Lois Tyson and her Book Critical Theory - Essay Example

Applying an Implied Reader Response Lois Tyson in her book Critical Theory defines the reader-response theory asthe way an audience or reader reacts to a literary works that unlike other theories does not focus much on the form, content, or the owner of the work. The theorem seeks to defend the notion that a text can be understood in two ways; its outward meaning, that is the meaning created by the words, constructing it, or what the words put together are meant to say. In its understanding, the reader-response theory suggests that while two people might be subjected to the same text in reading, they understand it differently. Some of the key determining factors in an audience’s understanding include the perspective that a reader applies in interpreting it such as experimental, familial, or cultural, and the second one is adhering to the text’s guiding through an “implied reader” perspective. In reading Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants short storyfrom an implied reader’s response,we understand and interpret the development of characters and events through the girl who acts as the guide, as the following evaluation will elaborate. The girl is the main guide constructing the reader’s interpretation. Her responses dominate their conversation with the American man where she seems to graduate from a calm and talkative person to irritated by the end of the story. Most of the story is about her as the man talks little compared to her. She, unlike the man talks about the drinks, the hills, abortion, and their relationship. The man on the other hand only seems interested in convincing the girl to abort the child as he is seen ignoring the other unrelated topics that she introduces. The standoff between them in which case the girl seemingly gets annoyed by the man’s ignorance and mean nature, inspires the title of the story. When the girl once hinted to the man that the distant hills looked like white elephants, the man shot the topic down and that is where the argument emerged from. The short story is based on a young couple’s life, which from their conversations is at crossroads, seemingly caused by what we understand is an accidental pregnancy. From their exchanges, one can tell that they are a young couple, as the pregnancy seems to have come when they were not settled or ready to raise a child. It is furthered by the man’s pleas of convincing the girl to terminate the pregnancy through abortion, promising that nothing about them will be affected by the act. There is a hint that before the pregnancy, the couple was having a smooth life of enjoying their togetherness but the pregnancy threatens to ruin it. This is evident as the man puts it, “We’ll be fine afterwards. Just like we were before… that is the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (Hemingway 2). The girl’s utterances and perspectives are supported by the construction of the story by Hemmingway. Her argument is that aborting the child is not necessary, to which the man seems to offer no ear, and this creates the notion in the reader that the man is not concerned about what the girl has to say. The title in itself supports the girl’s views; the hills are hills and not elephants. In the same way, the story might portray that the man is not as loving or trustworthy as the girl thinks he is. At the end of the story where she insists that the man should stop talking, it is likely that she has come to realise this, and she knows the real hills are not “white elephants”. The author did not directly expose the traits of the characters, but gradually introduced them with the development of the story. The only information that one has is that an American man and a lady are together outside a building seated under a shade at a point we can tell is midway between Barcelona and Madrid, a route served by railroad. The man is polite and calm. The lady is talkative. In support of this; from the moment their conversation is introduced, the girl is the one who suggests that they have drinks and the man gives in. After their drinks are served, she introduces the elephants’ topic; the man is uninterested. Immediately after, the lady notices the curtain with prints and on learning that it’s a beer, requests to taste it, a request to which the man agrees without a hassle. Further, in the story, the girl’s moods seem to worsen and she no longer wants to talk or listen to the American man. The above evaluation creates a dilemma in the understanding of the story. Whereas the story seems to support the girl’s perspectives, we get the notion that the man is not as bad as we earlier thought. We see him bowing to her requests and even acting a gentleman when they are about to leave their resting place. In short, we cannot tell who between the two is wrong or right, or who is oppreesed and who is doing the oppressing. This dilemma supports that in reading, we encounter indeterminacy since we cannot tell one’s feelings from just reading. Their actions or facial expressions might be defined but those are insuffiecient to tell the reader of the characters’ feelings. Concisely, we cannot get everything about a particular story’s characters from just reading it. In summing up, it is sufficient to conclude that the Lois Tyson’s explanation of the reader-response approach termed as the “implied reader” is indeed effective and true. In this analysis, the understanding of the events did not rely on what the author had directly stated, but was developed from the behaviors and exchanges of the featured characters. As the reader, I did not have to think beyond any of my own specific experiences to understand it, so I did not apply the approach of using my experimental, familial, or cultural factors. The story, although short, is tactfully written such that even though the author does not directly provide information about the characters, the reader can understand them from just reading it. Works cited Ernest, Hemingway. Hills like Elephants. 1927.Web. 9 April, 2014. Read More