reader response essay example

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How to Write a Reader Response

Last Updated: March 14, 2023 References Approved

This article was co-authored by Diane Stubbs . Diane Stubbs is a Secondary English Teacher with over 22 years of experience teaching all high school grade levels and AP courses. She specializes in secondary education, classroom management, and educational technology. Diane earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware and a Master of Education from Wesley College. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 14 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 410,397 times.

A reader response assignment asks you to explain and defend your personal reaction to an assigned text. Reader response papers can be difficult because they force you, the reader, to take responsibility for giving meaning to the text. Often these assignments feel open-ended and vague, but don't worry, a good reader response paper will follow a standard essay format that you can easily master. This guide will walk you through the creation of a well-crafted reader response paper that's sure to wow your instructor and earn you an awesome grade.

Writing the Reader Response

• It is often helpful to use the first body paragraph to include more information about the text, the plotline, major themes, etc., and then use the rest of the paragraphs to provide an analysis of how you felt about the text.

• Remember that a reader response is meant to be personal, so it's OK to incorporate personal anecdotes and opinions into your analysis.
• Example: "Forcing Hester Prynne to wear the scarlet "A" reminded me of a time when I was cyber-bullied in eighth grade, and my "friends" spread rumors about me online where the whole school could see."

• Example: "At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, Manolin promises to once again fish with Santiago, so the old man no longer has to be alone. This was Santiago's greatest wish, but it was a different kind of success than he initially set out to achieve."

• Example: "'My big fish must be somewhere,' said Santiago. This is exactly how I felt after I received my third rejection letter, but like Santiago, I kept trying, and eventually I was accepted."
• Make sure and cite your examples per class directions. You will usually be required to note the page numbers of any quotations or specific examples in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

• A great way to think of your conclusion is that it's one last chance to explain to your reader how you see all of your points fitting together.

• Sometimes it's hard to see our own mistakes, so it can really help to exchange papers with a friend, and proofread each other's work.

Drafting the Reader Response

• "Even though I found The Scarlett Letter hard to follow at times, Hester Prynne's story is still relatable, and made me think a lot about the effects of publicly shaming people online."
• "Some people believe the Old Man and the Sea is a book about failure, but it is really a story of perseverance that teaches us that success may not always come in the form we expect, and even disasters can lead to positive outcomes."

• Introduction: 1 paragraph.
• Analysis/Body Paragraphs: 3-4 paragraphs. How you organize these paragraphs will depend on the parameters of the assignment.
• Conclusion: 1 paragraph.

Reading the Text

• Do you like or dislike the text?
• Can you identify the author's purpose?
• Do you agree or disagree with the author?
• Does the text relate to you and your life? If so, how? If not, why not?
• Does the text agree with, or go against your personal world view?
• What, if anything, did you learn from the text?

• Taking a bit of extra time during this phase will save you a lot of time in the writing process. [9] X Research source

• I think that...
• I feel that...
• I see that...
• I have learned that...

Sample Reader Response

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://penandthepad.com/rules-writing-reading-response-essay-3968.html
• ↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-jefferson-english102/chapter/reader-response-criticism-american-literature-i/
• ↑ https://writingstudio.gsu.edu/files/2021/02/Reading-Response.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/proofreading/steps_for_revising.html
• ↑ https://faculty.washington.edu/momara/Reader%20Response.pdf
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/essay-outline/
• ↑ http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper
• ↑ http://education-portal.com/articles/Step-by-Step_Guide_to_Writing_a_Great_Reading_Response_Paper.html
• ↑ https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper

About This Article

To write a reader response, develop a clear thesis statement and choose example passages from the text that support your thesis. Next, write an introduction paragraph that specifies the name of the text, the author, the subject matter, and your thesis. Then, include 3-4 paragraphs that discuss and analyze the text. Finish up with a conclusion paragraph that summarizes your arguments and brings the reader back to your thesis or main point! For tips on analyzing the text before writing your assignment, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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10.1: Reader-Response Criticism

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We have examined many schools of literary criticism. Here you will find an in-depth look at one of them: Reader-Response.

The Purpose of Reader-Response

• why you like or dislike the text;
• explain whether you agree or disagree with the author;
• identify the text’s purpose; and
• critique the text.

Write as a Scholar

Criticize with examples.

• Is the text racist?
• Does the text unreasonably puts down things, such as religion, or groups of people, such as women or adolescents, conservatives or democrats, etc?
• Does the text include factual errors or outright lies? It is too dark and despairing? Is it falsely positive?
• Is the text poorly written?
• Does it contain too much verbal “fat”?
• Is it too emotional or too childish?
• Does it have too many facts and figures?
• Are there typos or other errors in the text?
• Do the ideas wander around without making a point?

In each of these cases, do not simply criticize, but give examples. As a beginning scholar, be cautious of criticizing any text as “confusing” or “crazy,” since readers might simply conclude that  you  are too ignorant or slow to understand and appreciate it.

The Structure of a Reader-Response Essay

• title of the work to which you are responding;
• the author; and
• the main thesis of the text.
• What does the text have to do with you, personally, and with your life (past, present or future)? It is not acceptable to write that the text has NOTHING to do with you, since just about everything humans can write has to do in some way with every other human.
• How much does the text agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong?  Use several quotes as examples of how it agrees with and supports what you think about the world, about right and wrong, and about what you think it is to be human.   Use quotes and examples to discuss how the text disagrees with what you think about the world and about right and wrong.
• What did you learn, and how much were your views and opinions challenged or changed by this text, if at all?   Did the text communicate with you? Why or why not?   Give examples of how your views might have changed or been strengthened (or perhaps, of why the text failed to convince you, the way it is). Please do not write “I agree with everything the author wrote,” since everybody disagrees about something, even if it is a tiny point. Use quotes to illustrate your points of challenge, or where you were persuaded, or where it left you cold.
• How well does the text address things that you, personally, care about and consider important to the world?   How does it address things that are important to your family, your community, your ethnic group, to people of your economic or social class or background, or your faith tradition?  If not, who does or did the text serve? Did it pass the “Who cares?” test?   Use quotes from the text to illustrate.
• What can you praise about the text? What problems did you have with it?  Reading and writing “critically” does not mean the same thing as “criticizing,” in everyday language (complaining or griping, fault-finding, nit-picking). Your “critique” can and should be positive and praise the text if possible, as well as pointing out problems, disagreements and shortcomings.
• How well did you enjoy the text (or not) as entertainment or as a work of art?  Use quotes or examples to illustrate the quality of the text as art or entertainment. Of course, be aware that some texts are not meant to be entertainment or art: a news report or textbook, for instance, may be neither entertaining or artistic, but may still be important and successful.
• your overall reaction to the text;
• whether you would read something else like this in the future;
• whether you would read something else by this author; and
• if would you recommend read this text to someone else and why.

Key Takeaways

• In reader-response, the reader is essential to the meaning of a text for they bring the text to life.
• The purpose of a reading response is examining, explaining, and defending your personal reaction to a text.
• When writing a reader-response, write as an educated adult addressing other adults or fellow scholars.
• As a beginning scholar, be cautious of criticizing any text as “boring,” “crazy,” or “dull.”  If you do criticize, base your criticism on the principles and form of the text itself.
• The challenge of a reader-response is to show how you connected with the text.

Reader-Response Essay Example

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.

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Reader-Response Criticism

•   Angela Eward-Mangione

Reader-Response Criticism is

• a research method , a type of textual research , that literary critics use to interpret texts
• a genre of discourse employed by literary critics used to share the results of their interpretive efforts.

Key Terms: Dialectic ; Hermeneutics ; Semiotics ; Text & Intertextuality ; Tone

The origins of reader-oriented criticism can be located in the United States with Louise Rosenblatt’s development of theories in the 1930s, though she further developed her theories in the late seventies ( The Reader, the Text, the Poem 1978). American critic Stanley Fish has also significantly influenced Reader-Response theory. He conceived of “interpretive communities” that employ interpretive strategies to produce properties and meanings of literary texts (14-15). The thoughts, ideas, and experiences a reader brings to the text, combined with the text and experience of reading it, work together to create meaning. Reader + Text = Meaning.

Reader-response criticism, or reader-oriented criticism, focuses on the reading process. As Charles Bressler notes in Literary Criticism , the basic assumption of reader-oriented criticism is “Reader + Text = Meaning” (80). The thoughts, ideas, and experiences a reader brings to the text, combined with the text and experience of reading it, work together to create meaning. From this perspective, the text becomes a reflection of the reader. The association of the reader with a text differs from the premise of Formalist criticism, which argues for the autonomy of a text. Reader-response criticism does not suggest that anything goes, however, or that any interpretation is a sound one.

The origins of reader-oriented criticism can be located in the United States with Louise Rosenblatt’s development of theories in the 1930s ( Literature as Exploration ). Rosenblatt further developed her theories in the late seventies ( The Reader, the Text, the Poem ). American critic Stanley Fish has also significantly influenced reader-response theory. Fish conceived of “interpretive communities” that employ interpretive strategies to produce properties and meanings of literary texts (14-15).Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World , a novel that critiques the dangers of a fictional utopian society, incorporates an intriguing exploration of reader-response criticism into its plot. John and Mustapha Mond both read texts written by Shakespeare, but they report very different responses to Shakespeare’s plays. For John, a noble savage born on a reservation in New Mexico, plays by Shakespeare represent a useful way to learn about the finest aspects of humanity and human values. In contrast, Mustapha Mond views literary works written by Shakespeare as useless high art. Mustapha Mond’s position as the Resident Controller for Western Europe influences his perspective as a reader as much as John’s encounter with Shakespeare on a Reservation in New Mexico does. Recognizing how John’s and Mustapha Mond’s experiences differ in the novel helps readers understand why these characters respond to Shakespeare in dissimilar ways.

Foundational Questions of Reader-Response Criticism

• Who is the reader? Who is the implied reader?
• What experiences, thoughts, or knowledge does the text evoke?
• What aspects or characters of the text do you identify or disidentify with, and how does this process of identification affect your response to the text?
• What is the difference between your general reaction to (e.g., like or dislike) and reader-oriented interpretation of the text?

Online Example: Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”: A Reader’s Response

Discussion Questions and Activities: Reader-Response Criticism

• List and define two to three of the key terms you would consider to approach a text from a reader-response approach.
• Explain why a text that has not been interpreted by a reader is an “incomplete text.”
• Using the Folger Digital Texts from the Folger Shakespeare Library , interpret the soliloquy in act three, scene one, lines 64-98 of Hamlet from a reader-response approach. Consider the following questions as you construct your response: what previous experiences do you have with the drama or poetry of William Shakespeare, and how have those experiences shaped the way you currently approach his work? If you read this soliloquy in the past, has your view of it changed? Why?
• Differentiate between your general opinion of Hamlet’s soliloquy (your like or dislike of it) and your interpretation of it.
• In your view, what does Hamlet mean when he says, “To be or not to be—that is the question” (3.1.64)? Defend your interpretation.

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How to Write a Reaction Paper or Reader Response. (A Quick Introduction to Reading and Writing Critically) Analyze the text as an individual reader.  This process is as much about YOU as it is about the text you are responding to.  As a scholar you stand in judgment over the text.  Critical reading: [from the ENGL 0310 Syllabus] "A reader response asks the reader [you] to examine, explain and defend her/his personal reaction to a reading.  You will be asked to explore why you like or dislike the reading, explain whether you agree or disagree with the author, identify the reading's purpose, and critique the text.  There is no right or wrong answer to a reader response. Nonetheless, it is important that you demonstrate an understanding of the reading and clearly explain and support your reactions. "     DO NOT use the standard high school-level approach of just writing: "I liked this book (or article or document or movie) because it is so cool and the ending made me feel happy,"   or "I hated it because it was stupid, and had nothing at all to do with my life, and was too negative and boring." In writing a response you may assume the reader has already read the text. Thus, do NOT summarize the contents of the text at length .  Instead, take a systematic, analytical approach to the text.   ---First of all, be sure to mention the title of the work to which you are responding, the author , and the main thesis of the text, using correct English for the first sentence of your paper!  Then, try to answer ALL of the questions below. a. What does the text have to do with you, personally , and with your life (past, present or future)?  It is not acceptable to write that the text has NOTHING to do with you, since just about everything humans can write has to do in some way with every other human.  b. How much does the text agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong? Use several quotes as examples of how it agrees with and supports what you think about the world, about right and wrong, and about what you think it is to be human.   Use quotes and examples to discuss how the text disagrees with what you think about the world and about right and wrong.  c  How did you learn, and how much were your views and opinions challenged or changed by this text, if at all?   Did the text communicate with you? Why or why not?  Give examples of how your views might have changed or been strengthened (or perhaps, of why the text failed to convince you, the way it is). Please do not write "I agree with everything the author wrote," since everybody disagrees about something, even if it is a tiny point. Use quotes to illustrate your points of challenge, or where you were persuaded, or where it left you cold.    d. How well does it address things that you, personally, care about and consider important to the world? How does it address things that are important to your family, your community, your ethnic group, to people of your economic or social class or background, or your faith tradition?   If not, who does or did the text serve? Did it pass the "Who cares?" test?  Use quotes to illustrate.     e. Critique the text. Reading and writing "critically" does not mean the same thing as "criticizing," in everyday language (complaining or griping, fault-finding, nit-picking). Your "critique" can and should be positive and praise the text if possible, as well as pointing out problems, disagreements and shortcomings.      f. How well did you enjoy the text (or not) as entertainment or as a work of art? Use quotes or examples to illustrate the quality of the text as art or entertainment. Of course, be aware that some texts are not meant to be entertainment or art--a news report or textbook, for instance, may be neither entertaining or artistic, but may still be important and successful.      g.  To sum up, what is your overall reaction to the text? Would you read something else like this, or by this author, in the future or not?  Why or why not?  To whom would you recommend this text?  An important tip from the UTEP History Tutoring Center: Your first draft is just that, and you should expect to re-write your work several times before you consider it completed.  This means you should start your writing project in advance of the due date, in order to allow yourself enough time to revise your work.  Ask someone else to read your draft(s) and write their comments and suggestions on how you might improve the work directly on your drafts.   

Tips from UTEP History Prof. I.V. Montelongo: The goal is to present a coherent essay with a clear argument. ...[Y]ou should state your general argument (your thesis) in an introductory paragraph and then use the rest of the essay to support your position, making sure that you deal carefully with each of the issues the questions raise somewhere in the paper.   1.)  You don�t need to use footnotes.  When quoting or citing from the documents or your textbook, simply put author and page numbers in parenthesis.  Ex. (Gorn, 52) or (Jones, 167). There is absolutely no need to refer to other, outside sources for this assignment�this is a critical essay, not a research paper...   2.)  Be very careful to avoid plagiarism.  Do not use words or ideas from the internet, from any publication, or from the work of another student without citing the source.  Also, if you use more than three words in a row from any source, including the document you�re writing about, those words must be enclosed in quotation marks.  3.)  Please just staple your papers in the upper left hand corner.  You may use a title page if you like, but please avoid plastic covers. [ However, in English 0310 use no title page, and do not staple!  O.W .]  4.)  Your essay should be based primarily on evidence drawn from a close, careful reading of the documents.  You can also use appropriate background information from the textbook and lectures, but you should use most of your space to discuss the documents.  5.)  Writing style counts.  You need to revise your paper multiple times to be a successful writer.    <http://faculty.utep.edu/Portals/452/Paper%20Assignment%201.doc>  

OW 7/06 rev 10/11

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• Reader response

Reader response - Essay Example

• Subject: Literature
• Type: Essay
• Level: Undergraduate
• Pages: 1 (250 words)
• Downloads: 3
• Author: umayer

Extract of sample "Reader response"

Supervisor’s due: Response to the story ‘a good man is hard to find.’ The story pictures the outstanding short story anthologies by O’Connor. It is a perfect illustration of the literal power of combining both thematic materials with grotesque humor. The story illustrates a family vacation that eventually ends with a violent criminal encounter by “Misfit”. Going by the illustration from the title, the men in the short story are sexist, short-tempered and murderers. The tragic Misfit character in the story eventually takes another turn to be a redemption story of the grandmother at the mercies of the violent criminal.

Violence not only dominates grandmother’s good moments but also gives some hidden shadows behind the women treatment. The work by O’Connor briefly illustrates on the way women should act (O’Connor 692). Its conclusion focuses on the patriarchal suggestion on woman redemption that “a woman can only be guided to redemption with the help of “a good man” (O’Connor 678). There is a perception of woman’s overreliance on man by the description of the living conditions of the grandmother, “Bailey was the only son she lived with” (O’Connor 678).

It is true that the importance of the spiritual events around the Misfit corresponds to those surrounding grandmother. Most people refocus on the salvation fulfillment in this story, but the authors main intention is to bring the message of the spiritual element in the story. The Misfit provides the appropriate role of spiritual power of God as he denounces and judges people who live on the ways of hell due to their materialistic and selfish nature (O’Connor 374). Upon the judgment, Misfit murders all the evil people though solemnity dominates him as given by the impression that Misfit took no real pleasure for his actions.

Works citedOConnor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." The Art of the Short Story. Ed. Dana O’Connor. New York: Pearson, 2006. Print.

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Reader Response: What It Is and How It Works

by Yen Cabag | 0 comments

As writers, we have the goal of communicating ideas to our readers. In a perfect world, we can probably expect them to take our words at face value, and be influenced by our theories, convictions, and whatnot. 

But in real life, readers come from all sorts of backgrounds and influences that affect how they receive the information we share. This is the foundational premise of the reader response theory. 

What is the basic idea of the Reader-response theory? 

A theory that grew in importance during the 1960s, the reader response theory holds that the reader’s reaction to any given text is more important than the actual content. This was largely driven by a post-structuralist emphasis on the reader’s role as being more actively constructing texts instead of just being passive consumers. 

The main persons behind the theory include literacy scholars like Wolfgant Iset, David Bleich, and Stanley Fish, and it has gained popularity especially in Germany and the United States. 

For example, the New Criticism approach believes that any work already comes with objective meaning. In contrast, the reader-response theory believes that any text does not have any definite meaning until the audience comes along and reads it. 

What is the role of a reader response? 

From this perspective, a reader response critic plays a very important role. He looks into the scope and various nuances of reader reactions to any given text. Then he analyzes the different ways that individual readers or groups of them, referred to as “interpretive communities,” make sense of any of the content. 

This takes into account their unique personal reactions, as well as culturally or socially conditioned attitudes and thought processes. This means that demographic factors can play into how a particular reader receives a given text. For example, their gender, culture, educational background, ability, and many other factors can influence the way they respond. 

Arguments against the reader response theory 

Although the reader response theory makes sense, some arguments against it are presented in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-structuralism in Tomkin’s edited volume in 1980. He believes that reader response does not automatically translate into a uniform position, but that it’s the work of theorists who focus on the reader and the reading process. 

Also, it doesn’t mean that all text is subject to reader interpretation. For example, for ancient texts like the Bible or classical works, scholars agree that the best way to understand them is to learn the context and the author’s original intent. This might perhaps be the opposite stance to reader response, wherein the readers are encouraged to enter the author’s world, instead of vice versa.

Reader response vs a reading response assignment

While reader response is a theory that focuses on the importance of a reader’s background in responding to a text, many schools give out what we call a reading response paper. These are not the same thing. 

A reading response assignment usually comes in the form of a reaction paper, an essay that describes how a certain book or reading material affected you, the student. It can draw on the reader response theory in that it honors individual differences and focuses on how each person responds in a unique way to the same text. This means that teachers are called upon to appreciate each person’s response, instead of looking for a right or wrong answer. 

Schools increasingly use reader response as a strategy for students to interact more actively with the text. A reader’s response can be an essay, a critique, an analysis, or a paper about a certain piece of writing. This might be a novel, a poem, a short story, or a nonfiction work. 

One form of reading response is during-reading response, wherein the students actually write at the very same time as they read the text. These help readers probe, challenge, and question while reading, and it also helps them make connections. This strategy is a form of scaffolding to encourage students in critical thinking. 

Some prompts for during-reading response include: 

• I didn’t know that… 
• I already knew that… 
• I agree with… 
• I have trouble agreeing with… 

While the during-reading response usually employs short, spontaneous lines conveying impulsive thought, an actual reading response paper takes a bit more time to prepare. 

Uses of a Reading Response Paper

A reading response assignment has the following benefits: 

1. It helps students think through what they’ve read. 

British educator Charlotte Mason believes that we only assimilate what we’ve read once we narrate it back, whether to ourselves or to someone else. The reader response helps the student contemplate on what they’ve read, and writing down their thoughts helps to cement those ideas. 

2. It encourages students to formulate their own ideas about the text. 

After encouraging students to ruminate on what they’ve read, it also lets them form their thoughts out on paper. This forms the other half of the communication process, from input to output. 

3. It lets teachers evaluate students’ comprehension. 

The required output also helps teachers see just how deeply the student understood the text, and if there are any gaps in comprehension. 

What do you say in a reading response?  

The good news is that since a reader response paper talks about your personal reaction to reading the given piece, teachers usually do not grade it based on right or wrong answers. Instead, it lets you explore your own interpretations and reasonings behind it. 

Here are some things you might want to include in your reader response: 

• A structured reaction: Take the time to organize your thoughts into specific themes, putting each theme in a separate paragraph 
• Connections: Make connections between the given work and other works you’ve read that share similarities or show contrasting ideas
• General and specific examples: When you make your reactions, include both generalities and specific examples from the piece
• Reasoning behind your opinion: It’s not enough to state what you think about what you’ve read; include background, context, and reasoning behind your opinion. 

Reader Response Papers 

The reader response theory offers big help to the academe, in that teachers can require a paper that lets the student express how they respond to a given text. This does away with objective-type answers where everyone needs to know just the right facts, and instead encourages critical thinking and making connections. 

Although we believe that the reader response theory plays an important role, it also doesn’t mean that all text is subject to interpretation. It depends greatly on the genre and the nature of the material, and we encourage you to use your own discretion. 

Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:

• 6 Tips on How to Write a Narrative Essay
• How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis: 6 Steps and an Outline for Your Next Essay
• How to Write a Reflection Paper in 5 Steps (plus Template and Sample Essay)
• How to Write a Literary Analysis: 6 Tips for the Perfect Essay

Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Red Convertible — Reader-Response Criticism of “The Red Convertible”

Reader-response Criticism of "The Red Convertible"

• Category: The Red Convertible

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Table of contents

Introduction, literary criticism, works cited.

• “A Brief Guide to Reader-Response Criticism.” A Research Guide for Students, 22 Aug. 2018, www.aresearchguide.com/reader-response-criticism.html.
• Erdrich, Louise. The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories. HarperCollins, 2009.
• “Louise Erdrich.” HarperCollins Publishers: World-Leading Book Publisher, www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-100712/louise-erdrich/.
• Reader-Response Criticism, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/reader.crit.html.
• “Reader-Response Criticism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Nov. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism.
• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Louise Erdrich.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 3 Mar. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Louise-Erdrich.

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Reader Response

Home - Critical Thinking - Reader Response

Category: Critical Thinking

Subcategory: Ecology

Level: College

Name Tutor Course Date Reader Response Reader Response #6 In the article “Is America Ready to Get Smart?” by McKenzie Funk, the author assesses the reception of a smart car in America. In this article, Funk evaluates the smart car using criteria based on the car’s size, engine power, and fuel consumption. I share the criteria for a good car. With the fuel prices going up and the petroleum deposits nearing exhaustion, the focus should be on the ability to save energy. Additionally, space is becoming scarce with an increasing number of vehicles on the road hence the smaller the car, the easier it is to find a parking space. The author also fairly considers counterarguments for examples when he says that most people judge vehicles by the criteria of their appeal to emotions that the sense of utility. His experience with the smart car is convincing evidence since he realizes that the majority still judge cars based on how fashionable they are as opposed to their ability to solve a problem Reader Response #7 In the article titled “We’ll Always Have Springfield: The Simpsons Movie” by A.O. Scott, the author presents a review of “The Simpsons” movie. In this essay, Scott claims that the level of invention, humor, and insight exhibited in “The Simpsons” is exemplary and has not been rivaled in broadcast television’s history. While this claim may be exaggerated, I agree with Scott that “The Simpsons” exhibits exemplary levels of invention, humor an…

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Reader Response Essay

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Reader Response Theory The Reader Response Theory emerged as a reaction against the New Criticism or formalistic approach, which focused on the text, finding all the meaning, the value in it and regarding everything else as extraneous, including readers. Despite the ideas of the Reader Response in the 1920’s, the late Louise Rosenblatt pioneered the Reader Response theory. She was a literary theorist and an English Educator. In her writing, Literature as Exploration written in 1938, she emphasizes

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• Essay on Family

Reader Response Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Family , Parents , Friendship , Colleen , Self-Esteem , Sense , Support

Published: 03/20/2020

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After I finished “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” my first thoughts centered on how tragic it is when parents fail to give their children a sense of acceptance. It’s clear that Colleen’s dad wants to do well for his family, because he works hard, but the price for this is that his daughter has so little self-esteem that she falls for the whiles of Arnold Friend and his golden car. There’s nothing wrong with Colleen wanting an afternoon to herself while the family goes out, but the fact that she does this on a holiday suggests that her sense of disconnection from her family is significant. Also, there appears to be something otherworldly about Arnold Friend; his name and his demeanor suggest that he is trying to take advantage of Colleen’s low self-esteem when he makes her his prey. The golden vehicle in which he drives is suggestive of divine figures from mythology, and the knowledge that he has about her neighbor and family members also suggests that there is more to this man than what meets the eye. I believe that Oates is trying to suggest that too many young women lack the support they need from their parents and thus end up being the victims of people who promise closeness even though their promises are also bedecked with menace. In the case of Arnold Friend, the theme that emerges is the vulnerability of adolescent girls who lack emotional support from their parents. She did not have to walk out the door with Arnold; there is no clear evidence from the text that Arnold literally enters the house. However, she seals her doom by going with him anyway.

Works Cited

Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” https://www.d.umn.edu/~csigler/PDF%20files/oates_going.pdf

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The reader response theory.

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            Reader Response Criticism a wide-ranging, interesting, and evolving literature study that focuses on understanding the reading processes of readers and how they relate to specific elements in the text they read, their life experiences, and the scholarly community they are apart of. This study centers on readers' responses to literary texts, and how crucial they are the creator of meaning (Tyson 169; Harker 29). The reading process is very important, so in order for a reader to get the most out of it, he must approach it the right way. The reader-response theory implores readers' to recognize reading as a meaningful, social, and truly personal act (Sheridan 805). Reader-response criticism consists of different theories and concepts formulated by several literary critics. These theories, along with the literary theorists behind them, are imperative to understand and recognize for their role as the foundation of this modern literary study. .              Louise Rosenblatt's Transactional Reader-Response Theory was based upon the concept of Transactional Analysis" which declares that meaning derives from the transaction between the reader and a text (Siegel). This transaction sparks "feelings, associations, and memories " in the reader, and these reactions impact the way he rationalizes the text as he moves through it. Furthermore, the physical and mental status, along with any previously encountered literary text or accrued knowledge, may also affect the reader as well (Tyson 173). But, none of this can occur if the reader does not approach reading in an aesthetic manner. When reading aesthetically, the reader, along with the text, and the "poem, " all take part in this transaction and influencing one another together as one synchronized being. The text, as Rosenblatt says, "serves as a blueprint, a guide for selecting, rejecting, and ordering of what is being called forth " in the reader's mind.

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Essays Related to The Reader Response Theory

1. reader response criticism of.

What is Reader Response? ... Reader Response is a literary criticism technique that helps the reader better understand the text and the world around them. Reader Response critics can sum up their analysis by answering this question: What is the reading process, and what happens during it (Bressler, Literary Criticism An Introduction To theory and Practice, page 62)? ... David Bleich, founder of "subjective criticism (Bressler, Literary Criticism An Introduction To Theory and Practice, page 68), explains that a reader's personal response to the text is not the same as an interpretatio...

• Word Count: 1016
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2. Literary Theory and Teaching Literature

Today Reader Response, Deconstruction and other deconstructive reader-based interpretative theories such as New Historicism, Post-Structuralist Marxism, Cognitive Poetics, Feminism, Post-colonialism and Postmodernism are considered major interpretive methods. ... It will argue that various schools of  poststructuralist literary theory such as Feminism, Marxism, New historicism, and Post-colonialism, etc., are reader –centered approaches of literary interpretation which actively involve the readers in meaning making. ... Poststructuralist Literary Theory Poststructuralist literary theo...

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3. Types of Literary Theories

The word "theory" has become an approach to reading texts. ... So for reader, there is no need to look outside the text. ... On the other hand Affective fallacy means there is no need to find out the affect on reader because we can't find out the stable meaning or universal meaning, if we look at the affect on reader. ... It draws the reader's attention to itself and obscure whatever else may be going on right beside it. ... One of the main issues in this theory is dialecticism. ...

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4. Frankenstein

Writing in this format creates and to a certain extent determines reader response. ... This concurs with Rousseau's theory that everyone is born good or with moral awareness but perceptions have the potential to be malformed or corrupted by exposure to society. I believe that the creature illustrates Rousseau's theory flawlessly being rejected by his father, and judged by the rest of society such as the De Lacey's, the cottager's and William. ... In conclusion Mary Shelley presents to the reader two extremely diverse narratives which complexes reader response and cau...

• Word Count: 1542
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5. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Writing in this format creates and to a certain extent determines reader response. ... This concurs with Rousseau's theory that everyone is born good or with moral awareness but perceptions has the potential to be malformed or corrupted by exposure to society. ... To the reader. ... In conclusion Mary Shelley presents to the reader two extremely diverse narratives which complexes reader response and causes the reader to be torn and reach a state of indecision which was clearly intended to occur. Rousseau's theory is very closely linked with the novel and I think Shelley's cre...

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6. The Yellow Wallpaper - Reader Response

Known psychologists of that time created theories that "proved" that women matured slower than males and suffered from emotional instability. Many physicians, with little knowledge of the female mind and body, created complex theories arguing the pregnancy was the source of women's inferiority. The effects of John's misogynistic rule over the narrator is best exemplified in her response to his rest cure. ...

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7. Type In Schools

Statement of the Problem Lack of information concerning psychological orientation and corresponding reader responses in a Literature Arts setting is hindering the academic potential of students. ... Background Because of their student centered approaches- aesthetic/ reader response, constructivism and diagnostic teaching- will be utilized to maximize the effects of psychological orientation. ... Like Afferent/ aesthetic and Reader Response techniques, students are encouraged to ask questions and give their opinions. ... Jean Piaget was one of the main proponents of converting theor...

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8. Reader Response Theory - Maurice by E.M Foster

Forster leaves the supposition to the reader that Maurice and Clive have a physical relationship, but nowhere in the book does this illusion allude to the physical, instead they have a close bond between them that is based on trust, compassion and platonic love. ... Having read the book I began to wonder how I could employ it into my classroom and the likely responses that I can expect from my students. Most of the students will probably read a book about homosexuality and either be compassionate about it, deride it or possibly be completely uninterested in it, but with further discussion I ca...

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9. Story of an Hour

In others such as reader-response, the reader must rely on what he or she thinks or sees, and must disregard any other meaning that the author intended to have. ... Mallard actually being a lesbian trapped in an unwanted heterosexual bond can be related to the psychological theory; more specifically, Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory. ... Reader-response criticism is a common way to analyze any kind of literature. ... The reader could stray away from that idea and go for the reader response strategy. With reader response the possibilities are endless because it all rests on the ...

• Word Count: 1699

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2. Reading Literature as a Critic

Reader-response criticism.

We have examined many schools of literary criticism. Here you will find an in-depth look at one of them: Reader-Response.

The Purpose of Reader-Response

• why you like or dislike the text;
• explain whether you agree or disagree with the author;
• identify the text’s purpose; and
• critique the text.

Write as a Scholar

Criticize with examples.

• Is the text racist?
• Does the text unreasonably puts down things, such as religion, or groups of people, such as women or adolescents, conservatives or democrats, etc?
• Does the text include factual errors or outright lies? It is too dark and despairing? Is it falsely positive?
• Is the text poorly written?
• Does it contain too much verbal “fat”?
• Is it too emotional or too childish?
• Does it have too many facts and figures?
• Are there typos or other errors in the text?
• Do the ideas wander around without making a point?

In each of these cases, do not simply criticize, but give examples. As a beginning scholar, be cautious of criticizing any text as “confusing” or “crazy,” since readers might simply conclude that  you  are too ignorant or slow to understand and appreciate it.

The Structure of a Reader-Response Essay

• title of the work to which you are responding;
• the author; and
• the main thesis of the text.
• What does the text have to do with you, personally, and with your life (past, present or future)? It is not acceptable to write that the text has NOTHING to do with you, since just about everything humans can write has to do in some way with every other human.
• How much does the text agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong?  Use several quotes as examples of how it agrees with and supports what you think about the world, about right and wrong, and about what you think it is to be human.   Use quotes and examples to discuss how the text disagrees with what you think about the world and about right and wrong.
• What did you learn, and how much were your views and opinions challenged or changed by this text, if at all?   Did the text communicate with you? Why or why not?   Give examples of how your views might have changed or been strengthened (or perhaps, of why the text failed to convince you, the way it is). Please do not write “I agree with everything the author wrote,” since everybody disagrees about something, even if it is a tiny point. Use quotes to illustrate your points of challenge, or where you were persuaded, or where it left you cold.
• How well does the text address things that you, personally, care about and consider important to the world?   How does it address things that are important to your family, your community, your ethnic group, to people of your economic or social class or background, or your faith tradition?  If not, who does or did the text serve? Did it pass the “Who cares?” test?   Use quotes from the text to illustrate.
• What can you praise about the text? What problems did you have with it?  Reading and writing “critically” does not mean the same thing as “criticizing,” in everyday language (complaining or griping, fault-finding, nit-picking). Your “critique” can and should be positive and praise the text if possible, as well as pointing out problems, disagreements and shortcomings.
• How well did you enjoy the text (or not) as entertainment or as a work of art?  Use quotes or examples to illustrate the quality of the text as art or entertainment. Of course, be aware that some texts are not meant to be entertainment or art: a news report or textbook, for instance, may be neither entertaining or artistic, but may still be important and successful.
• your overall reaction to the text;
• whether you would read something else like this in the future;
• whether you would read something else by this author; and
• if would you recommend read this text to someone else and why.

Key Takeaways

• In reader-response, the reader is essential to the meaning of a text for they bring the text to life.
• The purpose of a reading response is examining, explaining, and defending your personal reaction to a text.
• When writing a reader-response, write as an educated adult addressing other adults or fellow scholars.
• As a beginning scholar, be cautious of criticizing any text as “boring,” “crazy,” or “dull.”  If you do criticize, base your criticism on the principles and form of the text itself.
• The challenge of a reader-response is to show how you connected with the text.

Reader-Response Essay Example

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.

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2.1.2.11.4.4.1: Reader-Response Criticism

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We have examined many schools of literary criticism. Here you will find an in-depth look at one of them: Reader-Response.

The Purpose of Reader-Response

• why you like or dislike the text;
• explain whether you agree or disagree with the author;
• identify the text’s purpose; and
• critique the text.

Write as a Scholar

Criticize with examples.

• Is the text racist?
• Does the text unreasonably puts down things, such as religion, or groups of people, such as women or adolescents, conservatives or democrats, etc?
• Does the text include factual errors or outright lies? It is too dark and despairing? Is it falsely positive?
• Is the text poorly written?
• Does it contain too much verbal “fat”?
• Is it too emotional or too childish?
• Does it have too many facts and figures?
• Are there typos or other errors in the text?
• Do the ideas wander around without making a point?

In each of these cases, do not simply criticize, but give examples. As a beginning scholar, be cautious of criticizing any text as “confusing” or “crazy,” since readers might simply conclude that you are too ignorant or slow to understand and appreciate it.

The Structure of a Reader-Response Essay

• title of the work to which you are responding;
• the author; and
• the main thesis of the text.
• What does the text have to do with you, personally, and with your life (past, present or future)? It is not acceptable to write that the text has NOTHING to do with you, since just about everything humans can write has to do in some way with every other human.
• How much does the text agree or clash with your view of the world, and what you consider right and wrong? Use several quotes as examples of how it agrees with and supports what you think about the world, about right and wrong, and about what you think it is to be human. Use quotes and examples to discuss how the text disagrees with what you think about the world and about right and wrong.
• What did you learn, and how much were your views and opinions challenged or changed by this text, if at all? Did the text communicate with you? Why or why not? Give examples of how your views might have changed or been strengthened (or perhaps, of why the text failed to convince you, the way it is). Please do not write “I agree with everything the author wrote,” since everybody disagrees about something, even if it is a tiny point. Use quotes to illustrate your points of challenge, or where you were persuaded, or where it left you cold.
• How well does the text address things that you, personally, care about and consider important to the world? How does it address things that are important to your family, your community, your ethnic group, to people of your economic or social class or background, or your faith tradition? If not, who does or did the text serve? Did it pass the “Who cares?” test? Use quotes from the text to illustrate.
• What can you praise about the text? What problems did you have with it? Reading and writing “critically” does not mean the same thing as “criticizing,” in everyday language (complaining or griping, fault-finding, nit-picking). Your “critique” can and should be positive and praise the text if possible, as well as pointing out problems, disagreements and shortcomings.
• How well did you enjoy the text (or not) as entertainment or as a work of art? Use quotes or examples to illustrate the quality of the text as art or entertainment. Of course, be aware that some texts are not meant to be entertainment or art: a news report or textbook, for instance, may be neither entertaining or artistic, but may still be important and successful.
• your overall reaction to the text;
• whether you would read something else like this in the future;
• whether you would read something else by this author; and
• if would you recommend read this text to someone else and why.

Key Takeaways

• In reader-response, the reader is essential to the meaning of a text for they bring the text to life.
• The purpose of a reading response is examining, explaining, and defending your personal reaction to a text.
• When writing a reader-response, write as an educated adult addressing other adults or fellow scholars.
• As a beginning scholar, be cautious of criticizing any text as “boring,” “crazy,” or “dull.” If you do criticize, base your criticism on the principles and form of the text itself.
• The challenge of a reader-response is to show how you connected with the text.

Reader-Response Essay Example

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.

Contributors and Attributions

• Putting It Together: Defining Characteristics of Romantic Literature. Authored by : Anne Eidenmuller & Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution