Readers-Response criticism emerged as a form of literary
analysis in the 1970''s, and remained a powerful force in the academy. However,
critics have long been interested in the relationship between readers and
literary texts. In the reader-response critical approach, the primary focus
falls on the reader and the process of reading rather than on the author or the
text. Rejecting the idea that there is a single, fixed meaning inherent in
every literary work, this theory holds that the individual creates his
or her own meaning through a "transaction" with the text based on
personal associations. Because all readers bring their own emotions, concerns,
life experiences, and knowledge to their reading, each interpretation is
subjective and unique. The central premise of all the schools within
Reader-Criticism is this: The text does not and cannot interpret itself. To
determine a text's meaning, one must become an active reader and a participant
in the reading process. Reader-Response criticism uses various theoretical
assumptions and methodologies to discover a text's meaning as it is created
through interaction with the reader
Reader-Response criticism is not a subjective, impressionistic
free-for-all, nor a legitimizing of all half-baked, arbitrary, personal
comments on literary works. Instead, it is a school of criticism which emerged
in the 1970's, focused on finding meaning in the act of reading itself and
examining the ways individual readers or communities of readers experience
texts. These critics raise theoretical questions regarding how the reader joins
with the author "to help the text mean." They determine what kind of
reader or what community of readers the work implies and helps to create. They
also may examine the significance of the series of interpretations the reader
undergoes in the reading process.
Like New Critics,
reader-response critics focus on what texts do; but instead of
regarding texts as self-contained entities, reader-response criticism plunges
into what the New Critics called the affective fallacy: what do texts do in the
minds of the readers? In fact, a text can exist only as activated by the mind
of the reader. Thus, where formalists saw texts as special, reader-response
critics view them as temporal phenomena. And, as Stanley Fish states, "It
is not that the presence of poetic qualities compels a certain kind of
attention but that the paying of a certain kind of attention results in the
emergence of poetic qualities. . . . Interpretation is not the art of
construing but the art of constructing. Interpreters do not decode poems; they
make them"
TRANSACTIONAL READER RESPONSE CRITICISM
Reader-response theory studies about how the readers’ response functions
as a complementary aspect for giving life to the text. The interaction between
the text and readers’ experience is transactional reader-response theory.
This theory gives importance to transaction between text and reader. In the
process of reading the text, the reader’s respond in their own way. It is so
because readers do have different feelings, associations, memories, ideas on
the basis of their experience. The text guides the readers, that’s why the
readers present their response to the text. Without having interaction between
the text and reader, it becomes impossible to give life to the literary text. In
the process of interplay, a number of ongoing experiences of the readers become
very important.
Louise Michelle Rosenblatt (American literary critic) argues that the act of reading literature
involves a transaction between the reader and the text. According to her a
written work does not have the same meaning for everyone, as each reader brings
individual background, knowledge, beliefs and context into the reading act. According
to Rosenblatt, the reader must approach to the text aesthetically (in a
tasteful way) rather than superficially. When the reader reads in superficially
mode, he focuses just on the outward information of the texts.
AFFECTIVE STYLISTIC (Stanley Fish)
Reader Response criticism emerged during the 1930’s as a reaction against
New Criticism and received much attention in the 1970’s. New Criticism rejected
the reader’s role in creating meaning of the text. It dominated in the 1940’s
and 1950’s. One of the major concepts in reader-response theory affective
stylistics treats the text as an event that gets life only when it is read
by the readers.
Readers-response criticism closely examines the literary text to
understand the effect it creates on the readers. The text doesn't have fixed
and predetermined meaning. Rather the meaning is produced on the basis of the
response of the readers. Stanley Fish presents the concept that the
function of the reader is to assemble different structural pieces. So, it is slow
in motion. By reading the text word by word, and line by line, it is possible
to formulate the response. The meaning of the text depends on what the text
does to us as we read it. The readers are uncertain about the final event of
the text. Similarly, the meaning of the text might be uncertain. However, the
readers should base their interpretation on the basis of the textual evidence. Otherwise,
there is every possibility of misreading the text.
SUBJECTIVE READER RESPONSE THEORY
One of the most
important aspects of reader-response theory, subjective reader-response theory
values the readers’ interpretation as the modality of criticism. David
Bleich developed subjective reader-response theory. According to him
readers’ responses are not the real text. It is because there is not literary
text beyond the meanings created by readers’ interpretations. Secondly, because
the text that the critic analyzes is not the literary work, but the written
responses of readers.
Bleich
shows that the difference between real objects; the objects that our
sensory perceptions grasp and symbolic objects; the objects that are
formulated through the conceptual world. Real objects are physical and concrete
objects like book, table, chair etc. Likewise the printed pages of the literary
text are real objects. But the experience created by reading the printed pages
is a symbolic object. Moreover, language itself is a symbolic object, because
it occurs not in the physical world, but in the conceptual world like in the
mind of the reader. Interpretation should be based on not on the textual
objects but on the basis of readers’ interpretation. For this reason, this has
been called subjective reader-response theory. On the basis of readers’
political, sociological, religious moral, ethical and gender background,
readers formulate the response to the text. Along with these things the readers’
age as well formulate their response. It means personal associations and
memories are the interpretation of the text.
This is how subjective
reader-response theory doesn't value text as affective stylistics and
transactional reader response theory value. This concept developed by Bleich
is applicable in different situations because interpretation is also the
process of re-symbolization. On the basis of our change in experience, interpretation
also changes. So, the text we talk about is not really the text on the page, but it is the text in our mind. All knowledge is subjective and so the perceived cannot be separated from the perceiver or observer.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
READER RESPONSE THEORY
Psychological Reader-Response
theory was developed by Psychoanalytic Critic Norman Holland. Holland
views that critics’ interpretation present the personality of the critics and
not about the text. Psychological Reader Response Theory analyzes what the
readers' interpretations and responses reveal about the reader, not the text. The
reader responds to the core fantasies and the symbolic groundwork of the text
in a highly personal way; while the text contributes material inner realization
which can be shared across consciousness, the real meaning of the text is the
meaning created by the individual’s psyche in response to the work, at the
unconscious level and at a subsequent conscious level.
Every reader prefers to
read something of his or her own taste. For example, a person may dislike a new
acquaintance who reminds him of his alcoholic father. Then he is likely to dislike
any fictional character who reminds him of his alcoholic father. Norman
Holland focuses on what readers’ interpretations reveal about themselves,
not about the text. As he focuses on the psychological responses of readers, he
is called the psychological reader-response critic. Psychological reader-response
theory focuses on the psychological responses of the readers. Reading the text
is presenting the personal identity of the readers. We identify ourselves while
perceiving meaning of the text. Holland states three stages of
interpretation: defense mode, fantasy mode and transformation mode.
Along with these three stages, the readers externalized the hidden internal
feeling of the reader. The readers unconsciously mingle themselves in the text.
The focus of the reader is guided not by the text but by the unconscious desire
of the readers. It means even the writers are the interpreter of their own
life. So a literary piece is the interpretation of the writer’s unconscious desires.
Hamlet for example is the interpretation of Shakespeare’s own
life. That’s why Hamlet is not a text but interpretation.
This is how
psychological reader-response theory links the psychology of the readers with
the text. Either we analyze a person or a text, every act of interpretation
takes place within the context of the interpreter’s identity theme. For this
reason, it is very near to subjective reader-response theory.
SOCIAL
READER-RESPONSE THEORY
Stanley Fish
developed social reader-response theory. This theory asserts that subjective
responses of the literary text or the results are the interpretive community to
which readers belong. The practitioners of different schools often hold some
ideas that are common while practitioners of same school differ on some points.
Some critics who practice reader-response theory do not call themselves
reader-response critics at all while there are others who need to be classified
under different system.
According to Fish,
our individual subjective responses to a literary text are really products of
our interpretive community or social background. Fish gives importance to
interpretive community. He means to say that every reader is the product of the
society. Readers can belong, unconsciously or consciously, to more than one
community at the same time. Moreover, they can change from one community to
another at different times. Social reader-response theory does not offer us a
new way to read texts. Nor does it promote any form of literary criticism. Its main
point is that no interpretation can claim to reveal what is in the text. That’s
why interpretive strategies are formulated by the institutionalized
assumptions. The assumptions differ from one community to the other community.
Similarly, the assumptions of the some community go on changing. Consciously or
unconsciously, social norms and values are shown in the interpretations. The readers
may make the literary judgments on the basis of the society to which they
belong.
Social reader-response
theory doesn't provide the ready-made tools to analyze and interpret the text.
It is so because social expectations always change. As a result of this interpretive
strategies also change. In this way, social reader-response theory values not
the individual response of the reader but the institutionalized response. For this,
Fish calls interpretive community.
A READER
RESPONSE ANALYSIS OF THE GREAT GATSBY
One of the most
important critical theories reader response criticism was developed during the
20th century. This criticism gives importance to the reading
processes. It is so because readers’ responses change along with the change in
time and social expectations. The Great Gatsby makes its meaning on the
basis of the readers responses shaped by the clues of the text. Readers
formulate their responses on the basis of characters, presentation and
narrators narration.
An analysis of The Great
Gatsby from reader-response theory is important for the reason that the
novel demands varied responses from different readers. The major characters of
the novel are Gatsby, Daisy, Tim, Wilson and Nick. Nick is the narrator as well
as character of this novel. His narration creates impression upon the readers. His
perspective about Gatsby depicts not only Gatsby but also makes him feel that
whether Gatsby is a hero or a criminal. Every scene, every incidents, every
action formulate readers’ response.
The meaning of The
Great Gatsby is not static. It goes on changing along with the change in
the perception of the readers. Nick likes to project himself as the central
figure of the novel. He feels that Gatsby does have unfulfilled love for Daisy.
It makes the reader develop sympathy towards Gatsby. Moreover, our negative
thought develops when Gatsby becomes violent. It is not Gatsby who has become
violent, rather Nick perceives the action negatively.
The indeterminacies of
the text, the gaps of the text and unanswered question of the text are answered
by the readers. It means readers give life to the novel The Great Gatsby by
filling the gaps. Even though the response of the readers may change from
person to person, society to society, the novel is all about the corruption of
the time: the images that are found in the text; the materialistic value given
by the people for that community. In this novel the readers negate themselves
as the characters and participate with themselves.
In this way, the
thematic content of the novel is determined by means of different responses of
readers. The importance given to materialistic prosperity in the novel indicates
that before that time there was spiritual value. Thus critics give life to The
Great Gatsby. The meaning of The Great Gatsby becomes effective only
by means of readers projection in the text.
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