Reading fiction responsively

Reading a literary work responsively can be an intensely demanding activity. Henry David Thoreau — about as intense and demanding a reader and writer as they come — insists that “books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” Thoreau is right about the necessity for a conscious, sustained involvement with a literary work. Imaginative literature does demand more from us than, say, browsing through People magazine in a dentist’s waiting room, but Thoreau makes the process sound a little more daunting than it really is. For when we respond to the demands of responsive reading, our efforts are usually rewarded with pleasure as well as understanding. Careful, deliberate reading — the kind that engages a reader’s imagination as it calls forth the writer’s — is a means of exploration that can take a reader outside whatever circumstance or experience previously defined his or her world. Just as we respond moment by moment to people and situations in our lives, we also respond to literary works as we read them, though we may not be fully aware of how we are affected at each point along the way. The more conscious we are of how and why we respond to works in particular ways, the more likely we are to be imaginatively engaged in our reading.

In a very real sense both the reader and the author create the literary work. How a reader responds to a story, poem, or play will help to determine its meaning. The author arranges the various elements that constitute his or her craft — elements such as plot, character, setting, point of view, symbolism, theme, and style, which you will be examining in subsequent chapters and which are defined in the Glossary of Literary Terms — but the author cannot completely control the reader’s response any more than a person can absolutely predict how a remark or action will be received by a stranger, a friend, or even a family member. Few authors tell readers how to respond. Our sympathy, anger, confusion, laughter, sadness, or whatever the feeling might be is left up to us to experience. Writers may have the talent to evoke such feelings, but they don’t have the power and authority to enforce them. Because of the range of possible responses produced by imaginative literature, there is no single, correct, definitive response or interpretation. There can be readings that are wrongheaded or foolish, and some readings are better than others — that is, more responsive to a work’s details and more persuasive — but that doesn’t mean there is only one possible reading of a work (see Chapter 43, “Reading and the Writing Process”).

Experience tells us that different people respond differently to the same work. Consider, for example, how often you’ve heard Melville’s Moby-Dick described as one of the greatest American novels. This, however, is how a reviewer in New Monthly Magazine described the book when it was published in 1851: it is “a huge dose of hyperbolical slang, maudlin sentimentalism and tragic-comic bubble and squeak.” Melville surely did not intend or desire this response; but there it is, and it was not a singular, isolated reaction. This reading — like any other reading — was influenced by the values, assumptions, and expectations that the readers brought to the novel from both previous readings and life experiences. The reviewer’s refusal to take the book seriously may have caused him to miss the boat from the perspective of many other readers of Moby-Dick, but it indicates that even “classics” (perhaps especially those kinds of works) can generate disparate readings.

Consider the following brief story by Kate Chopin, a writer whose fiction (like Melville’s) sometimes met with indifference or hostility in her own time. As you read, keep track of your responses to the central character, Mrs. Mallard. Write down your feelings about her in a substantial paragraph when you finish the story. Think, for example, about how you respond to the emotions she expresses concerning news of her husband’s death. What do you think of her feelings about marriage? Do you think you would react the way she does under similar circumstances?

Kate Chopin (1851–1904)

The Story of an Hour 1894

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”

“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his gripsack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of joy that kills.

A sample close reading

An Annotated Section of “The Story of an Hour”

Even as you read a story for the first time, you can highlight passages, circle or underline words, and write responses in the margins. Subsequent readings will yield more insights once you begin to understand how various elements such as plot, characterization, and word choice build toward the conclusion and what you perceive to be the story’s central ideas. The following annotations for the first eleven paragraphs of “The Story of an Hour” provide a perspective written by someone who had read the work several times. Your own approach might, of course, be quite different — as the sample paper that follows the annotated passage amply demonstrates.

The passage is headlined Kate Chopin (1851-1904), The Story of an Hour 1894. The first annotation refers to the title and reads, The title could point to the brevity of the story, only 23 short paragraphs, or to the decisive nature of what happens in a very short period of time.

The second and third annotations refer to the following text, Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of [open quotes] killed. [close quotes] He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. The second annotation reads, Mrs. Mallard’s first name (Louise) is not given until paragraph 17, yet her sister Josephine is named immediately. This emphasizes Mrs. Mallard’s married identity. The third annotation reads, Given the nature of the cause of Mrs. Mallard’s death at the story’s end, it’s worth noting the ambiguous description that she [open quotes] was afflicted with a heart trouble. [close quotes]. Is this one of Chopin’s (rather than Josephine’s) [open quotes] veiled hints [close quotes]?

The next paragraph in the text reads, She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself, she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. The related fourth annotation reads, When Mrs. Mallard weeps with [open quotes] wild abandonment, [close quotes] the reader is again confronted with an ambiguous phrase: she grieves in an overwhelming manner yet seems to express relief at being abandoned by Brently’s death.

The next paragraph reads, There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. The related fifth annotation reads, These three paragraphs create an increasingly [open quotes] open [close quotes] atmosphere that leads to the [open quotes] delicious [close quotes] outside where there are inviting sounds and [open quotes] patches of blue sky. [close quotes] There’s a definite tension between the inside and outside worlds.

The next paragraph reads, She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and [ellipsis]. The related sixth annotation reads, Though still stunned by grief, Mrs. Mallard begins to feel a change come over her owing to her growing awareness of a world outside her room. What that change is remains [open quotes] too subtle and elusive to name.

The continuation of the previous sixth annotation refers to the following text: elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. The next paragraph reads, Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will, as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. The related seventh annotation reads, Mrs. Mallard’s conflicted struggle is described in passionate, physical terms as if she is [open quotes] possessed [close quotes] by a lover she is [open quotes] powerless [close quotes] to resist.

The next paragraph reads, When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: [open quotes] free, free, free! [close quotes] The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body [ellipsis]. The related eighth annotation reads, Once she has [open quotes] abandoned [close quotes] herself (see the [open quotes] abandonment [close quotes] in paragraph 3), the reader realizes that her love is to be [open quotes] free, free, free. [close quotes] Her recognition is evident in the [open quotes] coursing blood [that] warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. [close quotes].

Do you find Mrs. Mallard a sympathetic character? Some readers think that she is callous, selfish, and unnatural — even monstrous — because she ecstatically revels in her newly discovered sense of freedom so soon after learning of her husband’s presumed death. Others read her as a victim of her inability to control her own life in a repressive, male-dominated society. Is it possible to hold both views simultaneously, or are they mutually exclusive? Are your views in any way influenced by your being male or female? Does your age affect your perception? What about your social and economic background? Does your nationality, race, or religion in any way shape your attitudes? Do you have particular views about the institution of marriage that inform your assessment of Mrs. Mallard’s character? Have other reading experiences — perhaps a familiarity with some of Chopin’s other stories — predisposed you one way or another to Mrs. Mallard?

Understanding potential influences might be useful in determining whether a particular response to Mrs. Mallard is based primarily on the story’s details and their arrangement or on an overt or a subtle bias that is brought to the story. If you unconsciously project your beliefs and assumptions onto a literary work, you run the risk of distorting it to accommodate your prejudice. Your feelings can be a reliable guide to interpretation, but you should be aware of what those feelings are based on.

Often specific questions about literary works cannot be answered definitively. For example, Chopin does not explain why Mrs. Mallard suffers a heart attack at the end of this story. Is the shock of seeing her “dead” husband simply too much for this woman “afflicted with a heart trouble”? Does she die of what the doctors call a “joy that kills” because she is so glad to see her husband? Is she so profoundly guilty about feeling “free” at her husband’s expense that she has a heart attack? Is her death a kind of willed suicide in reaction to her loss of freedom? Your answers to these questions will depend on which details you emphasize in your interpretation of the story and the kinds of perspectives and values you bring to it. If, for example, you read the story from a feminist perspective, you would be likely to pay close attention to Chopin’s comments about marriage in paragraph 14. Or if you read the story as an oblique attack on the insensitivity of physicians of the period, you might want to find out whether Chopin wrote elsewhere about doctors (she did) and compare her comments with historic sources. (A number of critical strategies for reading, including feminist and historical approaches, appear in Chapter 42.)

Reading responsively makes you an active participant in the process of creating meaning in a literary work. The experience that you and the author create will most likely not be identical to another reader’s encounter with the same work, but then that’s true of nearly any experience you’ll have, and it is part of the pleasure of reading. Indeed, talking and writing about literature is a way of sharing responses so that they can be enriched and deepened.

A sample paper

Differences in Responses to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”

The following paper was written in response to an assignment that called for a three- to four-page discussion of how different readers might interpret Mrs. Mallard’s character. The paper is based on the story as well as on the discussion of reader-response criticism in Chapter 42, “Critical Strategies for Reading.” As that discussion indicates, reader-response criticism is a critical approach that focuses on the reader rather than on the work itself in order to describe how the reader creates meaning from the text.

The text, Wally Villa, Professor Brian, English 210, 12 January 2019 is written on the top left of the page and Villa 1 on top right of the page. The headline at the center reads, Differences in Responses to Kate Chopin’s [open quotes] The Story of an Hour. [close quotes]

The body of the text reads, Kate Chopin’s [open quotes] The Story of an Hour [close quotes] appears merely to explore a woman’s unpredictable reaction to her husband’s assumed death and reappearance, but actually Chopin offers Mrs. Mallard’s bizarre story to reveal problems that are inherent in the institution of marriage. By offering this depiction of a marriage that stifles the woman to the point that she celebrates the death of her kind and loving husband, Chopin challenges her readers to examine their own views of marriage and relationships between men and women. The related note reads, Thesis providing writer’s interpretation of story’s purpose.

The body of the text continues as follows. Each reader’s judgment of Mrs. Mallard and her behavior inevitably stems from his or her own personal feelings about marriage and the influences of societal expectations. Readers of differing genders, ages, and marital experiences are, therefore, likely to react differently to Chopin’s startling portrayal of the Mallards’ marriage, and that certainly is true of my response to the story compared to my father’s and grandmother’s responses. The related note reads, Introduction setting up other reader responses discussed later in paper.

The next paragraph of the text reads, Marriage often establishes boundaries between people that make them unable to communicate with each other. The Mallards’ marriage was evidently crippled by both their inability to talk to one another and Mrs. Mallard’s conviction that her marriage was defined by a [open quotes] powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature [close quotes] (16). Yet she does not recognize that it is not just men who impose their will upon women and that the problems inherent in marriage affect men and women equally. The related note reads, Analysis of story’s portrayal of marriage, with textual evidence.

The paragraph continues as follows.

To me, Mrs. Mallard is a somewhat sympathetic character, and I appreciate her longing to live out the [open quotes] years to come that would belong to her absolutely [close quotes] (16). However, I also believe that she could have tried to improve her own situation somehow, either by reaching out to her husband or by abandoning the marriage altogether. Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s tragedy to illuminate aspects of marriage that are harmful and, in this case, even deadly. Perhaps the Mallards’ relationship should be taken as a warning to others: sacrificing [ellipsis]. The related note reads, Analysis of character and plot, connecting with story’s purpose.

The continuation of the note from the previous page also refers to the following text: one’s own happiness in order to satisfy societal expectations can poison one’s life and even destroy entire families.

The note, Contrasting summary and analysis of another reader’s response refers to the following text:

When my father read [open quotes] The Story of an Hour, [close quotes] his reaction to Mrs. Mallard was more antagonistic than my own. He sees Chopin’s story as a timeless [open quotes] battle of the sexes, [close quotes] serving as further proof that men will never really be able to understand what it is that women want. Mrs. Mallard endures an obviously unsatisfying marriage without ever explaining to her husband that she feels trapped and unfulfilled. Mrs. Mallard dismisses the question of whether or not she is experiencing a [open quotes] monstrous joy [close quotes] (15) as trivial, but my father does not think that this is a trivial question. He believes Mrs. Mallard is guilty of a monstrous joy because she selfishly celebrates the death of her husband without ever having allowed him the opportunity to understand her feelings. He believes that, above all, Brently Mallard should be seen as the most victimized character in the story. Mr. Mallard is a good, kind man, with friends who care about him and a marriage that he thinks he can depend on. He [open quotes] never looked save with love [close quotes] (16) upon his wife, his only [open quotes] crime [close quotes] (16) was his presence in the house, and yet he is the one who is bereaved at the end of the story, for reasons he will never understand. Mrs. Mallard’s passion for her newly discovered freedom is perhaps understandable, but according to my father, Mr. Mallard is the character most deserving of sympathy.

The notes, Contrasting summary and analysis of another reader’s response; Cultural and historical background providing context for response and story itself refer to the following text: Maybe not surprisingly, my grandmother’s interpretation of [open quotes] The Story of an Hour [close quotes] was radically different from both mine and my father’s. My grandmother was married in 1936 and widowed in 1959 and therefore can identify with Chopin’s characters, who live at the turn of the twentieth century. Her first reaction, aside from her unwavering support for Mrs. Mallard and her predicament, was that this story demonstrates the differences between the ways men and women related to each other a century ago and the way they relate today. Unlike my father, who thinks Mrs. Mallard is too passive, my grandmother believes that Mrs. Mallard doesn’t even know that she is feeling repressed until after she is told that Brently is dead. In 1894, divorce was so scandalous and stigmatized that it simply wouldn’t have been an option for Mrs. Mallard, and so her only way out of the marriage would have been one of their deaths. Being relatively young, Mrs. Mallard probably considered herself doomed to a long life in an unhappy marriage. My grandmother also [ellipsis].

Work Cited, Chopin, Kate. [open quotes] The Story of an Hour. [close quotes] The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, edited by Michael Meyer and D. Quentin Miller, 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019, pp. 000.

The continuation of the previous notes also refers to the following text: feels that, in spite of all we know of Mrs. Mallard’s feelings about her husband and her marriage, she still manages to live up to everyone’s expectations of her as a woman both in life and in death. The note, Analysis supported with textual evidence refers to the following text: She is a dutiful wife to Brently, as she is expected to be. She weeps [open quotes] with sudden, wild abandonment [close quotes] when she hears the news of his death; she locks herself in her room to cope with her new situation, and she has a fatal heart attack upon seeing her husband arrive home. Naturally, the male doctors would think that she died of the [open quotes] joy that kills [close quotes] (16) — nobody could have guessed that she was unhappy with her life, and she would never have wanted them to know.

The note, Conclusion summarizing reader responses explored in the paper refers to the following text:

Interpretations of [open quotes] The Story of an Hour [close quotes] seem to vary according to the gender, age, and experience of the reader. While both male and female readers can certainly sympathize with Mrs. Mallard’s plight, female readers, as was evident in our class discussions, seem to relate more easily to her predicament and more quickly exonerate her of any responsibility for her unhappy situation. Conversely, male readers are more likely to feel compassion for Mr. Mallard, who loses his wife for reasons that will always remain entirely unknown to him. Older readers probably understand more readily the strength of social forces and the difficulty of trying to deny societal expectations concerning gender roles in general and marriage in particular. Younger readers seem to feel that Mrs. Mallard is too passive and that she could have improved her domestic life immeasurably if she had taken the initiative to either improve or end her relationship with her husband. Ultimately, how each individual reader responds to Mrs. Mallard’s story reveals his or her own ideas about marriage, society, and how men and women communicate with each other.

Before beginning your own writing assignment on fiction, you should review Chapter 43, “Reading and the Writing Process,” which provides a step-by-step explanation of how to choose a topic, develop a thesis, and organize various types of writing assignments. If you use outside sources, you should also be familiar with the conventional documentation procedures described in Chapter 44, “The Literary Research Paper.”