Reader-response Criticism

Welcome to our new topic, the Reader-response criticism! This is our second of the series of literary theories that we will study and employ as a lens to read and appreciate literary masterpieces. Afterwards, we will be using the same as a tool to write meaningful criticisms of a literary piece. We will all write and compile these criticisms for our college’s consumption. For a start, please read, understand, and analyze the short story entitled “The Gift of the Magi” written by O. Henry. You can view and download it here. So, hang on and together, we will uncover the secrets of writing a reader-response literary criticism!

Intended learning outcomes

By the completion of this topic, the students should be able to:

1. Explain reader-response criticism;
2. Discuss the gist of the short story “The Gift of the Magi”;
3. Write a reader-response criticism of a chosen short story.

What is reader response criticism?

As a literary criticism, reader response criticism considers readers’ reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A critic deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminists lens, or even a structuralist lens. What these different lenses have in common when using a reader response approach is they maintain “…that what a text is cannot be separated from what it does” (Tyson 154).

Tyson explains that “…reader-response theorists share two beliefs:

1. that the role of the reader cannot be omitted from our understanding of literature, and
2. that readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by an objective literary text; rather they actively make the meaning they find in literature” (154)

In this way, reader-response theory shares common ground with some of the deconstructionists discussed in the Post-structural area when they talk about “the death of the author,” or her displacement as the (author)itarian figure in the text.

Characteristics of Reader-response criticism

1. Reader response criticism places strong emphasis on the reader’s role in producing the meaning of a literary work,
2. It is in some senses an opposite approach from that of formalism,
3. Whereas formalists treat meaning as objectively inherent in the text, in reader response criticism, the text has no meaning until it is read by a reader who creates the meaning.
4. Unlike the formalist critical approach, this type of literary criticism insists that works are not universal, that is, that they will not always mean more or less the same thing to readers everywhere.

The reader, to a large extent, recreate the text in his image. ~ Norman Holland

Typical questions to be asked when reading as Reader-response critic

• How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning?
• What does a phrase-by-phrase analysis of a short literary text, or a key portion of a longer text, tell us about the reading experience prestructured by (built into) that text?
• Do the sounds/shapes of the words as they appear on the page or how they are spoken by the reader enhance or change the meaning of the word/work?
• How might we interpret a literary text to show that the reader’s response is, or is analogous to, the topic of the story?
• What does the body of criticism published about a literary text suggest about the critics who interpreted that text and/or about the reading experience produced by that text? (Tyson 191)

Advantages of using reader-response criticism

1. Reader-response criticism allows readers to interpret the text in various ways.
2. Allows readers to bring personality traits, memories of the past and present experiences to the text.
3. Forces the readers to look past the words of the text, and search for deeper meanings.
4. Allows teachers to connect with their students on a more personal level.
5. Allows readers to see different perspectives of others while reading.
6. Reader-response criticism focuses on the importance of the reader and their individual response to the text.

Disadvantages of using reader-reader criticism

1. Reader-response criticism provides a much skewed outlook on different works of literature.
2. One brings their personal interpretations to the text rather than examining the meaning that the other created.
3. The reader creates a narrow connection to the text, rather than looking at different perspectives (connections to the world, connections to other texts).
4. Students may be unclear of how to respond correctly because they are unsure of the teachers own perspective, and how they will react to their own response.

How to write a reader-response criticism

When using reader response criticism as a tool of analysis, you may:

1. write about how the author evokes a particular reaction in you as the reader;
2. what features of your own identity influence you in creating your interpretation; and
3. how another reader in a different situation might interpret the work differently.

Sample illustration of a reader-response criticism:

In reading The Parable Of The Prodigal Son in the New Testament, different readers are likely to have different responses.

Someone who has lived a fairly straight and narrow life and who does not feel like he has been rewarded for it is likely to associate with the older brother of the parable and sympathize with his opposition to the celebration over the prodigal son’s return.

Someone with a more checkered past would probably approach the parable with more sympathy for the younger brother.

As a parent who had had difficulties with a rebellious child would probably focus on the father, and, depending on his or her experience, might see the father’s unconditional acceptance of the prodigal as either good and merciful or as unwise and overindulgent.

While the parable might disturb some, it could elicit a feeling of relief from others.

References

• Dobie, Ann B.  (2009). Theory into Practice: An Intro to Literary Criticism. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
• Fry, Paul H. (2013). Theory of Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Habib, M. R. (2011). A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to Present. UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
• https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/722/