Chapter 6 Writing about Readers: Applying Reader-Response Theory

Final Draft

Amy Ferdinandt

Professor Pennington

Introduction to Literature

24 April 20–

To Misread or to Rebel: A Woman’s Reading of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”

At its simplest, reading is “an activity that is guided by the text; this must be processed by the reader who is then, in turn, affected by what he has processed” (Iser 63). The text is the compass and map, the reader is the explorer. However, the explorer cannot disregard those unexpected boulders in the path which he or she encounters along the journey that are not written on the map. Likewise, the woman reader does not come to the text without outside influences. She comes with her experiences as a woman—a professional woman, a divorcée, a single mother. Her reading, then, is influenced by her experiences. So when she reads a piece of literature like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber, which paints a highly negative picture of Mitty’s wife, the woman reader is forced to either misread the story and accept Mrs. Mitty as a domineering, mothering wife, or rebel against that picture and become angry at the society which sees her that way.

Due to pre-existing sociosexual standards, women see characters, family structures, even societal structures from the bottom as an oppressed group rather than from a powerful position on the top, as men do. As Louise Rosenblatt states: a reader’s “tendency toward identification [with characters or events] will certainly be guided by our preoccupations at the time we read. Our problems and needs may lead us to focus on those characters and situations through which we may achieve the satisfactions, the balanced vision, or perhaps merely the unequivocal motives unattained in our own lives” (38). A woman reader who feels chained by her role as a housewife is more likely to identify with an individual who is oppressed or feels trapped than the reader’s executive husband is. Likewise, a woman who is unable to have children might respond to a story of a child’s death more emotionally than a woman who does not want children. However, if the perspective of a woman does not match that of the male author whose work she is reading, a woman reader who has been shaped by a male-dominated society is forced to misread the text, reacting to the “words on the page in one way rather than another because she operates according to the same set of rules that the author used to generate them” (Tompkins xvii). By accepting the author’s perspective and reading the text as he intended, the woman reader is forced to disregard her own, female perspective. This, in turn, leads to a concept called “asymmetrical contingency,” described by Iser as that which occurs “when Partner A gives up trying to implement his own behavioral plan and without resistance follows that of Partner B. He adapts himself to and is absorbed by the behavioral strategy of B” (164). Using this argument, it becomes clear that a woman reader (Partner A) when faced with a text written by a man (Partner B) will most likely succumb to the perspective of the writer and she is thus forced to misread the text. Or, she could rebel against the text and raise an angry, feminist voice in protest.

James Thurber, in the eyes of most literary critics, is one of the foremost American humorists of the 20th century, and his short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is believed to have “ushered in a major [literary] period … where the individual can maintain his self … an appropriate way of assaulting rigid forms” (Elias 432). The rigid form in Thurber’s story is Mrs. Mitty, the main character’s wife. She is portrayed by Walter Mitty as a horrible, mothering nag. As a way of escaping her constant griping, he imagines fantastic daydreams which carry him away from Mrs. Mitty’s voice. Yet she repeatedly interrupts his reveries and Mitty responds to her as though she is “grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in the crowd” (286). Not only is his wife annoying to him, but she is also distant and removed from what he cares about, like a stranger. When she does speak to him, it seems reflective of the way a mother would speak to a child. For example, Mrs. Mitty asks, “‘Why don’t you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?’ Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again” (286). Mrs. Mitty’s care for her husband’s health is seen as nagging to Walter Mitty, and the audience is amused that he responds like a child and does the opposite of what Mrs. Mitty asked of him. Finally, the clearest way in which Mrs. Mitty is portrayed as a burdensome wife is at the end of the piece when Walter, waiting for his wife to exit the store, imagines that he is facing “the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last” (289). Not only is Mrs. Mitty portrayed as a mothering, bothersome hen, but she is ultimately described as that which will be the death of Walter Mitty.

Mrs. Mitty is a direct literary descendant of the first woman to be stereotyped as a nagging wife, Dame Van Winkle, the creation of the American writer, Washington Irving. Likewise, Walter Mitty is a reflection of his dreaming predecessor, Rip Van Winkle, who falls into a deep sleep for a hundred years and awakes to the relief of finding out that his nagging wife has died. Judith Fetterley explains in her book, The Resisting Reader, how such a portrayal of women forces a woman who reads “Rip Van Winkle” and other such stories “to find herself excluded from the experience of the story” so that she “cannot read the story without being assaulted by the negative images of women it presents” (10). The result, it seems, is for a woman reader of a story like “Rip Van Winkle” or “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” to either be excluded from the text, or accept the negative images of women the story puts forth. As Fetterley points out, “The consequence for the female reader is a divided self. She is asked to identify with Rip and against herself, to scorn the amiable sex and act just like it, to laugh at Dame Van Winkle and accept that she represents ‘woman,’ to be at once both repressor and repressed, and ultimately to realize that she is neither” (11). Thus, a woman is forced to misread the text and accept “woman as villain.” as Fetterley names it, or rebel against both the story and its message.

So how does a woman reader respond to this portrayal of Mrs. Mitty? If she were to follow Iser’s claim, she would defer to the male point of view presented by the author. She would sympathize with Mitty, as Thurber wants us to do, and see domineering women in her own life that resemble Mrs. Mitty. She may see her mother and remember all the times that she nagged her about zipping up her coat against the bitter winter wind. Or the female reader might identify Mrs. Mitty with her controlling mother-in-law and chuckle at Mitty’s attempts to escape her control, just as her husband tries to escape the criticism and control of his own mother. Iser’s ideal female reader would undoubtedly look at her own position as mother and wife and would vow to never become such a domineering person. This reader would probably also agree with a critic who says that “Mitty has a wife who embodies the authority of a society in which the husband cannot function” (Lindner 440). She could see the faults in a relationship that is too controlled by a woman and recognize that a man needs to feel important and dominant in his relationship with his wife. It could be said that the female reader would agree completely with Thurber’s portrayal of the domineering wife. The female reader could simply misread the text.

Or, the female reader could rebel against the text. She could see Mrs. Mitty as a woman who is trying to do her best to keep her husband well and cared for. She could see Walter as a man with a fleeting grip on reality who daydreams that he is a fighter pilot, a brilliant surgeon, a gun expert, or a military hero, when he actually is a poor driver with a slow reaction time to a green traffic light. The female reader could read critics of Thurber who say that by allowing his wife to dominate him, Mitty becomes a “non-hero in a civilization in which women are winning the battle of the sexes” (Hasley 533) and become angry that a woman’s fight for equality is seen merely as a battle between the sexes. She could read Walter’s daydreams as his attempt to dominate his wife, since all of his fantasies center on him in traditional roles of power. This, for most women, would cause anger at Mitty (and indirectly Thurber) for creating and promoting a society which believes that women need to stay subservient to men. From a male point of view, it becomes a battle of the sexes. In a woman’s eyes, her reading is simply a struggle for equality within the text and in the world outside that the text reflects.

It is certain that women misread “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” I did. I found myself initially wishing that Mrs. Mitty would just let Walter daydream in peace. But after reading the story again and paying attention to the portrayal of Mrs. Mitty, I realized that it is imperative that women rebel against the texts that would oppress them. By misreading a text, the woman reader understands it in a way that is conventional and acceptable to the literary world. But in so doing, she is also distancing herself from the text, not fully embracing it or its meaning in her life. By rebelling against the text, the female reader not only has to understand the point of view of the author and the male audience, but she also has to formulate her own opinions and create a sort of dialogue between the text and herself. Rebelling against the text and the stereotypes encourages an active dialogue between the woman and the text which, in turn, guarantees an active and (most likely) angry reader response. I became a resisting reader.

Works Cited

Elias, Robert H. “James Thurber: The Primitive, the Innocent, and the Individual.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 5. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. 431–32. Print.

Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1978. Print.

Hasley, Louis. “James Thurber: Artist in Humor.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 11. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. 532–34. Print.

Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1981. Print.

Lindner, Carl M. “Thurber’s Walter Mitty—The Underground American Hero.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 5. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. 440–41. Print.

Rosenblatt, Louise M. Literature as Exploration. New York: MLA, 1976. Print.

Thurber, James. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” Literature: An Introduction to Critical Reading. Ed. William Vesterman. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1993. 286–89. Print.

Tompkins, Jane P. “An Introduction to Reader-Response Criticism.” Reader Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism. Ed. Jane P. Tompkins. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1980. ix-xxvi. Print.

Hannah Schmitt

Professor Londo

Literature and Writing

May 22, 20–

The Death of Intellectualism in Grahame-Smith and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains” (Austen and Grahame-Smith 7). So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the surprise New York Times Best Seller mashup by Seth Grahame-Smith, in which the characters of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are faced with an imminent zombie apocalypse. When Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was first released in 2009, it marked the beginning of a slew of literary mashups. However, despite Quirk Classic’s best efforts, none of its subsequent works matched the popularity of the Austen mashup, which has since been made into a graphic novel and an iPhone game. Interestingly, when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is re-imagined, even its re-imagined counterpart meets with more success than other literary mashups. The sheer replicability of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies suggests that its appeal extends far beyond a frivolous spoof and touches some cultural nerve. At its heart, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies attempts to grapple with contemporary fears of the death of intellectualism.

In recent years, critics have thought of a number of theories to explain the newfound interest in zombies which dominates popular culture, and our society’s interest in zombies has been attributed to everything from “the global financial crisis” (Hall 1) to “a fascination, paranoia and socio-politico-cultural movement of war” (Sulter-Cohen 183). In her article “The Living Dead? Construction of People with Alzheimer’s as Zombies,” Susan M. Behuniak draws attention to the damaging cultural trend of comparing zombies with individuals who have Alzheimer’s, triggering “emotional responses of disgust and utter terror” towards patients (72). Though Behuniak specifically states in her article that she wishes to dissect rather than encourage the connection between zombies and persons with Alzheimer’s (71–72), I think the cultural tendency to link them hints that zombies, to at least some extent, tap into our culture’s fears about intellectual loss.

Our society is obsessed with the possible failures of its own education system, and struggles with not only education legislation but also misgivings about the educational appropriacy of newer forms of technology such as texting, video gaming, and prolonged Internet exposure. The Bush administration’s controversial education reform act, No Child Left Behind, has given way to a slew of texts such as Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation, Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, and Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools, edited by Deborah Meier and George Wood, which herald the approaching end of creative intellect and the failure of the education system in the United States. Conservative educational critics, such as John Stossel in his special “Stupid in America,” blame perceived educational shortcomings of the United States on bureaucracy of the public school system and teacher unions. Conservatives and liberals alike have agreed that the United States’ education system is inadequate, and our culture is regularly confronted with critics warning of the imminent failure of education.

The success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, then, comes from Grahame-Smith’s ability to recognize and respond to current cultural fears. Our society no longer fears sea monsters, and even traditionally villainous creatures such as vampires and werewolves have become fairly innocuous (or, at least, brooding and misunderstood), because our society has come to either embrace or deny the fears which created these creatures. If one views zombies as the embodiments of the death of intellect, then zombies remain potent because of their immediate cultural relevance.

As Jane Austen’s most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice has defined our culture’s understanding of Regency-era literature and become virtually synonymous with cultured romance. However, the popularity of Pride and Prejudice comes at the cost of sacrificing the nonromantic elements of her work, such as her focus on social status and satiric commentary on decorum. In her essay “Austen Therapy: Pride and Prejudice and Popular Culture,” Marilyn Francus argues that modern adaptions of Pride and Prejudice—particularly chick lit such as Shannon Hale’s Austenland and Alexandra Potter’s Me and Mr. Darcy—“perpetuate Pride and Prejudice as a pure romance narrative” and “reinforce Pride and Prejudice’s power as a real, realizable narrative, rather than as a fictional one.” Audiences recognize characters such as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet but also reduce these characters to their broadest, most cliched sense, as models for romantic literature. Cultural re-imaginations of Pride and Prejudice have established the prominence and recognizability of the text, but also remove Pride and Prejudice from its larger social context, thereby creating an atmosphere for Pride and Prejudice which encourages readers to distance the text from its nonromantic elements. Pride and Prejudice is recognizable enough that readers understand how the characters ought to act and popular enough that some audiences will accept adaptions and updating as continuations rather than affronts, making it ideal fodder for parody.

The humor of this parody allows the Grahame-Smith to justify the “ultra-violent zombie mayhem” the book’s tagline promises. The violence of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies reflects the fear of ostracization and irrationality which may accompany the end of intellectualism. The intellectual void of the zombies in the novel is so potent that the only way the otherwise-rational main characters are able to defend themselves is through brute force. The violence of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies affects all of the characters, and becomes the only acceptable way to handle zombie attacks. In this sense, all the characters in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are affected by the zombie-creating plague, even if they are not directly afflicted. Because the “unmentionables” draw strength from their numbers, the sympathy of others, and the ease by which the infection is spread, the main characters must be merciless. Zombies, like the intellectual void they represent, are incapable of listening to reason. Furthermore, zombieism is transmitted through biting, which zombies do fairly frequently, and upon death, so virtually anyone can contract “the strange plague” (30). Any character can become a zombie at any time, and only violence can stop zombies.

The violence created by the presence of zombies affects nearly all of the characters in the text. Mr. Bennet, who was reading a newspaper at the beginning of the original text, is now polishing his musket when Mrs. Bennet tells him of their new neighbor (7). Lady Catherine de Bourgh becomes a famous zombie slayer, and her house comes equipped with a dojo and ninjas (129). The five Bennet sisters—Jane included—flip-flop between their original personalities and their hardened, warrior personas. Even Mr. Bingley’s values change, as he notices that he has “never seen ladies so steady-handed in combat” (32). Because the threat of zombie is always-present, the characters change the way they relate in order to accommodate their chaotic lifestyle.

Even when there are no zombies present, the characters’ methods of relating to each other change. Elizabeth signals her rejection of Mr. Darcy’s first proposal by physically attacking him (151), and at the end of the novel Lady Catherine challenges Elizabeth to a death match (289). When Mr. Darcy goes to London in search of Wickham after Lydia’s elopement, he beats Mrs. Younge into submission (259) and, after he finds Wickham, Darcy “render[s] him [Wickham] lame, as punishment for a lifetime of vice and betrayal” (260). Though presented comedically, the extreme amounts of violence in the characters need to use in order to vanquish their undead foes spills into other aspects of their lives, and the social discourse which marked all of the previously mentioned circumstances in the original Pride and Prejudice become characterized by violence. The characters lose their abilities to talk through their problems and express their anger pacifistically, and, in the face of the constant danger of losing their logic, actually forfeit their ability to coexist peaceably.

Of all the characters in the text, Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet undergo perhaps the least noticeable changes in character, perhaps because they already address the concerns raised by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As a character who lacks intellectualism himself, Mr. Collins reminds readers of how the perception of intellect has changed since Austen’s time. Both Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins lack the violent urgency of the other characters in the text, and seem blithely unaware of the looming zombie apocalypse—indeed, Mr. Collins fails to notice when his own wife, who had been “stricken” just before their engagement (99), gradually devolves into a slobbering brain eater (120). Mrs. Bennet is far too concerned with the future marital happiness of her daughters to register the dangers of attending social events, when zombies are most inclined to launch their ill-conceived assaults. Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins represent a different kind of intellectual death—pettiness and self-obsessed conceit. However, the pomp of these characters, while recognizable to modern audiences, is not as totalizing as the anti-intellectualism of the zombies. Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins are still foolish, but even they possess some grain of sense. The “unmentionables” which populate the novel do not.

Just as significant as the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the relative failure of subsequent texts. While Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters made the New York Times Bestseller list after its release, it lacked the enthusiastic reception and cult classic-style popularity of its predecessor because, unlike Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters did not tap into a cultural moment. Our society has no reason to fear or relate to sea monsters. The mashup genre depends on cultural context for its success.

Through its use of dark comedy, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies both temporarily assuages its audience’s fears of the decline of intellectualism and subtly reminds readers that a society’s ability to cohere is directly related to its intellectual capacities. By taking characters who have become cultural staples because of their simplifications, Grahame-Smith creates a text which is at once highly recognizable and available for satire. The success of this novel directly hinges on its ability to recognize and reproduce cultural fears, allowing readers to achieve a catharsis.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane, and Seth Grahame-Smith. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2009. Print.

Austen, Jane and Seth Grahame-Smith. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: A Graphic Novel. Adapted by Tony Lee. Illustrated by Cliff Richards. New York: Ballantine, 2010. Print.

Behuniak, Susan M. “The Living Dead? Construction of People with Alzheimer’s as Zombies.” Ageing and Society 31 (2011): 70–92. Cambridge Journals Online. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.

Francus, Marilyn. “Austen Therapy: Pride and Prejudice and Popular Culture.” Persuasions Online 30.2 (2010): n. pag. Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). Web. 3. Dec. 2011.

Freeverse, Inc. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Apple App. 3 June 2011.

Hall, Derek. “Varieties of Zombieism: Approaching Comparative Political Economy through 28 Days Later and Wild Zero.” International Studies Perspective (2011): 1–17. Wiley Online Library. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.

Kozol, Jonathan. The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York: Three Rivers P, 2005. Print.

Meier, Deborah, and George Wood, eds. Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools. Boston: Beacon, 2004.

Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Print.

Sulter-Cohen, Sarah. “Good as It Gets: Zombie Sociology and the Politics of Survival.” Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Ed. Christopher M. Moreman and Cory James Rushton. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011. Google Book Search. 183–94. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.

Stossel, John. “Stupid in America.” Stossel. FOX. 27 September 2011. Television Special.

Erin Huebner Gloege

Professor Pennington

Literature and Theory

November 7, 20–

Identity Themes in Dickinson: Four Students Reading

When reading the same poem, two readers will ultimately come to different interpretations of which neither one is necessarily more correct than the other. Because of the inevitable variance of responses, some literary critics have abandoned the notion that an “objective” reading exists. Reader-response critics agree that all readings are “subjective” because they must be filtered through the reader. Each reader brings a unique background and approach to the work that he or she will read. In the words of Norman Holland, “As readers, each of us will bring different kinds of external information to bear. Each will seek out the particular themes that concern him. Each will have different ways of making the text into an experience with a coherence and significance that satisfies” (123). Critics, such as David Bleich, go so far as to say that “it is the reader who determines whether a piece of writing is literature” (1254). If it is assumed that the reader is essential to the distinction of a work as literature and each reader approaches the work differently, then how do we understand and evaluate different interpretations of a work.

Norman Holland presents a strategy that correlates any interpretation to the individual personality of the reader: “interpretation is a function of identity” (123). When a reader interprets a text through his or her identity theme, he or she first fits the text closely to his or her way of adapting to difficult situation; he or she approaches the work as he or she would approach life. Secondly, the reader unconsciously associates the work to his or her desires and experiences. Lastly, the reader moves from the desires to significance where he or she can share and communicate a meaning with others (Holland 126–27). These steps are all taken in accordance with the person’s identity theme, the way he or she approaches life. Thus, an interpretation of a text can be analyzed and explained by understanding the reader’s approach to life, his or her identity theme.

The Project

My goal for this paper is to apply Holland’s theory of identity themes to particular readers and their interpretations. I will show that indeed each of the interpretations that I present are related to the reader’s approach to life. With the four interpretations that I collected, I will first give a brief profile of the reader and his or her approach to life followed by a generalization of this profile, which I see as the identity theme for this person. Secondly, I will relate, as was written by the reader, his or her interpretation, which is often in the form of scattered notes. When helpful, I will also relate the reader’s verbal comments, which usually show a judgment by the reader of his or her ability to interpret literature. Finally, I will explain the connection between the reader’s approach to life and his or her interpretation. As assumed by Holland’s theory, the following examples demonstrate a direct correlation between the reader’s identity theme and his or her interpretation.

In order to give a full understanding of this project, I will present my methods for collecting the interpretation. First, I chose a poem by Emily Dickinson called “After Great Pain.” I printed copies of the poem without the author’s name on it. I then gave the poem to four readers, which I tried to pick from various academic fields. In addition, I know all of the readers personally; I found this necessary under the time restraint and my need to create a profile of the reader without developing an extensive process of getting to know the person. I asked the readers to write their responses on the sheet of paper and to answer the following questions: 1) what is the poem about or what does it mean? and 2) do you like it and why or why not?

The only task that remains is the heart of the matter, to present the profiles and interpretations and link them in a way that demonstrates that the interpretation is the result of the identity theme.

Profiles, Interpretations, and Their Connection

All of the readers are resident on a Catholic liberal arts college campus either as students or professors. Additionally, all are of Caucasian decent. The profiles attempt to provide general additional information as well as the essential background for an understanding of the person’s identity theme.

Reader A

Reader A is a twenty-one year old female majoring in religious studies and with a minor in peace and justice studies. Because of her academic area as well as her commitment to service, she is keenly aware of pain and need and the issues of justice involved in helping those in need. She has been closely touched by the plight of abused people especially children. Through conversations with her, I have learned that she is specifically interested in how sexual and physical abuse affects victims throughout their lives. She desires very much to understand the struggle and healing process that an abused person undergoes; understanding is the key to facing such a struggle. I would state her identity theme as follows: when faced with difficulty, an understanding of its effects on the person as a whole is essential to that person’s ability to cope with the difficulty.

Reader A’s Interpretation

• Sexual Abuse/Physical Abuse 3rd & 4th line—childhood
• Pressing on, living numbly so as not to feel / acknowledge feeling
• Like:–can identify
• –hope in last line?: “then the letting go”
• Dislike: use of capitalization—some are appropriate, others I cannot see significance of their capitalization
• Good poem! I keep seeing new things/feeling more deeply each time I read it!

Interpretation as the Result of Identity Theme

Reader A’s interpretation first and foremost is immediately connects the “great pain” with abuse and “Yesterday, or Centuries before” with childhood. Immediately following the connection to childhood abuse, she describes some stages of dealing with the pain that are not particularly connected to any one line of the poem but seem to be an overall feeling. The stages are apparent in her note: “pressing on, living Numbly so as not to feel/acknowledge feeling.” Her understanding of the response to abuse as expressed in the above note ends her interpretation, leading me to think that having gained an understanding of the response, she is satisfied with her interpretation. She has applied her identity theme of needing understanding in order to cope; she copes with the abuse she finds in the poem by understanding and identifying a reaction to it. Being satisfied, she moves on to her feelings towards the poem. She like it because she “can identify” with it or in other words she connects with the author’s understanding of the reaction to pain; reader A finds that the author, just like her, seeks an understanding of the reaction to pain. Yet she dislikes the some of the capitalization because she “cannot see significance of their capitalization.” Her lack of understanding is the only disturbing point. Reader A’s final conclusion as should be expected is positive because she has found her identity theme of understanding difficulty.

Reader B

Reader B is a twenty-year-old female majoring in music and education with a minor in chemistry. Probably due to her musical and scientific background, she is aware of how things work together. For her, everything has a proper place and explanation. She would agree with my description of her as a “neat freak.” She finds disorder disturbing and responds to unsettling events by putting other things in her world into place, like lining up books or always making her bed. I would state her identity theme as follows: when faced with difficulty, organization is the key to maintaining sanity and staying in control.

Reader B’s Interpretation

• Calm after the storm—remembering the agony; in remembering the body reacts with stiffness—trying not to feel—numbness
• Could it be remembering an abortion?—stiffness, lifelessness—as the life has gone out of the person—Chill—Stupor—letting go
• Want to be strong—Nerves sit ceremoniously—but the feelings all come back and the only way to get rid of them is to let go
• Honestly, this doesn’t really make sense to me. Different phrases seem like they invoke images of God “was it He, that bore…” “A Wooden way”
• I don’t really like it because it all just seems to be fragments, although thoughts are usually just fragments!

Interpretation as the Result of Identity Theme

Reader B is organized about her interpretation. She takes each stanza and tries to find some meaning in it. With each partial interpretation, she cites particular lines, words, or feelings that led her to her conclusion of meaning. For example, when she suggests that the poem could be about “remembering an abortion,” she calls on “stiffness,” which is probably connected to “stiff Heart.” The most interesting thing about Reader B’s response is not her interpretation but her reaction to the poem. She says that the poem “doesn’t really make sense” and then comments on her dislike of the fragmentation of the poem. Her identity theme of organization ties her inability to understand to the lack of organization in the poem. Fragments seem unconnected and disorganized to her; thus, she is left without the ability to cope with the difficulty that the poem presents her because she cannot find order in the “madness.” Unable to find order, she cannot identify with the author’s description of a reaction to pain and therefore dislikes the poem. She finds her identity theme incompatible with the poem and thus abandons it.

Reader C

Reader C is a nineteen-year-old male majoring in philosophy and political science. Over the past two years, much of his life has been centered on the development of his faith. He includes God as a constant in his picture of life especially when presented with any difficulties. He is also aware that personally he has been faced with only minor difficulties. Sometimes he feels inadequate in relating to others who have experienced more traumatic events in their lives. He has also been impressed by his friends’ ability to include faith in their difficulties. I would state his identity theme as follows: when faced with difficulty, turning to God is essential to coping and surviving.

Reader C’s Interpretation

[noted on text] Line 4: “He”–Christ, “bore”–Jesus bearing sins

• Line 7: “A Wooden way”—Crucifixion?
• Line 13: “First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—”—process of dealing with great pain
• I took this poem as a way people deal with personal trauma in their life. In the first stanza I get a sense of the dust settle after a disaster has struck, and a person starting to settle down and ask: “Why did this happen to me?” Even more specifically if God is there and bearing, or helping with, the person’s pain.
• The second stanza is rather confusing. I don’t understand how the imagery fits with my interpretation of the poem.
• In the last stanza has the tone of the first, with the image of winter and cold symbolizing pain and confusion and the “Freezing persons” going through the process of dealing with pain: the shock, the confusion, and then learning to live with it.

Interpretation as the Result of Identity Theme

Reader C immediately identifies “great pain” as a trauma. Then, he reacts as his identity theme would dictate: he brings God into the picture. He identifies a question that is often directed towards God: “Why did this happen to me?” His next step is to specify the question as a relation to God; he includes God as a supporting figure. His idea of God as a supportive figure does not seem to stem from any one part of the poem but more from some of the images that Reader C has identified with God such as “He bore” as Christ bearing sins. As Reader C continues with his interpretation, he admits that he cannot fit the second stanza into his interpretation. Even so, he does not abandon his interpretation but comes back to it in the third stanza. Reader C’s final paragraph does not mention God but talks of a person dealing with difficulty. To me, it seems as though Reader C finds no need to further back up his interjection of God into the poem. He deciphers difficulty, inserts God as support, and goes on dealing with the difficulty. This response is consistent with his identity theme, which calls for the presence of God whenever presented with a difficulty.

Reader D

Reader D is a late middle-aged male mathematics professor. Being mathematically minded, he expects a solution or a “right answer” to any presented problem. In addition, he has been exposed to more losses than my previous readers because of his age and experience with a large student and faculty body. Experience of death and loss always increase with age. I would state his identity theme as follows: when face with difficulty, one must seek the “right answer” in order to find resolution.

Reader D’s Interpretation

The poem describes the feeling after a tremendous loss (perhaps the death of someone very close). The person suffering the loss becomes numb, going through life in a listless manner, oblivious to everything; focusing only on the pain. If a person survives this pain, it is remembered as a central event in his or her life. The last line brings to mind the stages of anger, denial, and resolution.

• The first paragraph brings to mind the question of whether this poem is what God suffered when Jesus suffered and died.

Interpretation as the Result of Identity Theme

Reader D identifies the “great pain” as a loss probably due to death. I ascribe this interpretation as coming from his experiences with death. He then describes the person’s reactions to the death. This interpretation probably grows out of his observations and personal experience of the difficulty of dealing with death. Although his interpretation does not seem directly related to his identity theme, his comments concerning his interpretation do. After I had read his response, he asked me if he had got it right. He wanted to know if he had come up with the right answer. He assumed that there was a correct solution to the problem I had proposed of interpreting the poem. So, rather than using his identity theme to interpret the poem, Reader D uses his identity theme to approach the poem. Reader D, it appears, struggles to understand the poem, and he responds, according to his identity theme, by trying to find the “right answer.”

Conclusion

Although I began this project with some doubt about the relation between a person’s approach to life and their interpretations to a poem, I have been convinced by the above examples that there is definitely a correlation between the two. Even so, I also believe that this project fails to show a direct and undeniable cause and effect relationship between a person’s identity theme and his or her approach to literature. Holland’s theory in this preliminary investigation holds up, but I still have doubts about its strength under a more vigorous examination because the correspondence found in the above examples does not have the “tight fit” described by Holland.

Works Cited

Bleich, David. “Feelings about Literature.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. New York: St. Martin’s P. 1989. 1254–71.

Dickinson, Emily. “After Great Pain.” Emily Dickinson. Ed. Lilia Melani. Dept. of English, Brooklyn College, 2009. Web. 12 July 2012. <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/formal.html>.

Holland, Norman. “Unity Identity Text Self.” Reader Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism. Ed. Jane P. Tomkins. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. 1980. 118–32. Print.