one of the many examples of media that leaves some parts of the story up for interpretation. Even if a story isn’t entirely clear, it’s still fun to theorize what is actually happening!