The author and the reader- without either of these participants fiction is empty. The author is the creator of the work and builds the structure upon which the reader hangs their interpretations and theories. Neither one comes to the task completely unbiased and neither leaves it unchanged. The relationship between the reader and the author is a power struggle that has gone back for as long as humans have been telling and editing stories and the struggle will go on until we stop. The text 's The Driver 's Seat by Muriel Spark and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson both show the power and lack that the reader and the author have.
In his famous essay 'The Death of the Author ' Roland Barthes claimed that "the …show more content…
(1325) Stevenson did not intend for his readers to know the secrets of his novella before they read it. It is only the abundance of versions of the tale that has caused this. For a modern reader it is virtually impossible to begin the novella without a version of the Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation scene already in mind. This knowledge alone drastically alters the readers reaction to the novella. For Stevenson 's contemporaries the first introduction to Hyde is a mysterious tale wherein he callously injures a young girl and uses Jekyll 's money to pay for the compensation. This scene would have originally set up the reader 's dislike for Hyde while introducing them to the mystery of what is the connection between Hyde and Jekyll but for the modern audience we already know so we are not drawn along with Mr Utterson as he attempts to discover what the truth is but run ahead of him watching him discover the truths we already know. For the modern reader the mystery is not in what Utterson will find but in how and when he will find it. For example while Mr Utterson spends the first three chapters convinced that this is the work of blackmail the modern reader is already perhaps subconsciously looking for clues that Jekyll and Hyde are one and dismissing red …show more content…
The end of the novella is revealed to the reader at the beginning of chapter three- " She will be found tomorrow morning dead from multiple stab wounds". This prior knowledge unlike the knowledge about Jekyll and Hyde was a conscious decision by the author. This prior information means that as a reader we can understand a lot more of Lise 's actions then the characters in the novella. For example her search for "her man" which the characters within the stories assume is her boyfriend but which the reader due to their prior knowledge knows is her murderer. However this foreshadowing doesn 't mean we know who the murderer is or exactly how it will play out. Due to the reader 's awareness that Lise will get murdered the reader is automatically suspicious of all the characters that she encounters even when they have done nothing to warrant this suspicion. This high level of suspicion paired with the knowledge that this is Lise 's last day alive means that the reader is hyperaware of everything Lise does and starts the reader 's desperate attempts to understand why Lise does what she
In his famous essay 'The Death of the Author ' Roland Barthes claimed that "the …show more content…
(1325) Stevenson did not intend for his readers to know the secrets of his novella before they read it. It is only the abundance of versions of the tale that has caused this. For a modern reader it is virtually impossible to begin the novella without a version of the Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation scene already in mind. This knowledge alone drastically alters the readers reaction to the novella. For Stevenson 's contemporaries the first introduction to Hyde is a mysterious tale wherein he callously injures a young girl and uses Jekyll 's money to pay for the compensation. This scene would have originally set up the reader 's dislike for Hyde while introducing them to the mystery of what is the connection between Hyde and Jekyll but for the modern audience we already know so we are not drawn along with Mr Utterson as he attempts to discover what the truth is but run ahead of him watching him discover the truths we already know. For the modern reader the mystery is not in what Utterson will find but in how and when he will find it. For example while Mr Utterson spends the first three chapters convinced that this is the work of blackmail the modern reader is already perhaps subconsciously looking for clues that Jekyll and Hyde are one and dismissing red …show more content…
The end of the novella is revealed to the reader at the beginning of chapter three- " She will be found tomorrow morning dead from multiple stab wounds". This prior knowledge unlike the knowledge about Jekyll and Hyde was a conscious decision by the author. This prior information means that as a reader we can understand a lot more of Lise 's actions then the characters in the novella. For example her search for "her man" which the characters within the stories assume is her boyfriend but which the reader due to their prior knowledge knows is her murderer. However this foreshadowing doesn 't mean we know who the murderer is or exactly how it will play out. Due to the reader 's awareness that Lise will get murdered the reader is automatically suspicious of all the characters that she encounters even when they have done nothing to warrant this suspicion. This high level of suspicion paired with the knowledge that this is Lise 's last day alive means that the reader is hyperaware of everything Lise does and starts the reader 's desperate attempts to understand why Lise does what she