ARTICALES ON THE SUBJECT OF INTERACTION BETWEEN TEXT AND THE READER
FIRST EDITION 2012
By
Tushar Bhatt (English Teacher)
Tal : Fort Songadh, Dist : Tapi (Vyara)
Department of Education, Gujarat state Gandhinagar.
India
Intrection between text and the reader
The present critical essay of wolfgang iser is an attempt to explain the nature of interaction and relationship between a literary text and a reader. Iser tries to focus on what actually happens when a reader picks up a text for the purpose of reading.
Commenting on the nature of interaction between a text and a reader, Iser explains that every text has got poles - the aesthetic pole and the artistic pole.
The aesthetic pole
The aesthetic pole is the reader's pole or how the reader tries to interpret a given text.
The artistic pole
The other pole of the text which is known as the artistic pole is the writer's pole or how that writer wants the text to be interpreted.
Iser makes it clear that neither the writer's pole nor the reader's pole alone is a perfect text - The virtual text-actual work remains somewhere between the artistic pole and the aesthetic pole. An actual text is not only all reader's interpretation or all writer's intention. An actual text is a combination of how reader interprets and what the writer intense ?
Iser tries to explain the nature of interaction between a text and a reader stating that it is a complex process but the relationship is not just like between a transmitter and a receiver. A transmitter can only transmute and a receiver can only receive. A receiver has no capacity to transmute and the same way a transmitter has no capacity receive. The link between these two scientific instruments is just like one way traffic. The interaction between a text and a reader stands in a sharp contract to it. it is to way relationship a text is a transmitter as well as receiver in the same way as a reader is a receiver and as well as transmitter. When a reader reads a text, he performs a receiver and the text is a transmitter. But that when reader reacts upon that text, he reader steps in the role of a transmitter and the text becomes the receiver. this is how text reader interaction is two way traffic.
The interaction between text and reader is a complex process and it is a governed by certain conditions. Those conditions or factors have their own influence on the interaction between text and reader. The basic three factors to govern this interaction are ;
(a) Time
(b) Space
(c) Depth
The time in which that works is written, the age in which the reader lives and his or her own chronological age also influences the interaction. The elements of space also are significant role in the interaction. if a reader reads a work about own country- motherland, his reaction would be different from how it is when he reads a work of some other country.
The depth of the reader and his own understanding has their own influence on the interaction. A more performed reader can interact better than an average reader.
He explains the complex nature of interaction between text and reader by giving the example of interpersonal relation and interaction between two individuals. He refers ti the Tavistock school of Psychology which was very popular in 1960s and 1970s. It was established by a Scottish psychology named R.D. Laing, who wrote a book with the title, THE POLITICS OF EXPERIENCE. According to Laing , a person can never see himself as he seen by others but he constantly believes and supposes that he is seen and felt in a particular way by other an accordingly he forms his interaction and behavior with others.
Laing Mentions
" Your experience of me is invisible to me and my experience of you is invisible to you. I can not experience your experience and you can not experience my experience. Experience is man's invisibility to man. This invisibility creates a need/platform for supposition and interpretation. Finally as per our supposition and interpretation. We interact with others. Iser calls that invisibility of experience "No-thing".
He makes it clear that the interaction between text and reader does not resemble exactly the interaction between person and person. "No-thing" is a common factor between both the interactions but two remarkable differences are to be found between both interactions. Those differences are as under:
(A) The interaction between person and person is generally face to face which is not possible in case of an interaction between text and reader because as such one is animate while the other is inanimate and yet interaction takes place.
(B) The second point of difference between both the interactions is that the interaction between person and person is an objective base both the person is no their objective and accordingly they interacts.In other words, that objective governs the interaction between two individuals. In case of interaction between text and reader, there is no objectives as such and so the problem is what governs/regulates the interaction between text and reader.
Iser gives a reply to this problem stating that the "No-thing" of a literary text governs the interaction between text and reader. Here he explains the actual process of interaction text and reader. "No-thing" of a text are concealment. They activate the reader for the process of ideation. A reader indulging in to the process of ideation as per his understanding logic and thinking. The text in which we find concealment, have also revelations to those concealment. Those revelations control and correct the reader's process of ideation. This is how the interaction continues between a text and a reader through concealment and revelation. Concealment of a text activate the reader while revelations of the same text correct the reader. Iser mentions that the reader's role becomes very important in the interaction. The reader no more remains a reader but becomes a participant in the interaction. He has to response to the no-thing of a text but as per the design of the author. He has to observe certain invisible boundary lines prepared by the author and accordingly the process of ideation takes place. According to Iser, the successful with interaction between text and reader. It realize that the interaction between reader and author altimatly Conway the massages to all the members of the world.
