what exactly is 'a reading of a novel'?

[mudcake42]

You can hide this advertisement by registering.

I've got this english assignment that says to find a 'reading of the novel you have studied and explain how this reading is supported by the text'.

What exactly is a reading? Is it just an anlysis or can it be a movie or something ...

any help would be greatly appreciated!

[cccclaire]

a reading's when you interpret a text from a particular perspective, e.g. a feminist reading would look at parts of the text that show female roles and whether it shows females as being strong or weak characters etc.
There are a tonne of different readings, feminist is just one.
what the questions asking you to do (I think) is to just take a reading and find examples of where it could be applied.

[Zephyrio]

Hey Mudcake,

A "reading" refers to applying some literary theories (though they do not have to be strictly applied in a literal sense; for example, Marxism can be both used to describe the ideas of Karl Marx, but can also be a "reading" also) that can be seen through texts.

For example...

Like Claire said, there you can read texts through a Feminist's perspective, where you examine the social roles of women, their conditions of marriage, their economic situation etc. When you read classics, like Jane Austen and Shakespeare you'll find that women live in patriarchal societies - marriage is reduced down to business transactions, they clearly play a subordinate role to men, only males are allowed to have formal educations etc etc.

But you can also look at texts and how they reflect other theories. A Marxist critic looks at the distribution of power within society and the social classes formed by economic bands. A psychoanalyst applies Freudian theories to texts; a queer theorists looks at the oppression of homosexuality through the Canon and other literary works; Post-Colonialism attempts to comprehend the problems of European colonialism on literary production, and consists of writings from countries whose experience of colonialism has shaped their political existence, under the control of a European power; Modernists look at the grand scale of change in the early 20th century and the list goes on, and on, and on! lol

Anyway, hope that helps you. It's really late.

And don't forget to add capitals, e.g. Feminism, Marxism to your reading! My teacher doesn't like it when we don't because yeah... they're movements or something, the name to certain eras...

Toodles!

[ccc123]

A 'reading' of a text is basically reading a text from a specific perspective. E.g feminist reading, you would observe features that reflected feminist ideals, so if you read Frankenstein from a feminist perspective you could discuss how the partiachal paradigms are reflected etc. Similarly, a Marxist reading would place emphasis on Marxist ideals, exploitation of the proletariat etc. E.g Animal Farm is typically read from a Marxist perspective. A psychoanalyst reading would involve analysing the psychology of the pivotal characters, applying Freudian theories.

Hope that helps. It has just come to my attention that Zephyrio provided a particularly helpful explanation, and as it turns out I've just paraphrased what he said, only with less detail...