The Effectiveness of Literary Sophistocation

I'm writing this essay as described in the previous post (it's going to get a fabulous grade, assuming I don't make the embarrasing proofreading errors that kept my last paper just out of the coveted 98+% category), and I'm beginning to doubt the effectiveness of many of these fundamental literary devices. Despite all of the complaining I make about this book, and despite my hatred of it, it is really a well-crafted (he's getting inside my head!) work. Anyway, I was analyzing a vignette and talking about how the yellow color of a stolen car and the blue color of the pursuing police car (I feel like I'm describing some kind of action book; trust me, it's not!) enhance the tension of the passage, by their nature as opposites on the color wheel. Then I got thinking, who actually would ever notice this, aside from the ambitious, but stupid high school student like myself? I mean, even if reading a book seriously, it is very rare that anyone would notice such a minor detail, much less have it enhance their perception of conflict. This assumes that the perception of tension by color dichotomy is a purely conscious process. I reckon it probably is, but you never know. The author's effort is really being wasted on most people here, unless they're very seriously trying to analyze it. It seems to boil down to a couple fundamental questions: Are literary techniques perceived subliminally and unconsciously? We know they are for pure senses like sight and hearing, but can this occur in words, the interpretation of which is inherently a purely intellectual process? Is the meaning of a book entirely dependent on the audience who reads it? In other words, is the author's intent entirely irrelevant to the effect of the book because it can be interpreted in an infinite variety of ways? Now why can't we write about THAT in English? Using the words and pretensions of the Dean of Admissions at Reed College, whom I hate, that'd be like thinking about thinking about thinking... so "intellectual" and "humanistic!"