When I was in college, I read Ernest Hemingway's Sun Also Rises during my junior year. While reading the novel, I perceived that all of the main characters were nihilistic-- they just sat around cafes and drank all day--- the main female character, in my mind, was promiscuous.
Those were thoughts that I made based on my interpretation of the text.
One year later, I read Sun Also Rises for a second time. As a reader [and as an older person with "slightly" more experience in life], I had a completely different viewpoint of the book. I felt that the characters were using things like alcohol and sex to emotionally deal with their trauma in a post-WWI world. I no longer saw Lady Brett, the main female character, as being promiscuous and without morals; instead, I saw her as a deeply hurt individual who didn't know how to correctly deal with her sadness.
Which interpretation of the text was "correct"? I surely could back up both interpretations by going back to the text and discussing evidence from the text in detail... I could probably do research and find lit critics who agree with both of my ideas... although I do think the second idea is "deeper."
The answer is that both interpretations are "correct." Or, in words from the third website link we were given: "The literary text possesses no FIXED and FINAL meaning or value; there is no one 'correct' meaning." As a reader, it is quite freeing to be "allowed" to have different interpretations of a text.
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