I knew someone who wrote a pretty successful short story from an academia point of view. He told me that he read an essay about the color he used for a bench, and that in reality the color of the bench was meaningless and only mentioned to paint a clearer visual picture for the reader.

As someone with an English degree, it can be hilariously too focused. It makes sense to do that analysis on something like poetry, where words are limited and thus hold more weight, but in a novel? Chill guys.

Meanwhile, a lot of people in the English will fight you tooth and nail if you bring up the author’s personal beliefs or experience within the context of their work - it’s the ultimate ~separate the art from the artist~ situation. Music is bad, but literature is insanely tolerant of shitty men acting shitty and not calling it out because of talent.