Reader Response Theory by

Pop Quiz!

nur_lyana_binti_mohamad_zaky_2 — 2025-02-16 12:40:21 UTC

[15 Mins]

Close Reading Activity

nur_lyana_binti_mohamad_zaky_2 — 2025-02-16 12:41:11 UTC

Read the extract provided and consider the following questions with the Reader Response Theory in mind:

1. How does Mr Eliot "read" Mrs Eliot as a text. How does he interpet her? How does his interpretation reveal his "baggage" (preconceived notions & biasness)

2. How do we "read" both characters as text? What are our baggages as the narratee?

Post your answers in the designated columns (just 1 reponse per group)! :)

[20 Mins]

1 + 1 = ?

nur_lyana_binti_mohamad_zaky_2 — 2025-02-16 12:48:06 UTC

What is 1 thing you've learnt today?
What is 1 question you have about the Reader Response Theory?

[5 Mins]

Close Reading Activity

irene_ti — 2025-02-19 11:31:43 UTC

Opinions of Mr Elliot

Very traditional and conservative (has to remain "pure" before marriage,
Mannerisms are very structured and manufactured (read a book on how to kiss a girl)

Mrs Elliot

what we know of her is based off information from Mr Elliot
we dont see her POV
she does cry a lot...
our understanding of the characters and the setting is coloured by Mr Elliot's perceptions

relationship between mrs Elliot and mr Elliot

she cries a lot, she is just a bystander to Mr Elliot
Mr Elliot doesn't react to her "crying". she can't help him have a baby, she can't help him with his manuscripts --> she loses her "function" or "utility" to Mr Elliot
why do we perceive this as unloving? --> emphasis on purity, he is very detached, his behaviour doesn't match our ideal of a "loving relationship"

natalialewhj — 2025-02-19 11:32:37 UTC

Eliot sees Mrs. Eliot as a concept, not really as a person- the ideas of "love" and "marriage" are very functional to him. They kept repeating "make a baby"- a confirmation of their love, even if there's no actual love? Following traditions of marriage because the language feels very informative, rather than having any emotional. The emotional bit only comes in at the end when "the girl friend" comes in and they have a good "cry". The language used also reflects their distance in the relationship- it moves from Mrs Eliot, to Cornelia, and then Mrs Eliot again at the ending.

Gender expectations, societal expectations of marriage, such as how having a baby legitimises a marriage.

timothydavid2503 — 2025-02-19 11:33:21 UTC

Hemingway keeps us at a clinical voyeuristic pov- we have no access to the characters’ emotion. We are inferring what they feel, for example: ‘perhaps they are sad because they cannot have a baby.’ A sense of detachment from the characters. The use of short sentences contribute to that sense of clinical detachment - like a case study. A contrast - he projects his own views on his wife, he expects her to follow along with his wants.

In 1925 - how would the readers back then view this character?

This would have been the norm, as wives were viewed as mere accessories to their husbands so it would not have seemed ‘off’.

Contextual cues

omission of introspection because of the cold tone and the objective pov that Elliot is using, that mirrors how his wife is regarded as less of a person because we have no access to her and her thoughts and feelings. Her desires are not present at all in the text.

Elliot imposes his beliefs onto his wife - he believes in how he should act as a man, as a husband (him being shocked at how other girls and men act) shows us the conventions of that time period.