The Expectant Reader in Theory and Practice

Author(s): Lois Josephs Fowler and Kathleen McCormick

Source: The English Journal , Oct., 1986, Vol. 75, No. 6 (Oct., 1986), pp. 45-47
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/819009

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to The English Journal

This content downloaded from

132.72.138.1 on Sun, 04 Sep 2022 11:14:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The Expectant Reader
in Theory
and Practice

Lois Josephs Fowler and Kathleen McCormick

genres. Students' expectations, therefore, allow for

In the past decade or so, reader-response criticism
has emerged as the kind of theory potentially certain
most interpretations but inhibit others that sur-
useful for changing both pedagogy and literary face only when their expectations change.
issues addressed in the classroom. Some pedagog- The unit begins with a fairy tale. Not only does
ical ideas have been offered with this wealth of the genre frequently contain metamorphoses but
theory, but they have been accompanied byitfew is also one about which students have clearly-
concrete and specific suggestions about defined actual expectations. We begin with Italo Calvi-
classroom practice. The lack may result from no'san"The Canary Prince" because in this story a
overriding emphasis on the ideal reader rather prince turns into a canary-a metamorphosis that
than the actual one. As teachers we need some parallels Kafka's story. While few students have
working strategies, so in this paper, we suggest previously
one read it, most are still almost immedi-
issue that provokes students into more self-con- ately able to recognize its familiar fairy
scious awareness of what they do as readers conventions.
and
helps them to develop insights about how individ- We ask students if they have difficulty accepting
ual expectations of texts, rather than just the texts
the unrealistic events of the story, such as the met-
themselves, color their perceptions of literature.
amorphosis, the witches, or the magic potions. No
Since use of the inductive or Socratic method one does, but we want them to determine explicitly
of questioning may lead students too forcefully whyin they do not. While responses vary, they are
a predetermined direction, we suggest instead always a informed by students' acceptance of the
sequence of reading assignments and strategies. conventions of the fairy tale: most of them rec-
As an example, we show here how students can that they were introduced to fairy tales at
ognize
arrive at powerful, individual readings of Kafka'san early age with the distinction between fantasy
"Metamorphosis" and, more important, increasing and reality blurred. Consequently, they accept the
awareness that their assumptions and expectations unrealistic "once upon a time" and the "happily
about a text influence their reading experience everasafter" construction of the fairy tale; they
much as the text itself. accept the stereotyped activities of the handsome
Each of the following texts-fairy tale, fable, prince, the wicked stepmother, the mistreated
parable, realistic story--describes a metamorpho-princess, the naive king, and the cagey witch.
sis of some kind. What we wish to help students We also ask students what questions they tend
recognize is that their responses to these meta- not to ask of a fairy tale. We discover that they
morphoses will differ, not because of intrinsic tex-
initially avoid any issues that confront realism-
tual differences but because their assumptions the motives of the stepmother, the compatibility of
the prince and princess, the existence of the
about genre classifications cause them to have dif-
ferent interpretative expectations about how meta-
witches, the means by which the prince turns into
morphoses can function in each of these sub-a canary and the princess disguises herself as a

October 1986 45

This content downloaded from

132.72.138.1 on Sun, 04 Sep 2022 11:14:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Students then read Gabriel Marquez's "The
Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," a quasi-
biblical parable about an old angel, sick and hurt,
with damaged wings, who lands in the yard of a
poor family and becomes the center of interest for
people of the town. Because students are as famil-
iar with the traditional parable form as they were
with the fairy tale and the fable, they do not ques-
tion the supernatural or unrealistic events of the
story. What they do question is the ironic tone in
which the parable is presented. Why does the
angel look so old and sad? What happened to the
angel's power? Why is the angel so ugly? Why does
the angel land in such a strange place? What these
questions reveal is an acceptance of the magical
quality of angels but rigid expectations about the
appropriate demeanor of angels. Even though
angels, like canary princes and talking animals,
belong to the realm of the imaginary, or at least
man. These questions are not in themselves the unknown, they have been so conventionalized
invalid; they are simply seen by students as inap- that students expect them to appear and behave
propriate to ask of a fairy tale because students in prescribed ways.
assume that the events of a fairy tale should be Despite students' acceptance of the strange or
accepted, not analyzed. We will see later, however, magical in all of the literary forms they have read
that these are exactly the kinds of questions stu- thus far, they are still puzzled by Gregor's trans-
dents ask of Kafka's "Metamorphosis." By making formation into a bug in Kafka's "metamorphosis."
students aware of the questions they would not ask This demonstrates effectively that students' expec-
of a fairy tale, we alert them to simple ways in tations, as well as the events of a narrative, deter-
which their responses are determined by their mine how they react, in this case with initial
expectations about texts rather than by texts confusion and disbelief. Because its tone and set-
themselves. ting is realistic, students report that they are
Next, we turn to a fable, a genre about which unable to categorize Kafka's story as either a fairy
students' responses may be somewhat more ana- tale, a fable, or a parable, three forms of classifi-
lytical. They themselves report that they expect tocation that would allow them to naturalize Gre-
find a "message" of some kind in a fable. We use gor's metamorphosis in the way they naturalized
"The Fox and the Grapes" or "The Tortoise and that of the prince, the animals, and the angel.
the Hare" because they depict metamorphoses of Thus a metamorphosis becomes a subject for
a kind. Even if students do not understand alle- interpretation for the first time in this assignment
gory, these stories do not provoke questions sequence.
about This occurs not so much because of the
text of Kafka's story, but rather because students
how animals can act like people. Just as students
have expectations about the nature of metamor-
accepted the prince's transformation into a canary
phoses in literature. They assume that metamor-
in "The Canary Prince," so they accept the human
characteristics of the animals in these fables. But phoses can only occur in unrealistic and
students' discussions of these fables transcend fantastical writing.
Thus students ask questions of Gregor's meta-
those of the fairy tale because their expectations
morphosis
engage them on a moral level. In fact we get some that they did not ask of characters who
were
disagreement in response: some students resent a transformed in other stories. How can a per-
son really
didactic message in the literary form; others are change into a bug? Why does Gregor,
though
comfortable because they feel they "get the point." a bug, try to go on with his daily chores
as if nothing
Nonetheless, all students expect and therefore find has happened to him? Why does his
family
a moral in these fables, something they did not virtually ignore him? Because students
cannot
expect or find in the fairy tales they read. resolve such questions from their prior

46 English Journal

This content downloaded from

132.72.138.1 on Sun, 04 Sep 2022 11:14:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
expectations of literary conventions, they feel the same way that they analyzed Gregor as a loath-
need to search for new ways to explain or explain some, pitiable creature because he turned into an
away Gregor's metamorphosis. If they have been insect. In fact the prince does prove to be rather
trained in school that if a text does not make lit- simple-minded, being easily tricked and finally
eral sense, it may make sense metaphorically, needing
stu- to be rescued by the princess. But stu-
dents can, without prompting from the teacher, dents did not choose to develop such an analysis
draw on their knowledge of the literary convention of the Canary Prince, not because the text would
of symbolism, their knowledge of psychology,not andallow it, but because their expectations found
their personal experiences of rejection to analyze an easier way to accept the Prince's
Gregor's metamorphosis symbolically. They arrive metamorphosis.
at the operative question: Why might a human To organize a unit around theoretical issues, a
being perceive himself to be a bug? Less sophisti- reader-centered approach to teaching literature
cated students may need more direct guidance. can encourage students to analyze the influences
Their experiences with metamorphoses in theand lit- assumptions underlying their apprehension
erary genres they do understand, however, make of texts rather than simply to state how they "feel"
it easier for them to recognize that they must about texts. It may take a few weeks to convince
expand their expectations if they are to naturalize students that they have assumptions, that these
Gregor's metamorphosis: most of them beginassumptionsto are acquired rather than innate, and
analyze this metamorphosis in a new way, as a that psy- they are really of interest in the classroom.
chological rather than a physical transformation. Our students gain confidence in their own ability
Students did not even think of analyzingto the
analyze the individual expectations that under-
Canary Prince's metamorphosis as psychological lie their experiences of texts. The classroom,
because its magical nature conformed with their therefore, becomes a place where students develop
expectations about fairy tales. Once students their own ideas with less obvious prompting by the
assume that Gregor's metamorphosis is psycholog- teacher-though not with less planning.
ical, they can then confront a whole host of pos- How clever was Charles Dickens with his title,
sibilities in their individual responses to the story:
Great Expectations-a title having no place, no per-
Gregor's anger with his family; Gregor's feelings son, no concrete subject. How do we read the book
of insecurity; Gregor's feelings of exploitation; after reading the title? How do we feel about the
Gregor's inability to confront his own misery.forceIt is of expectations as they influence perceptions
important to recognize that students' knowledge of what happens, of how characters think and act?
of psychology and symbolism and their personal Pip perceives that Miss Havisham is his patron
experiences of rejection were in their repertoiresand acts accordingly; she perceives his misconcep-
when reading all these stories, but they were tions
acti- and feeds on them; Jaggers, the convict
vated only by Kafka's story because their assump- turned patron and father, perceives that Pip will
tions about fairy tales, fables, and parables
be made happy if he is educated to be a gentle-
preclude such forms of analysis. man; and so on. Only when Pip understands the
Just as important as students' developmentcomplexities
of of his expectations can he begin to
confront
symbolic interpretations is their understanding of himself and the text that is his life. Sim-
how they arrive at such interpretations. Having
ilarly, only when our students are able to under-
read a number of stories about which they did not the expectations that guide their reading
stand
feel the need to develop a symbolic interpretation,
and interpretative experiences can they become
students now gain a greater insight into the confident, critical, and self-conscious readers of
literature.
assumptions and expectations that direct their
determination of when and why they feel com-
pelled to develop symbolic interpretations. It
would have been possible, for example, forLois
stu-Josephs Fowler and Kathleen
dents to have analyzed the Canary Prince as a McCormick
frail teach at Carnegie-Mellon
man because he turned into a little bird in the University.

October 1986 47

This content downloaded from

132.72.138.1 on Sun, 04 Sep 2022 11:14:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms