StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Whose Text is it Anyway Communication between author and reader - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
A writer is similar to an artist. The written page is like a blank canvas on which the author can feel free to create. Much like paintings, some written texts are easier to understand than others. Consider Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER94.1% of users find it useful
Whose Text is it Anyway Communication between author and reader
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Whose Text is it Anyway Communication between author and reader"

? Day Month Year Whose Text is it Anyway? A is similar to an artist. The written page is like a blankcanvas on which the author can feel free to create. Much like paintings, some written texts are easier to understand than others. Consider Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. For decades, readers have fallen in love with the fairy tale novel, yet few seem to really understand it. Much like Alice spends much of the book frustrated with the happenings inside of Wonderland, the reader spends hours trying to figure out the message behind the words. Perhaps that is exactly what Carroll was aiming for. In a similar fashion, millions around the world adore the paintings of Picasso. They hang in art galleries and adorn hallways in private hallways, yet few truly understand the true meaning behind the masterpiece. In fact, volumes have been written just trying to understand what ‘each picture is saying’. Could the answer be as simple as ‘nothing’? Does an author or painter actually have to communicate an exact message via his or her work that is understandable by everyone who reads the book or looks at the painter? The simple fact of the matter is that any given text is the author’s alone. They are free to do with printed words as they please. Perhaps part of the joy that some writers receive is in knowing that many readers struggle and grapple with the meaning behind what was written. In this way, they are promoting a depth of creative and critical thinking skills that is sorely needed in society. Other writers, however, do write to a specific audience and their words are quite easy to understand in context. Even under these conditions, however, the writer retains control over what they have written and the interpretation is to be largely left up to them. This is accomplished as they use their own artistic license as a mechanism for sharing a story of idea with the reader. In addition, the writer brings their own personal experiences and ideologies to the page each time they set out to write any given text. It would be helpful to consider a classic novel in which the author writes about a fictional story that could certainly be reality. Huck Finn is a product of poor rural America. He is a character that many people can identify with. Mark Twain, the author, certainly paints a wonderful picture with this novel. He begins by taking the reader on a journey through Southern America. There are racial undertones, class wars, and simple general mischief presented between its pages. You could ask ten different readers what social message Twain was trying to convey and you would likely get ten different ideas. This seems to be the beauty of literary license and is the reason why so many readers keep coming back to the classics, such as this one. Each time you read it, a different message seems to come to the forefront and you find yourself reliving the story all over again. This relates back to the theme of ownership and demonstrates how readers often find great job in trying to determine the purpose behind any chosen novel. That is part of the joy of reading. In answering the question of ‘Whose Test is it Anyway”, it is important to consider novels such as Huckleberry Finn. In this one novel, the author has created multiple themes centering on racism, slavery, morals, what role society plays in our life, and others. In addition to this, Twain touches on issues related to childhood, the way we lie and con people out of things, and he presents various superstitions and folk ideas. The reader needs no background with these issues, as Twain educates as he writes. One can easily begin to wrestle with these deeps ideas facing society, while having fun at the same time. Twain accomplishes all of this and more. In essence, he owns the reader because he has captivated them so. He can do what he wants simply because of the way in which he writes and the issues that he brings up. It is perfectly acceptable for an author to place more importance on the words contained on the paper than they do on the reader’s ability to understand at first. Twain is a perfect example of this. In addition, so are artists. The average artist does not consider who is going to view his or her work. They do not take into account the viewers perception before picking up the paintbrush. They paint because they want to create. From the outset of this essay, Lewis Carroll’s and Alice in Wonderland was mentioned as a perfect example. Carroll obviously did not consider the background of his audience. In fact, we can assume that Carroll never anticipated just how big of a hit his book would have become. Part of the enjoyment of writing is the process. An artist enjoys his work, respective of whether or not anyone else does. Sure, writers want to be noticed and they want their words to impact people, but that is often not their primary motivation for taking up the job, nor should it be. Consider again Huckleberry Finn. We can assume we know what the meaning of the text is, but as mentioned, there are so many themes and undertones interwoven throughout the text that it is difficult to know for sure. In Alice in Wonderland, the reader gets even less of a glimpse into what Carroll was trying to communicate. As we have read in class, nearly every chapter brings a different idea, concept, and adventure for Alice. Each chapter is different than the one before. It is not until subsequent chapters that the reader even begins to see how the characters relate to one another it, at least, a superficial manner. If there were ever a book that was as an interesting to analyze as a picture, it would almost certainly be Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Author’s also demonstrate their ownership over a text through the tone that the use. Throughout Carroll’s book, the reader notices a tone of confusion and bewilderment. At the time, we see a girl that is truly enjoying life and trying to find some meaning in it. She stops at nothing in her efforts to understand what is going on in Wonderland and how the society is structured. In a similar fashion, we see this in Mark Twain’s novel as well. His tone is one of lost innocence and the hardships of life. As the reader takes part in the story, they cannot help but feel sorry for Huck and his band of friends. The reader does not create this feeling; rather, the author does. Were it not for the tone in each of these novels, the original purpose of the writing would likely be lost. In this way, we continue to see that the writer of any given text is truly the owner. The reader, if you will, is just along for the ride. Now, of course, unless a writer has no care in the world about whether or not anyone reads what they have written, they do have a target audience in mind. We can really only guess who that audience, but it is often made relatively clear. For Mark Twain, the audience would be readers who are interested in Southern culture and issues of slavery and poverty. For Carroll, the original target audience likely consisted of deep thinking adults who like to ponder the mysteries of life. Because of his use of imagery and other literary devices, however, the book was easily transformed into a series of children’s stories that remain popular to this day with children of all ages. It is not likely that Carroll, nor Twain, considered that their audience would so large when they first set to write their respective novels. Instead, readership of both has increased as readers around the world have desired to learn from each writer and to escape to another time and place. Again, the author does this, not the reader. In conclusion, artists and writer’s alike generally create for their own enjoyment first, and their viewer’s/reader’s second. A true artist is interested in perfecting their own art in their own way. Writers tell stories that impact them, and then they hope that those same stories will impact the lives of others as well. It is not wise to say that the audience is not considered at all during the process, but it is feasible to say that they do not play as large a part in the creative process as we would like to think they do. Just an artist own his canvas, the writer most certainly owns the words he or she puts down on the page. Works Cited Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. Chicago, IL: J.G. Ferguson Pub., 1992. Print. Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. Chicago: Scott, Foresman &, 1951. Print. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Whose Text is it Anyway Communication between author and reader Essay”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/english/1468742-whose-text-is-it-anyway
(Whose Text Is It Anyway Communication Between Author and Reader Essay)
https://studentshare.org/english/1468742-whose-text-is-it-anyway.
“Whose Text Is It Anyway Communication Between Author and Reader Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/english/1468742-whose-text-is-it-anyway.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Whose Text is it Anyway Communication between author and reader

Originality in Modernism and Postmodernism

Often, attempting to be original in these schools of literature just results in a sacrifice in meaning and coherence, and ultimately comes at the expense of the reader.... The reader is supposed to get the overall sense of futility in modern life.... He adds in near-random quotes from various religious texts and literary sources and switches into German and a few other languages at certain points in the text....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

A Huge Impact on World Literature by the Postcolonial Writers

The subject of the mother can be referred to as the author's mother whom he misses, or most likely, the author's motherland, as can be seen in the following lines, “the ancient watercourses of my island/ echo of over.... The poem started with descriptions of an environment in which the author longs for, as personified in the form of a mother.... The author misses his homeland and wishes to go back to his native land to comfort his female parent....
8 Pages (2000 words) Research Paper

Journalism, Mass Media and Communication

hellip; The author states that three distinct approaches can be used in persuasive writing: appeals through ethos, pathos, and logos, which are terms derived from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, and which refer to morals, emotions or reason respectively.... In the first article, the author's name and qualifications are given at the end of the article: “Professor Ian Hickie is the executive director of Sydney University's Brain and Mind Research Institute” (Hickie, 2009, p....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Cultural Studies

nbsp; This unavoidable process in the communication between the media and the audience keeps the audience active, because each individual involved in a never ending cycle of interpretation.... it is still, at all times, up to the individual audience or reader to interpret and respond....
8 Pages (2000 words) Assignment

Creative use of English

… What is essentially interesting about the language play is that though it indeed draws from sources like Jane Eyre or Vilette, it does not categorize this dream sequence and the experience of it to a logical semantic domain where diachronic linguistics may not help the reader to understand the language play.... Humboldt talks about the truly creative aspect of man's cognitive faculty and how man resolves particular creative challenges given to them since language cease to be just syntagmatic and paradigmatic modes of representations and enter the reader's "horizon of expectations" (Jauss, 1982) and self-conscious-ness as Hegel situates it....
11 Pages (2750 words) Essay

The Cultural Turn of the 1980s

More significantly, the Cultural Turn explains translations as being related in organic ways to other modes of communication; besides identifying translations “as writing practices fully informed by the tensions that traverse all cultural representation” (Simon 1996: 8).... A three-fold definition of the domain of translation includes first the process of transferring a written text from the source language (SL) to the target language (TL) by a… Second, the written product, or target text (TT) which results from that process, and which functions in the socio-cultural context of the target language....
19 Pages (4750 words) Essay

Text Analysis and Interpretation of Books

As a result of this, it is imperative that a text is divided into segments before an individual sets out to analyze it.... The author's intention is to offer the learners a general overview on how to study important concepts in the course as highlighted in the five core books.... This short story however holds a sort of uniqueness in the author's way of writing as its characters remain unnamed.... … text Analysis and InterpretationText interpretation is one of the most complex tasks an individual can possibly engage in....
14 Pages (3500 words) Essay

Analysis of Spoken and Written Text

The spoken text in question is an audio-recorded phone conversation between a radio presenter and the listener extracted from BBC Radio York discussion ().... As a result, the formality of the language used tends to vary depending on the kind of relationship between or amongst the speakers.... Generally, the conversation between Sam and the presenter was organized in the form of an interview with Jonathan asking Sam a series of pertinent questions regarding the causes of climate change, its impacts, and possible ways of eliminating it....
12 Pages (3000 words) Term Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us