Lambert 1 Sarah Lambert Reader Response ENGL 305: Literary Theory and Writing December 1, 2014 Filling the Gap: Dissatisfaction in Ray Bradbury s All Summer in a Day Why is it that we are never 100% satisfied with the ending of a book, play, poem, movie, or TV show? And even if we are satisfied, we are left wanting more. We look between the lines for something more. I never realized that when I read fanfiction or daydream about alternative plot lines or endings that I was really engaging in reader-response criticism. It turns out that this is something I use more in my everyday life than all other schools of criticism we have learned. I respond to everything. For this reason, I think that reader-response criticism is an under taught theory, even though it permeates almost all aspects of our lives, and should be taught right alongside the oh-so-loved close reading technique. In the sixth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Helbach, had us read Ray Bradbury s All Summer in a Day. I do not remember much about my initial reaction to the story, but I do remember the assignment she gave us. We had to write what happened after the end of the story. Little did I know, Mrs. Helbach was having us participate in what I now know as reader-response writing. So when we began discussing that area of criticism in class, my mind immediately remembered this particular assignment, mostly in relation to Wolfgang Iser s notion of gaps, or blanks. According to Iser, the gaps powerfully affect the reader, who is forced to explain them, to connect what they separate, to create in his or her mind aspects of a poem or novel or play that aren t in the text but that the text incites (Murfin 274). In the case of my sixth grade class, the gap was the end. However, it was not only that the ending leaves readers wanting more, it is that
Lambert 2 the ending of this particular story leaves readers dissatisfied, sad, confused, and even upset or angry. Ray Bradbury s All Summer in a Day is the perfect work for reader-response criticism because it leaves much for the reader to think about, particularly in regards to Wolfgang Iser s idea of gaps. The story itself is well written and has an interesting plot and Bradbury developed a whole new world on Venus. But it is the ending that troubles almost all readers. After locking poor Margot in the closet, causing her to miss the only sunlight in seven years, he ends it with this simple, but enigmatic sentence: They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margo out (Bradbury 19). This is where he leaves us, the readers, with no further detail to let us know what happens next. Of the three people I had read the story, none of them reported liking the ending, one even loudly exclaimed What! That s it? upon finishing the story. I, too, do not like the ending. Emily, the exclaimer, seemed to have gotten so engaged within the story that at the time of reading, seem[ed] so real to [her] even though in fact [the events of the story] are very far from [her] on reality (Iser, The Reading Process 54). Though not as vocal about their confusion of the ending, the other two also seemed to empathize with this fictional little girl in a fictional story with fictional circumstances that they probably never have and never will experience. Similar to my sixth grade assignment, I asked my three interviewees if they could tell me what would have made the ending, and therefore the whole story, more likable or satisfactory. Amber and Christine wished that Margot had been able to see the sun. However, while those two focused on a specific and happy ending, what Emily had to say was the most intriguing. Emily just wanted some kind of ending, any conclusion at all. She did not care at all if it was happy or sad. Whether the children apologized to Margot and then the sun magically appeared again for
Lambert 3 all to enjoy, or if Margot was found dead in the closet would not have mattered. She felt jipped. I am inclined to agree with Emily, although Christine and Amber have very good points of view, I also felt that I was deprived of some sort of ending, whether it be a good ending or a bad ending. Another interesting point that Emily brought up, one that made the ending even worse for her, and me now that I think about it, is that we never find out what Margot feels or has to say. Sure, we can speculate. If we were in her place we would probably feel sad, most likely angry, maybe even scared, after all, she was locked in a small closet for more than two hours. But we never actually find out. Margot seems very quiet and reserved, so I find it highly unlikely that she would have an outburst of anger or get physically violent towards her classmates. She also seemed like a kind person. She might even felt pity toward the other children who are so mean spirited and negative; plus, she remembered the sun while they did not. In addition, the fact that she does remember the sun coupled with the possibility that she might be going back to earth might have diluted any anger she might have felt. But, because the ending of the story is such an ambiguous cliffhanger, and we are only inferring these qualities that Margot may or may not possess, we will never know. This is something Norman Holland agrees with when he says that [t]he novel may speak of a woman, but it is we who endow her with a broad forehead, an aggressive stride, or whatever (366). I am the one who thinks that she would be sad, or mad, or scared. I am the one who decides how I think Margot would react to her present situation based on how I would react in a similar situation. I never really thought about it until now, but reading is a very self-centered activity. There is no way to read anything without using our own thoughts, feelings, and
Lambert 4 experiences to interpret the text. Yes, many readers come to the same sort of conclusion for a particular work such as All Summer in a Day, but each reader filters the play through their own experiences. In general, I would say that most people do not enjoy not knowing, which is why three different people that I had read the story all agreed that the ending of the story is lousy. Iser, in another essay, explains that there are two parts, or poles, to every literary work. He called them the artistic pole and the aesthetic pole where the artistic pole is the author s text, and the aesthetic is the realization accomplished by the reader ( Interaction 106). In other words, the story itself is the artistic pole. As I said before, the story is extremely well written, full of colorful and figurative language. The aesthetic pole is how the reader reacts to the text and how the text can change the reader. The story itself affects the reader, and therefore affects how the reader reads the story, something Iser calls a dyadic and dynamic interaction. Further, he states: A text cannot adapt itself to each reader it comes into contact with. The partners in dyadic interaction can ask each other questions in order to ascertain how far their images have bridged the gap of the inexperienceability of one another s experiences. The reader, however, can never learn from the text how accurate or inaccurate are his views of it. There is no such frame of reference governing the text-reader relationship; on the contrary, the codes which might regulate this interaction are fragmented I the text, and must first be reassembled or, in most cases, restructured before any frame of reference can be established ( Interaction 109).
Lambert 5 This perfectly explains why it is that readers seek to fill the gaps left in a novel, story, poem, play, or movie. It cannot change or explain to us why something did or did not happen, so we have to use our own perceptions of the work and figure it all out by ourselves. Beach calls this the transaction between the reader and the text (17). However, it seems awfully one sided to me. The text does not get anything back, except a different way of being read. Perhaps, instead of it just being a transaction in general, calling it a one way transaction would be more appropriate. For me, reading has always been an escape, an activity where I can turn my brain off and just enjoy the book for what it is. However, since researching reader-response criticism, I have found that, try as I might and even if I think I am succeeding, there is no way to read any sort of text without engaging my mind in some sort of way. I am also finding that though I have mostly been taught to do close readings of texts looking for meaning in symbols and word choice, finding connections, etc. reader-response is all around me, everywhere I look even if I have not noticed it until now. I see it in the fanfiction I read for fun. There are thousands, probably millions, if not more, stories that take place or are bases on the fictional worlds of movies, books, comics, TV shows, videogames, etc., and those are all of the ones that have been physically written down. There are probably millions more just floating around in people s heads, consciously and unconsciously. We see it in the classrooms, whether it is a teacher asking his/her class if they liked a story, or, in my case, to write down an alternative ending to a story. It does not even have to be a story with a dissatisfactory ending. A story could have a happy ending with all of the loose ends tied up and all questions answered and people would still find a way to write about what happens between the lines. That is what makes reader-response criticism so relevant and
Lambert 6 important to our educational system. We do it without trying, so what would happen if we applied ourselves?
Lambert 7 Works Cited Beach, Richard. A Teacher s Introduction to Reader-Response Theories. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993. Print. Bradbury, Ray. "All Summer in a Day." Read 59.16 (2010): 14-19. Literary Reference Center. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. Holland, Norman N. Re-Covering The Purloined Letter : Reading as a Personal Transaction. The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation. Ed. Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. 350-370. Print. Iser, Wolfgang. Interaction Between Text and Reader. The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation. Ed. Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. 106-119. Print. Iser, Wolfgang. The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach. Reader-Resonse from Formalism to Post-Structuralism Criticism. Ed. Jane P. Tompkins. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. 50-69. Print. Lambert, Christine. Personal interview. 30 November 2014. Miner, Amber. Personal interview. 30 November 2014. Murfin, Ross C. Reader-Response Criticism and The Turn of the Screw: What is Readerresponse Criticism? in The Turn of the Screw. The Turn of the Screw. By Henry James. 3 rd ed. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin s, 2010. Print. Techmeier, Emily. Personal interview. 30 November 2014.