Misinterpreting the Unreadable: Jack London's "the Chinago"

I have to reinforce that misreading does occur, but it does not necessarily have to occur. As the opposition team has said, the story reveals a layered series of misread situations, but I have to argue that it is not related to the inability of characters to interpret their situation. In fact, they have all made a conscious choice to ignore the situation. Intentionally or not, they have chosen to go alone with the mistake that was present with them.I will start off by defining misread, in which to misread something it normally implies someone is misinterpreting something caused by inaccurate reading. However in Cruchot's case, the order was inaccurately written and passed on to him. We cannot accuse him of misreading, as an accident to read it wrongly. In fact, the reading here is very straightforward that involves no interpretation, no mismatch between the signifier and signified. Ah Cho implies only one person being placed in the context without multiple people called the same name. Therefore the written consent is more like an order, and instruction rather than a reading, which refers to a system of signs capable of being combined and connected with other people or object. Therefore we cannot establish the statement that Cruchot is misreading the information that caused Ah Cho's tragedy. In his case, his reading requires no interpretation that is highly important, in some other situation, in order to successful reading. He was simply asked to follow an order: performing his duty in an institutionalized place. It was not a place permitting exceptions for personal awareness of the ambiguities to be found where law and order meet or fail to meet. Nevertheless, it was until later that he himself discovered the mistake, yet this is so does not meant that he has misread the information. The order was miswritten. However through his reflection, we realize that there is an expectation on the part of society that the individuals should simply obey and leave the thinking for their superiors. In other words, the system of institution and orders are presented as absolutes. So individual was asked not to think, or read between the lines. Their duties are not inclusive to derive the mistake from a written order, but intrinsically follow the instructions. After all who was Cruchot to do their thinking for them, when they knew their business best.

On the other hand, the opposition may argue that the foreignness of Ah Cho's Chinese name has rather caused his own tragedy. This argument hence brought forth the recognition that language barriers could potentially prevent people to convey information effective through written and/or verbal symbols. Seemingly, throughout the story, linguistic alienation is the biggest obstacle that leads to confusion and misreading. However I have to argue that verbal and written language is not the only method for knowing or reading the situation correctly. Even thought to the western people all Chinago looked alike. One face was like another, but through bodily features between tallness and shortness they could differentiate the difference. This differentiation implies that people are capable of mutual awareness.

Possibly, I will suggest that there are other ways in which people can convey an