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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 1215861" data-attributes="member: 177">The fact that the writer is working from his own perspective in no way, shape, or form implies that any conscious consideration has been given to "messages".  Some writers may give great thought to this, others may not.  Humans are pretty well known for not really knowing what is going on inside their own heads.   Perhaps "body language" is a good analogy.  When you talk to a person face to face, the details of their posture, movement, eye contact, and the like can tell you a great deal about what is going on inside their heads.  Some folks (good actors, for example) learn to control their body language, but most folk don't control it most of the time.  It projects meaning without any consicous intent on the part of the speaker.  Similarly, a writer who has no intent to send a message can still have things creep into his or her work unannounced.The difficulty with the written word is that the intentional and unintentional meanings are conveyed through the same medium, so they are difficult to disentangle.  What about the case where the author's intended message is pretty vapid and empty, but the subtext and unintentional messages are interesting?  The "value" of a message is subjective, and may have little to do with the author's actual intent.No offense meant to Tolkien in specific, but humans are not well-known for being 100% honest with each other, or with themselves.</blockquote>

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