Bonus Discussion

reader response criticism

This is an optional final discussion; it is worth 20 extra-credit points if you choose to do it. You are not required to respond to other postings, though feel free to do so if you like.

but first a mini lecture!
OH NO!

No, really; I promise; this will be really short :)

There are lots of "schools" of literary criticism. Some (historical, socio-economic) look at a work in its context. Some (psychological, archetypal) try to unravel symbols relating to human psychology. Some consider the biography of the author in relation to a work. Most (the ones I was schooled in) are textual, looking closely at the words on the page and what they say literally as well as suggest/imply.

Reader-Response Critical Theory is perhaps the most fluid (and inconsistent) way to approach a work, but it is perfectly legit. How does the reader respond/react/feel while reading a work? You can see why this would be wildly inconsistent (though, oddly, not always). Reader 1 reads A Catcher in the Rye and is flat-out annoyed at Holdon Caulfield's wimpiness. Reader 2 reads the same work and discovers an authentic voice of a generation. Reader 3 finds the word experimental, edgy, richly symbolic, and Reader 4 considers it cheap genre pulp.

This may seem "fuzzy," but at its heart Reader-Response Critical Theory rests on a very thought-provoking assumption: without a reader, writing, in a sense, does not really exist. That's all pretty mind-bending philosophical stuff (not unlike, "Does the dance exist without the dancer? So is the dancer the dance?" Uhhhh...

All responses are correct; that is the feeling the work evokes in each as they work their way through the novel. The analysis comes in when the reader explains (and shows with quotatins/citations) WHY. Connsider this passage, which I feel (ohmygosh, did I break my "NO 'I FEEL' STATEMENTS!" RULE?) is the key passage in the novel:

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be." (Salinger 127)

Yes, I know block quotations do not get quotation marks, but this is actually dialogue being quoted, and dialogue does get quotation marks. Now is the passage a keen understanding of that hinge moment when we are no longer really little kids but are rather-normally afraid of taking on adult responsibilities? Is this something that a lot of contemporary "-ologists" see as a larger social issue? Is it just dimestore psychology? Is it richly symbolic while being couched in the adolescent slanginess of post-WWII suburbia to show genuine depth beneath a goofy facade?

Yes, if that is what Readers 5, 6, 7, 8 experience and can explain, with examples from the text why.

end of mini-lecture
I told you it was short; didn't you believe me?

Now, here's the question.

Reminder!
This discussion is due on the message board on Friday before midnight.