Note to the reader: This essay is somewhat of an experiment. I am well aware of the standard guidelines within which a student must present and argue ideas, and the implications of nonconformity. However, if I have learned anything in this course, it is that genres and forms are continually under scrutiny, being molded and changed, discarded and exchanged, for sake of efficacy, veracity, adherence to ideology, or in reaction to otherwise unforeseen forces. Consider this as just such a reaction; more accurately, it is my only recourse. In setting out to write this essay, I had a clear objective. My task was to critically engage materials that were covered this term, and where possible reflect, compare, contrast, and analyze those theories with respect to writings studied during the first term. This was known from the beginning of the academic year, and is something that has been on my mind during lectures, seminars and tutorials, and while reading the requisite academic essays assigned for the course. Fuelled with confidence borne by successes in the first term, I felt I merely had to wait for some theory or concept to come up that piqued my interest, one that I could sink my teeth into – this didn’t happen. So instead of writing a masterpiece on postcolonialism, or a scathing deconstruction of psychoanalysis, I must opt for a generic overview of, and commentary on, ideas I have learned, to at least show the course objectives have been met (even if some of my argumentation comes across as spurious and groundless). Our first sojourn is into the realm of Reader-Response theory. The general idea of reader-response criticism is not new, and dates back to Aristotle’s Poetics. Literature is supposed to engender catharsis, e.g. a traged... ... middle of paper ... ...case, I now am armed with a litany of methods, viewpoints, and arguments that I can bring to a text, and not only extract more meaning and essence, but be better able to understand how the text stands in relation to other texts and ideas. Further, I have had a fire lit within me, a yearning curiousity to discover more about the theories and ideologies that, due to my own mismanagement and difficulties, I was unable to firmly grasp. I realize now, at (literally) the zero hour, that much more effort could have been taken on my part, and the resulting work that eventually was produced is seriously sub-par. I would be interested in discussing options for rectification, not necessarily for the sake of the mark of this course – which, in comparison, is not that important – but to seek academic avenues to further study postcolonial and postmodern concepts and philosophies.
6. Murfin, Ross C. "What is Reader-Response Criticism?" in The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: Bedford, 1991.
(3) Adam, Elga (2007) “Reflection and Disagreement” Princeton University Copyright the Authors Journal compilation, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. Pg. 478 – 502.
The book “From Unincorporated Territory” [Saina] , by Craig Santos Perez, is an interesting story because it shows how colonialism is the destruction of the author’s culture and identity on his native island Guam. It forced the author’s family and himself to make a drastic change in their life and migrate from Guam to America on an outrigger. After leaving in the year 1995 and not returning until 2008, the author depicts to the audience what has changed due to colonization. My thought on colonialism is firm. That I am confused about it. The reason for my confusion is I believe it is necessary for a certain purpose most people cannot see. Even though know that it is wrong; I know it destroys somewhat the vast majority of the colonized culture but I can’t help to think that the author has a message of that purpose most people cannot see. After reading the book, what I just admitted even to me sounds a little cold hearted, but reading his point of view in this book, it made me realized I’m not too wrong for making such a confession. I believe the author has a hidden message about it. Once I had a gut feeling I wanted to expose that message in my essay.
My aim in this essay is to analyse the ways in which I think an
reader creates “supplementary meaning” to the text by unconsciously setting up tension, also called binary opposition. Culler describes this process in his statement “The process of thematic interpretation requires us to move from facts towards values, so we can develop each thematic complex, retaining the opposition between them” (294). Though supplementary meaning created within the text can take many forms, within V...
Griffiths, Gareth. "Being there, being There: Postmodernism and Post-Colonialism: Kosinski and Malouf." Ariel 20.4 (1989): 132-48.
Patke, R. S. (2003, January 29). EN3262 POSTMODERNISM & POSTCOLONIALITY. Singapore: Rajeev S Patke. D.Phil., M.Phil.: Oxford; M.A., B.A.: Poona
the response it invokes in the reader, and what this response says about the reader’s own
For this assignment, you will research an issue that we have discussed in class. You will write and rewrite an out-of-class essay that uses your research to develop an argument on your topic. To help you research this essay, you will be required to write a short research proposal that draws upon your readings in this and other courses and an annotated bibliography.
Nevertheless, there are several themes running through the novel which constitute elements of post-colonial discourse, and this page intends to briefly examine some of them.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Selvon’s Fiction: A Postcolonial Study is the result of research work done by me in the
Having done the above analysis on my favourite text, “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo, I realise that my like for the text have heightened because the analysis of Anowa has given me a deeper understanding of Africa’s colonialism. I now know what actually led to our colonialisation (the betrayal) and how it began(the bond of 1844) through the personal lives of Anowa and Kofi.
The term reader-response criticism refers not only to a theory but also to a range of approaches in which the focus of critical attention is how a reader responds to a text. Its development was a reaction in which there is an emphasis on the text and the reader gives an ultimate source of meaning. In literary criticism, reader-response theory means for the first time, the reader begins to come into focus as the determiner of meaning. The canon of reader-response criticism was depicted by a series of retrospective collections, overviews and reading lists of the early 1980s and the texts included in the canon. The authors of the text were- David Bleich, Norman Holland, Wolfgang Isher, Stanley Fish, Jonathan Culler.
Postcolonialism is the continual shedding of the old skin of Western thought and discourse and the emergence of new self-awareness, critique, and celebration. With this self-awareness comes self-expression. But how should the i...