In reader response theory, how involved is authorial intention? Authors write hoping their work will obtain a certain desired response (if a writer intends to craft a thriller than they would hope readers respond to it as a thriller and not as something else, like a comedy). Similarly, how heavily do reader response critics care about any disconnects between authorial intention and the reader’s response to the text?

In transactional reader response theory, the reader needs to use an aesthetic approach where “we experience a personal relationship to the text that focuses our attention on the emotional subtleties of its language and encourages us to make judgement” (Tyson 165). There is also a focus on indeterminate meanings, focused on “actions that are not clearly explained or that seem to have multiple explanations” (Tyson 166). Both of these approaches require closely analyzing language and what the author did and did not decide to incorporate into their text. It seems impossible to completely discount authorial intention when considering the response to a text.

Another method of reader response theory that appears to focus heavily on authorial intention is affective stylistics. In affective stylistics, “the text consists of the results it produces, and those results occur within the reader” (Tyson 167). This method appears to take the relationship between authorial intention and reader response that is developed in transactional theory one step further by taking a closer reading of the text’s structure.

Going back to my question about authorial intention in reader response theory, while authorial intention is important in crafting the story, it does not always perfectly translate to the reader’s response to that story. If we are meant to analyze the “emotional subtleties of its language” (Tyson 165), and the author crafted the text with the reader’s response in mind, then in a perfect world the reader’s response to the language should match the author’s intent for the text.

However, we are not living in a perfect world, and reader’s often respond to texts differently than authors intend. My primary focus of evaluation is on a section from a chapter in The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. In this novel, the protagonist, Ruby, has the ability to get inside other’s heads and control their actions. However, she does not know how to control this ability, so she seeks help from another character, Clancy, who contains a similar ability to control the minds and actions of others. In this specific section, Clancy uses his abilities on Ruby to force romantic thoughts and actions regarding the two of them into her mind. Afterwards, Ruby is unable to determine what, if anything, happened between the two of them.

Given that Ruby narrates the novel, and this is not the first time Clancy has revealed interest in her, many readers have responded to this section as a rape scene. This is not only a judgement call made by readers based on the language of the passage, but also based on the determinate and indeterminate meanings found in the text up until, and at that point.

In thinking of authorial intention and how well an author is able to carefully curate a reader’s response, in this particular section of the novel the two did not come together perfectly. In hearing of reader’s responding to this section of the text, Alexandra Bracken has expressed that it was not her intention at all for it to read like a rape scene. Though this was not Alexandra Bracken’s intention in writing this scene, it does not seem that reader response critics would care much about her intentions. Affective stylistics would be beneficial in establishing the vast amount of readers that responded to this section similarly. In contrary, I could see reader response theorists using transactional reader response theory to analyze the language of the text and the indeterminate and determinate meanings to determine where Alexandra Bracken went wrong, and how this reader response came about.

Works Cited:

Bracken, Alexandra. The Darkest Minds. Hyperion, an Imprint of Disney Book Group, 2013.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015