I think the main reason that we shouldn't draw grand conclusions and then go back and "plug in" evidence is that working your way up from the text may lead you to new and more interesting conclusions than what you might arrive at by just picking a universal theme and bending the text to fit. To use an example from class: If you automatically jump to the conclusion that Jane Austen describes leaves as "green" because green is the color of hope, than you limit the color green to its association with hope. I think it goes back to the berries thing. Maybe in Jane Austen's world green does not mean hope, maybe it means hate. Either way, your conclusion has to be built from the ground up using the rules that the author establishes, not the rules that we impose on the text. Phew! It took me a long time to write that because I had to make it make sense to me too! Anyone else feel free to add on!
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