Subtext

Supporting Idea: Subtext

A work of art can communicate both directly and by implication. Its explicit content is the text; meaning conveyed without being stated outright is subtext.

Subtext is what we find ourselves intuitively picking up on and understanding, sometimes without quite knowing how.[26] We’re good at noticing subtext because it’s often there in speech when we talk to people. We constantly hear people saying things that have a different meaning than the literal one, and we learn to detect it. “What time does this meeting end?” might mean “Is it rude for me to leave now?”

Subtext gives us a much richer experience of a piece of art. By adding more layers, an artist enables their audience to enjoy their work on multiple levels and to revel in the satisfaction of seeing the subtext. It’s usually a deliberate act, but sometimes a subtext may emerge that the artist did not notice during the creative process, or audiences may pick up on what appears to be subtext but is merely the result of their own interpretation. Subtext may be something that the characters within a work are aware of or something only revealed to the audience.

We can appreciate the use of subtext as the sign of a masterful, skilled artist. It takes great ability to follow Alfred Hitchcock’s maxim “Show, don’t tell.” For instance, the artist Paul Nash served as the official war artist for Britain during part of World War I. During his time on the front and afterward, he produced numerous paintings and drawings inspired by the landscape he had seen. His dark, often surreal works showed little of the typical iconography of war and instead depicted trees, bushes, streams, fields, and the countryside above all else. When people, planes, and weapons appeared, they seemed integrated into their surroundings, usually overshadowed. The subtext was clear: Nash’s devastated landscapes represented his assessment of the impact of war on people.[27] He didn’t directly reveal his opinions, but they were unmistakable. To convey something in a subtle fashion can have far more impact than stating it outright.

When an audience must work a little harder to understand a piece of art, it builds engagement. It makes characters more believable—real people rarely say exactly what they mean all the time. It can turn what looks to be a simple tale on the surface, such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm, into a profound and moving work with lasting impact.

During times of oppression, artists may turn to subtext as a means of conveying messages that would otherwise be censored or cause them to incur personal risks. An audience may recognize criticism that is never stated directly. That indirectness can offer an artist some cover, though it does not guarantee protection from censorship or punishment.

Religious or political subtext is common. For example, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is ostensibly about the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century. But Miller is holding a mirror to America at the time he was writing: in the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy was aggressively hunting down suspected communists. The subtext of The Crucible is that McCarthyism featured the same paranoia and hysteria as the Salem witch trials. The historical setting lets audiences draw the comparison without an explicit statement about contemporary politics. Recognizing that connection is part of interpreting the play; it does not make its criticism invisible to authorities.