The Elephant Wrestler Summary

Stanley Fish’s notion of an interpretive community explains why people are likely to agree or disagree on a particular subject. People are members of different interpretive communities based on codes and conventions – that is, they have similar life-experiences and were exposed to similar environments. The members of the same community share the same codes and conventions; and this is the reason why they agree or disagree. A few reviews of a restaurant, ‘The Elephant Wrestler’, has been collected from Yelp to demonstrate Fish’s notion, and explain why it problematizes the notion that an interpreter’s response is merely subjective.

A common factor between the reviewers of ‘The Elephant Wrestler’ is that they have dined inside the restaurant. This would put them into a community of people who have dined at
Another similarity between the reviewers is that they have chosen to eat at this restaurant due to hunger or thirst. These are all similar codes and conventions this community of reviewers has. Due to the group of people that have dined at ‘The Elephant Wrestler’, one would then expect the reviewers to agree and disagree on the same aspects of the restaurant. However, the reviews on Yelp have been diverse; some positive, and some negative. One of the positive reviews has come from Christine L., where she states “Great place to grab a drink with friends … You’ll love this place as soon as you get in the door”. Christine has given the restaurant a rating of four out of five stars. Despite such a glowing review, she has suggested an area where the restaurant may improve, “If the waitress here could be more passionate, that’ll be wonderful”. A review by Francisca C., has also criticised the wait-staff at ‘The Elephant Wrestler’. She states, “We politely asked the waitress to double