READER RESPONSE ESSAY
READER RESPONSE ESSAY If one was to was to evaluate the text ‘The Dumb House’ following the reader response school of criticism it becomes immediately clear that there are a number of varying interpretations available to the independently thinking non passive reviewer. ... Despite it probably not being the author’s intention, much is revealed in the first sentence regardless of the author’s intention to build the tension and keep the reader interacting with the text. Nevertheless the active and uncontrolled reader will immediately draw conclusions between the title ‘The Dumb House’ and the opening text ‘From the moment I first learned to talk’. ... This display of non-passive reader interpretation forms a good example of Reader Response, the reader interacting subjectively with a text and interpreting it to their principles and standards, Fish criticises this method of interpretation stating that readings are governed by personal assumptions of interpretation a fair and valid point. However although this is an obvious and valid point there is also the idea that the text can be seen as a series of instructions to be interpreted by the reader in an interactive manner no matter how inaccurate the reading or interpretation of the text is the reader will still learn from it, in this case learning details of the narrators upbringing, life and problems. There is an early example of an authorial use of a gap to keep the reader devouring his text; Iser refers to such gaps as ‘Blanks’, this is a term discussed by Iser, which he sees as ‘a basic element for the aesthetic response’ . This blank occurs after ‘I felt I was being tricked out of something’ an immensely important point in the narrative so that the reader knows that the next sentence is connected. However it is not made clear what he was being tricked out of as the next sentence begins ‘I remember it still’ further building up the tension using various frustrating techniques to leave the reader unfulfilled and encourage them to continue reading. ... The foundation of interpretation is that the action of the reader shall be implied so it is left to the reader to draw early conclusions and interpret the clues available.