Essay about Reader-Response vs. New Criticism - 962 Words

New Criticism vs. Reader-Response A piece of work can be evaluated in plenty of ways. Critique methods such as Reader-Response, Deconstructive Criticism, New Criticism, and many others act as examples of literary evaluations. All of the critique methods share similarities, but differ in other ways. Reader-Response and New Criticism, for example, share characteristics but they are also two very opposing things. Reader-Response focuses on attention towards the text influenced by the reader’s thoughts. New Criticism aims towards the text with no influence, but the text alone. The two methods share the same features such as excluding the author’s intentions and recognizing details from the texts, and they also contrast by having a different†¦show more content†¦The criticism encourages the reader to explore his thoughts while reading a text. A person may read something over and over again and interpret a different meaning every time. For Reader-Response, the type o f focuses required comes from the reader. Personal experiences and opinions are what trigger the message of the text. They help the reader understand the text better because now they have involved themselves within the text, not just the content by itself, like New Criticism, for example. These factors are what make the responses subjective. For example, the quote from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien says, â€Å"He should’ve carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long,† (618). The quote can be interpreted in a few ways. â€Å" . . .And touched that left knee all night long,† could be comparing the action of ‘touching’ to sexual relations. The quote could also be taken in a literal sense, having the knee actually touched by the character’s hands. Another part of the quote, â€Å" . . .tied her to the bed . . .† could possibly mean that he wanted to keep her in be d all night and spend time with her; however, in a literal sense, he probably truly could have wanted to tie her to the bed. As stated earlier, defining the meaning of a text for reader-response criticism requires the reader to state what they probably thinks the words mean. Furthermore,Show MoreRelatedCritical Analysis Of Trifles By Susan Glaspell1016 Words   |  5 PagesPerspective: Readers Response Criticism to â€Å"Trifles† by Susan Glaspell The play written by Susan Glaspell in 1916 is based on the murder of John Wright where the prime suspect is his spouse; Minnie Foster. â€Å"Trifles† is fixated on the investigation of the social division realized by the strict gender roles that enable the two men and women to have contending points of view on practically every issue. This is found in the way the men view the kitchen as they consider it as not having anything of significantRead MoreConstructing Essay Test772 Words   |  4 Pagesstudent time but a significant increase in labor in time and scoring. GENERAL TYPES OF ESSAY ITEMS* EXTENDED RESPONSE ESSAY ITEM- is one that allows for an in-depth sampling of a student’s knowledge, thinking processes, and problem solving behavior related to a specific topic. RESTRICTED RESPONSE ESSAY ITEM- is one where the examinee is required to provide limited response based on a specified criterion for answering the question. LEARNING OUTCOMES MEASURED EFFECTIVELY WITH ESSAY ITEMS* Read MoreMLK vs. Obama1461 Words   |  6 Pages Martin Luther King Jr. vs. President Obama Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama have both written and performed their fair share of speeches throughout their respective lives. The two speeches that are being compared are President Obama’s â€Å"A More Perfect Union† speech and Martin Luther King Jr.’s â€Å"Letter from Birmingham City Jail† letter. President Obama spoke this speech while his was campaigning for the presidency in February of 2007, while his was running against Senator HillaryRead MoreThe Evolution Of The Human Race1681 Words   |  7 PagesFaith Vs. Fact The universe is a vast and endless portal of knowledge and experience whose origin and creation is not fully proven. There are two ideologies that the human race has adopted into giving reason for our existence as well as our evolution; this being, religion, and science. Science and religion have been in a conflicting battle against each other in discovering truth about the universe and their main ideas disregard the other making them ultimately incompatible. Throughout historyRead MoreCatcher In The Rye Literary Conflict1087 Words   |  5 PagesIntroduction: J.D Salinger’s bestselling novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ depicts a troubled teenage boy who conflicts with the society of the 1950s. Holden Caufield’s cynical way of narrating the story with his constant criticism about other people and the ugliness of the world, introduces the readers to a judgemental and critical protagonist. ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ was based on Salinger’s life experience after WWII. While Holden disliked the society in the story, Salinger personally disliked the societyRead MoreThe Nameless Governess in The Turn of the Screw: Hero or Villain?1181 Words   |  5 Pagesfor things to have been fabricated to make her own self look better. Also to prove to herself how and why she did the things she did, to justify them. We know, as readers, the filtering from Governess to story-teller to audience leaves room for different interpretations and retelling or rewriting of the events. One critical response by Edmund Wilson regarded the Governess as hallucinatory. Suggesting that the ghosts she saw were so detailed that they were of her own imagining. â€Å"The governessRead MoreEssay on Like water for chocolate6961 Words   |  28 Pagesof one-to-one relationships between the word (signifier) and the thing that the word represents (signified); in short, realism appeals to our ideologically constructed sense of the real and addresses the reader in such a manner as to incite a â€Å"Yes. That’s it, that’s how it really is† response. Realists are often impelled by social reform, often focus on people in social situations that require compromise, develop characters that are unheroic— flawed and unable to be â€Å"true to themselves†--, andRead MoreAnalysis Of Howard Zinn s Indians History Of The Us And Larry Schweikart s, Patriots1516 Words   |  7 PagesHistory 2112 Critical Analysis Paper #1 Dr. Pitts James Hamby Monday-Wednesday 8:30pm Patriot’s vs. People’s Howard Zinn’s, Peoples’ History of the US and Larry Schweikart’s, Patriots’ History of the US are two analytical views on history that most people would consider politically conflicting. Zinn’s Marxist book was widely praised by liberal activist and Schweikart’s book is greatly publicized by conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. These two widely known historians turned theirRead MoreSusan Sontag s Notes On Camp1945 Words   |  8 PagesAlexander Pope himself was a central poetic figure and The Age of Johnson (1750-1798). The primary focus is of course the Augustan Age, where Pope’s work is prevalent. The Eighteenth century brought a new war of words, with a quarrel in 1690’s France in L’Acadà ©mie Franà §aise, putting in to place a new historical sense of culture across Europe. The ideology is that classical authors and learning could not be improved upon or surpassed by modern writers, instead they should look to imitate the greatRead MoreRealism and the Humanities 1718 Words   |  7 PagesRealism was first established in France during the late eighteenth/ early nineteenth century to describe literary and visual works where the aim was to create something that accurately showed the world as it was. Nineteenth century Realism was a response to nineteenth century Romanticism, which caused many novelists to focus on the lives and suffering of middle class citizens (â€Å"Realism.† The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature). Realism, though, is not just that simple, because there are