Random thoughts post 'em

[Ziggy and Angelbaby]

That was covered in the "grasp of the English language." In other fields you actually have to know what you're talking about, in English I can say, "Clearly the author's intentions were satirical because of their crippling anxieties in public that eventually led to their suicide. Therefore, rather than view this as a positive reading, it's clearly a jab at modern social expectations."

In psychology you would actually have to know something about psychology, same with law, medicine, mechanics, etc. English all you have to do is put out a paper that's full of special words that seem like they might be true and you're done. You don't even have to be RIGHT, you just have to make people think.

So, in the long run, you will better grasp the English language... Something you profess to have achieved already. But, to what end? English teacher? Novelist? Editor? Roaming internet grammar critic? Have I mistakenly overestimated the significance of selecting a major? Or, rather, the significance of being an English major within a scholastic context?

You don't necessarily have to be right in psychology, law, medicine, or mechanics, either. You just have to convince others that you're more right than they are. It's entirely possible to be incompetent in a field that, in and of itself, might inspire some measure of confidence or reverence among the lay.

And your example makes no sense without the benefit of hindsight; and, even then, arguably little. It was necessary for the author to commit suicide for the reader to interpret their work as satirical? There wouldn't have been a clue otherwise? xD Generally speaking, accurate reading comprehension (so far as the writer's intended message is concerned) is something that should be possible to accomplish without knowledge of the author's life and, especially, their demise. Unless, of course, the author went out like Robert E. Howard.

"All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre;
The feast is over and the lamps expire."

^ Granted, so far as I'm aware, Howard didn't write those two lines; though he did quote them at a meaningful juncture.