...Brittany Charpentier 18 October 2011 Reader Response Criticism of James Joyce’s “Araby” Though there are many different theories to interpret the short story “Araby” I have chosen a reader response theory known as transactional reader response. In doing so I hope to show the connection between text and reader and how our emotions and state of mind directly reflect on how we interpret works of literature. In transactional reader response theory, presented by both Louise Rosenblatt and Wolfgang Iser, I will be using the text of “Araby” as my blueprint to guide me to my conclusions and how I interpret the text. According to Iser the text provides readers with two kinds of meanings determinate and indeterminate: “Determinate meaning refers to what might be called the facts of the text, certain events in the plot or physical descriptions clearly provided by the words on the page. In indeterminate meaning or indeterminacy, refers to “gaps” in the text – such as actions that are not clearly explained or seem to have multiple explanations…” (Tyson 174) By using both indeterminate and determinate meanings within the blueprint of “Araby” I will construct and describe the reading process I undertake. In the beginning of the blueprint we are introduced to the narrator’s surroundings in which he lives. He describes the street he lives on as isolated and goes on to include telling of the previous owner of the house being a deceased priest. The surroundings of the narrator and the...
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...someone who is not a character but knows the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the story. The omniscient technique is used in this story and is particularly effective in allowing the reader to understand the old woman's predicament and how she, and the others, dealt with it.” (sec.3.1) This short story pulls the reader in, engages them and allows them to imagine themselves at the church. The story captured my imagination, drawing me into the slavery time period. It was curiosity and emotion that drew me into the character. It provided me with a desire to escape a present association. This literary piece motivated me to continue to understand the heartache, pain and torment African American slaves endured. The connections I make to the characters are to change how the elderly and seniors are cared for, thought of and treated by society in general. Additional comparisons are made to current ambiguous societal racial tendencies. The analytical approach used to analyze this short story will be the reader-response methodology. There are two analytical theories that can be applied to “The Welcome Place”. One is the reader-response and the other is the formalist approach. In the reader-response approach the reader is drawn into a different time period through their imagination. The reader has to transmit themselves into the...
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...Wolfgang Iser’s The Act of Reading: Implied Reader Wolfgang Iser’s The Act of Reading presents a list of the various types of readers possible when it comes to interpreting literary text. These readers have different interpretations of the text. These interpretations are affected by how the author appeals to each of the readers, either through the text itself or through the beliefs that the reader brings to the text. One reader Iser focuses on is the implied reader. After carefully examining what an implied reader is, Iser’s main assumptions about this role are easily noticeable. Iser’s implied reader allows the text to be broken down in such a way that the structured effects of a text can be described. Also, the implied reader allows for all predispositions to be mentioned so the text can achieve its meaning effectively. In fact, Iser says it best when he writes the implied reader “embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect.” An implied reader is a part of the text. And this part is extremely imperative to the text. Iser himself states that this implied reader concept “designates a network of response- inviting structures, which impel the reader to grasp the text.” In other words, the implied reader is a backbone to a person reading the text. Without the implied reader, the text will have no sufficient value present. Iser’s implied reader also has structured acts which help make...
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... ENGLISH 125 INSTRUCTOR JESSICA GUIRE AUGUST 27, 2012 The story of an hour The story I am choosing is the story of an hour by Kate Chopin (1894). Why I chose the story is because I found the story interesting. A tale kind of like the old saying I laughed I cried I fell down. This story kind of has it all just when you think she is lost to grief over the husband she loved but didn’t. She finds joy and when she’s ready to move on she dies from a kind of joy. Using a reader response approach I find I can identify with the main character Mrs. Mallard and the pain and loss she felt. The meaning of the story to me is about being able to move on but also about grieving for ones loss also. What I found interesting about the story of an hour is the main character they start with that Mrs. Mallard who has a heart condition they go on to explain that her sister is there to tell her that her husband has died in an accident from there she begins to grieve with her sisters support and then begins wonder if she really loved him or if it was just companionship she would be missing. Then when she finally finds a way to move on with her life she finds out that her husband was not dead but still alive. As she realizes that her...
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...The Maddening Struggle The Sphinx, by Edgar Allen Poe, is a story of a man who has to battle his own demons to stay sane. With such a paranoid character, the narrator’s struggle begins to reflect in his daily life, only aiding in his neurosis. The main illustration of his struggles is the insect, later identified as The Sphinx, which does not appear to be what it is. However, the creature is not the only reflection of the narrator’s paranoia. The reader can identify it in the character’s change in behavior, his daily activity, and in the contrast of both characters in the story. Yet it can be said that the largest piece of evidence of the downfall of the protagonist appears as a ferocious creature that could signify the narrator’s death or madness. Therefore, the narrator’s exaggerated siting of the creature conveys his internal struggle with the outbreak that terrorizes his city. In New York, an outbreak of Cholera is rampant throughout the city, causing the narrator to leave and stay with a relative for a while. During this stay, the narrator and his host receive messages of all the friends that are dying from the disease, causing them great distress. However, though the host is filled with worry, he doesn’t allow it to effect his demeanor. Instead, he goes to great lengths to try and distract the narrator, who is allowing the constant news of his friend’s demise to influence his character. While reading a book by the window, the narrator looks up and is surprised...
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...Finance/Fin Gm571 Week 3 The current credit terms dictates 15% upon purchase and 85% the following week (Emery, Finnerty, & Stowe, 2007). As valuable a customer who LS is to Murray, LS... Save Paper Week 2 Checkpoint Xeco212 iPad within hours, and retailers werent replenished for weeks because the demand was too high for production. So when they did this, they didnt have a significant... Save Paper Hca230 Week 1 Assignment HCA230 Week 1 Assignment Today Managed Care is the most predominant form of insurance in the United States. Insurances such as PPO, POS, and HMO plans are all... Save Paper Two Weeks With The Queen courage and prejudice expressed in a very realistic way that we can relate to. Two Weeks with the Queen gives the reader a sense of reality. In the beginning... Save Paper Week 5 Qnt/561 show that the production rate at the Scranton Plant has changed from 200 per week. The Two Sample Test of Hypothesis The two- sample hypothesis testing... Save Paper TraInIng In Acc point around which a learning organization may develop. The training program contents in ACC aimed to change employees to make them adopt new ways of thinking and... Save Paper Eco/212 Week 5 Week 5 final paper Eco/212 Rex Hammond Dr. T o Define the purpose and function of money- the purpose of money is to sustain the balance and empower the elite... Save Paper Week Nine Capstone Questions Jackie Carter Eth 125 April 7, 2011 Christy Boyer Week 9 Final...
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...dictionary Method of Instruction: Your participation in this class is essential to your success. You will be asked to engage the text, your peers' ideas, and the writing of others in this class. Does the conclusion of the writer you are reading necessarily correlate with the evidence presented? Be aware that when you present your own evidence you must be logical, as well. Course Description: English 125 is an introduction to literature. Students will be responsible for reading the texts critically and offer contributions based on textual evidence of patterns using proper literary terms. This is a writing intensive course; therefore, you will be responsible for inventing, drafting, and revising multiple papers varying in length from short reader responses to longer essays. I expect that because you have already taken English 111 you will know how to devise a formal argument based on evidence, so you will not be allowed to leave behind what you already know about college-level writing and discourse. This section of English 125 will comingle genres. That is, we will take a thematic look at texts and begin our discussion with what these texts have in common in terms of subject matter and move from there....
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...A study of reader-response theories, and some views on how the objectivity of the literary text is or is not distinguished from the subjectivity of the reader's response by Clarissa Lee Ai Ling In the academic study of literature very little attention has been paid to the ordinary reader, the subjective individual who reads a particular text. David S. Miall and Don Kuiken, in their paper The form of reading: Empirical studies of literariness state. Almost no professional attention is being paid to the ordinary reader, who continues to read for the pleasure of understanding the world of the text rather than for the development of a deconstructive or historicist perspective. The concerns that an ordinary reader seems likely to have about a literary text, such as its style, its narrative structure, or the reader's relation to the author, the impact on the reader's understanding or feelings - such concerns now seem of little interest. In this paper I should like to study a few kinds of reader and the subjectivity of their responses to the objectivity found within literary texts, quoting some views found within reader-response criticism. Before I begin, I should like to consider what is meant by the term 'literary text', and what is meant by the objectivity of it. According to Terry Eagleton, [1] the definition of 'literary', as advanced by the Russian formalists, (who included in their ranks are Viktor Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson, Osip Brik, Yury Tynyanov, Boris Eichenbaum...
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...Task One Reading and Defence of The Crucible Prepared for Ms. Mussig Prepared by Maya Young English Extension Part One: The Reading Created from the mind of the world renowned playwright and author Arthur Miller, is the horrifying story of deceit, accusation and guilt of The Crucible. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a confronting play that explores the unfathomable true events that took place in the small religious village of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, where by members of the Salem community began accusing others of dealing with and practising the magic of the Devil. These accusations are what led to the Salem witch-trials. Through this play Miller is able to emphasise the absurdity of these trials, which resulted in the hangings of twenty innocent people. I personally came across The Crucible through my English Extension class. To be perfectly honest, when I first picked up this text, I was unsure of what to expect. Apart from reading Shakespeare, I had never been exposed to reading in the playwright form. I did not know what my approach to the play was going to be or how I would react to reading it, or if there was a certain way in which I was supposed to be affected by it. I also had yet to read a text written by Arthur Miller, so I was unaware of his style of writing and again did not know what to expect from it. After finishing the play for the first time I was satisfied that I had thoroughly enjoyed reading the story, whilst developing a love...
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...Analyzing Alice 11/18/2013 Analyzing Alice In Alice Walker's "The Welcome Table", she uses an omniscient voice and plenty of word imagery, which elicited an emotional reader response from me. Everything from the description of the old woman's appearance to the old woman being thrown out of church made me feel sad for this woman, followed by happy at the way it ended for her. With the aid of Walker's use of vivid descriptions, I was able to envision the story as it unfolded in my mind. From the beginning, this short story really captured my imagination. Alice Walker was blessed with a way of taking words and weaving them into what I can only describe as a movie only I can see. The vast descriptions of the old woman made me feel as if I were standing right next to her. Walker doesn't go too in depth describing the other church goers, but what little she does provide gives one the impression that these were well-to-do people and it was obvious they felt she didn't belong in "their" church. As Walker laid out the events taking place, I found myself having an emotional response. Comparing the time I live in, the way I was raised, and how I treat people on am every day basis, the neglect and horrible treatment of the old woman made me empathetic toward her. It made me question where her family was and why weren't they taking care of her? When the husbands picked her up and placed her outside, it made me feel...
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...SRTM Univ,Nanded,India . almeghdad@ymail.com Phenomenology of Reading A number of poststructuralist movements such as deconstruction had challenged the formalist and New Critical assertion of the objectivity of the text. But it was not until the 1970s that a number of critics at the University of Constance in Germany, the Constance School, began to formulate a systematic reader-response or “reception” theory. The leading members of this school were Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss. Such phenomenological theories deal with the important role of the reader in the overall structure of any given literary text. The reader plays a great role in shaping how the work will be understood and what meanings it will have. Each new generation and each new group of readers in a new setting brings to a literary work different code for understanding it. Does writing require reading? What does reading do for writing that writing cannot do for itself? Different schools have different answers, but for phenomenology of literature, the answer is YES. Reading is ontological requirement for writing. Since writing in itself is not complete and indeterminate, it ontologically requires reading completement. So, reading, as prof.A.V.Ashok, from EFLU, defined, is “the compeletization of incomplete textured meaning into actualized...
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... In his approach to Reader-Response criticism, Wolfgang Iser stands between subjectivity and objectivity. For him, literary texts do not have one final meaning; nor are they open to as many meanings as there are readers. Iser’s two major books, The Implied Reader (1974) and The Act of Reading (1978), have continued to be sold and reprinted; he has also published an abundance of more recent articles. Iser distinguishes literary texts from non-literary ones and presents us with a phenomenology of reading that has significant implications for literary interpretation. He draws a distinction between literature and non-literature in the book titled: The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response and says: “Literary texts do not contain a referential meaning; if they did, they would not be literature.” Iser’s primary concern is the relationship between the text and its readers. According to Iser, the literary text has a ‘potential’, and ‘the structure of the text allows for different ways’ of fulfilling its ‘potential’. (qtd. The Act of Reading, 13) I believe that to achieve this effect, the literary text conceals as it reveals. The presence of holes or gaps in the text invites the reader to fill in the gaps, but the reader’s activity is guided and molded by that what is revealed. Iser’s blanks come with his points of suspended connectability between segments of the text. (qtd. The Act of Reading, 13) He focuses on the role of the reader, which is controlled by what the...
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...A&P and Araby John Updike's A & P and James Joyce's Araby share many of the same literary traits. The primary focus of the two stories revolves around a young man who is compelled to decipher the different between cruel reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head. That the man does, indeed, discover the difference is what sets him off into emotional collapse. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character, who is also the protagonist, has built up incredible,yet unrealistic, expectations of women, having focused upon one in particular towards which he places all his unrequited affection. The expectation these men hold when finally "face to face with their object of worship" (Wells, 1993, p. 127) is what sends the final and crushing blow of reality: The rejection they suffer is far too great for them to bear. Updike is famous for taking other author's works and twisting them so that they reflect a more contemporary flavor. While the story remains the same, the climate is singular only to Updike. This is the reason why there are similarities as well as deviations from Joyce's original piece. Plot, theme and detail are three of the most resembling aspects of the two stories over all other literary components; characteristic of both writers' works, each rendition offers its own unique perspective upon the young man's romantic infatuation. Not only are descriptive phrases shared by both stories, but parallels occur with...
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...Trevor Edwards October 6th, 2015 English 150 Crawford “Araby” Written Response “Araby” by James Joyce is a short story about what seems to be an older gentleman describing his youth. Along with that, the narrator tells the reader about his romance with a girl, Managan's sister, that lived across from him. The story continues on with the narrator describing how “Every morning [he] would lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door” (108), along with even going to see a show just to interact with the Managan's sister. Throughout the story, you can tell the author has strong feelings for his friends sister. He rushes through dinner so he can get ready to leave. Sadly the narrator had to wait for his uncle to return with money for him to travel to the bazaar. The bazaar is where the show that Managan's sister wanted to see was going to be held. Ironically, the show's name was called “Araby”. The story continues on with the narrator traveling to the bazaar by train, arriving late, and unfortunately being unable to locate the sister. The story ends with the narrator saying, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (111). Towards the end, the narrator seemed to feel a type of understanding of his place at the time. At the start of the narrator trying to enter the bazaaar, he notes that he “could not find any sixpenny entrance” (110). The narrator decided to pass through a turnstile...
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...the boy seems to struggle to grasp what other reason the man would have for being there. One example which highlights this point is when the old man queries how often the boys get whipped at school, but despite this question being asked, the boy decides to ‘remain silent’. This response of silence from the boy indicates that there is indeed an element of doubt and confusion inside his head as to why the man wants to know these questions – but instead of perhaps retorting in disgust or walking away as an older person would probably have done, the boy remains where he is, and the conversation continues. Joyce’s description of the boy as ‘Magnetised’ by the old man is interesting; this suggests that the boy is enjoying the idea of listening to this old man who has encountered a lot in his long life, and that at that present point in the extract, the boy does not see the behaviour of the man threatening or in any way unnerving. The boy actually wants the man to stay and talk to him because he is intrigued about what he may have to say – adding to the little boy’s ‘adventure’. In contrast to the previous example, the metaphor ‘seemed to circle slowly’ creates an air of tension and apprehension for the reader, inferring that the boy is also starting to become anxious as the man probes further and further. The boy is perhaps beginning to pierce the façade that the old man is trying to put up to throw the boys off the scent from what his real purpose is....
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