MAWRA TARIQ MALIK

ROLL NO. 32

MODERN CRITICAL THEORY

ASSIGNMENT TOPIC: DEFINING READERS:

• some reader-response theorists refer to “readers” while

others refer to “the reader.”

• When theorists discuss actual readers whose responses they

analyze, as Norman Holland and David Bleich do, for
example, they refer to them as “readers” or “students” or
call them by some other name that denotes real people.
• Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who
imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning
through interpretation. ... It stands in total opposition to the theories of
formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role in re-
creating literary works is ignored.
• reader-response analysis of a literary text is often an analysis not of the text
itself but of the responses of actual readers
“THE READER"

• Many theorists, however, analyze the reading experience of a hypothetical

ideal reader encountering a specific text, as we saw, for example, in our
examination of affective stylistics. In these cases, refer-ences to “the reader”
INFORMED READER:

• the reader who has attained the literary competency necessary to

experience the text.
IMPLIED READER
• the reader that the text seems to be addressing, whose characteristics we can
deduce by studying the style in which the text is written and the apparent
“attitude” of the narrative toward the reader.
• Thus, the implied reader of a Harlequin romance is quite different from the
implied reader of a philosophical novel like Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus
(1947) or the implied reader of a psychologically intense, historical novel like
Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
• An implied reader is, after all, someone who can understand what the
author has written and also is able to understand the complexity of
things such as the metaphors which are used by the author in their
books or articles. The implied reader is also someone who is able to
create text by themselves.
INTENDED READER:

• An “intended reader” is not fixed in the text but exists merely

in the imagination of the author and who can be
reconstructed only with the latter's statements or extra-
textual information, does not form a part of the work.
IDEAL READER

• An ideal reader is the fictional person to which a book would

most appeal. Most frequently, they represent a specific age
group and interest or experiences, but in some cases, an
ideal reader might also represent a certain ethnicity, religious
background, sexuality, or other identifying marker.
THE NARRATEE

• The narratee is a notional figure within the 'space' of the text itself, and
is thus not to be confused either with the real reader or with the implied
reader (who is addressed by the implied author at a separate 'level')
APPLICATION OF READER-RESPONSE THEORY:

• 1: The Great Gatsby:

• Knowing Daisy’s love to Tom and Gatsby through readers’
interpretation and recontextualization of The Great Gatsby.
• Based on the analysis of the topic being discussed, we can classify the
readers into two groups. First, those who consider Daisy’s love as
based on wealth and riches or they said that Daisy is materialist.
• Second, those who interpret Daisy’s love to both men as based on
pure love. This kind of reader believe that Daisy is not materialist as
the events happened to her accidentally meaning that there is the
reason why Daisy’s love change
• 2: The Awakening:
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin is a text which allows
for varying reader responses based on cultural and
ideological shifts over time pertaining to the status
of women and their social position within American
society