Sawyer 1 Kyra Sawyer Reader Response Criticism Draft 1 Literary Theory & Writing Dr. Pennington 2 December 2013 Teaching Whole-­‐Class Texts: An Analysis of Cultural Poststructuralist and Gendered Reader-­‐Response Theory as Applied to S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders “Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the things you want to see,” (Hinton, 122). Americans have a tendency to look on from an outsider’s perspective and come to conclusions about situations without knowing the story behind the circumstance. For example, one looks over to the neighborhood park and sees a group of early adolescent boys dressed in black with slicked back hair and a grimaced face and thinks, “Man, those boys are trouble, they’re going nowhere fast and really screwed up their lives. Where are their parents, their teachers? What a shame.” While one may feel these conclusions are satisfactory, little is known about these boys and their backgrounds. Suppose one boy is abused, another’s parents died when he was a child, while yet another is bullied beyond belief – would one come to the same conclusion about the boys? S.E. Hinton addresses preliminary judgment and other life lessons in her novel The Outsiders (2012). The Outsiders has stood the test of time and is used in adolescent classrooms across the nation to discuss issues such as social class, loyalty, Sawyer 2 love, violence, and choice making. However, in teaching The Outsiders as a whole class novel, teachers make certain assumptions about the “interpretive community” of their students. Many teachers do not recognize the difference in reading based on social identities the student may hold; specifically, students of a multicultural background, specific gender identity, or other cultural institution may respond differently to The Outsiders in comparison to the “typical student.” In America, this “typical student” is usually of a Caucasian, middle-­‐class background, and therefore a teacher may guide discussion in a certain manner, circling around this idea of the “typical student.” An application of cultural reader response theory sheds light on how a student of a diverse cultural institution could respond to a teaching of The Outsiders. When dappling in cultural reader response criticism, theorists tend to examine five key disciplinary viewpoints: anthropological, feminist/gender, historical, Marxist, and structuralist (Beach, 125). However, many of these perspectives overlap one another when discussing cultural theories of response. Literary critic Ferdinand de Saussure coined the concept of the signifier and the signified. The signifier, which can be a variety of different words, images, or objects, elicits a variety of different responses (Drimmer). For example, take the word “coke.” In The Outsiders the narrator, Ponyboy, uses it as a drink title to describe what he and his friends order at the “soda shops” the frequent. Today, the term is either associated with a kind of drug, or used as a name of a drink. However, in some regions the term “coke” is used for all carbonated beverages, not simply Coca Cola soda products. Essentially, the meanings of a signifier can change, therefore changing what is signified. Sawyer 3 Poststructuralist theory examines “the ways in which schools, businesses, organized religions, or governments limit the signified of the signifier to meanings consistent with their own institutional ideology’’ (Beach, 126). A reader sometimes feels a false sense of originality in his/her reading, as he/she may not know his/her reading is coming from an underlying influence. Therefore, to understand one’s reading, an understanding of the ideological stances inherent in these cultural responses is necessary. As part of this cultural socialization, one must acquire certain “reading formations” or “subject positions” (Bennett). Reading formations are the ideological stances that yield certain subject positions, or a certain way of responding to a text (Beach 129). As readers then examine a text, they typically find points of interconnection to their own experiences that could be historical events, mass media representations, movie adaptations, etc. Therefore, a student reading The Outsiders could pick out the term “greaser” and relate it to the ever-­‐popular movie Grease and the historical popularity of the sixties’ sock-­‐hops. Their knowledge of these events would then affect their reading of the text, as it is what the student has previous connections invested in, as well as their “reading formations.” Establishing a reading formation then leads to the institutional socialization of one’s response; the connection between the “institutions” one associates with and how the institution itself conditions the reader to adapt a certain reading foundation (Beach 130). Essentially, this comes down to identifying with an institution or group by defining one’s gender roles, religious affiliations, class standing, or political views, just to name a few, through the reading of the text. These are also known as learned, or conditioned, cultural practices. Therefore, if a student identifies as along liberal, Sawyer 4 they may pay close attention to the stratification of wealth within The Outsiders and call out the text on how it portrays its characters as middle to lower-­‐middle class. Similarly, a student deeply grounded in their spirituality may be quite offended by the text, as it discusses many religiously taboo subjects, such as gang initiation and violence and the underage use of alcohol. Conversely, another student could relate the loyalty the Socs and Greasers have for one another as a representation of how one should be loyal to God, and do whatever they need to do for Him. Obviously, cultural practices greatly influence a student’s response to The Outsiders, as well as any text the student encounters. Gender theories of cultural reader response also affect how a reader grapples with a text, as the reader is identifying with a certain group in which they belong. Richard Beacher states in A Teacher’s Introduction to Reader-­‐Response Theories: “Readers’ gender roles and attitudes – their culturally acquired propensity to adopt “masculine” versus “feminine” orientations or reading formations – also influence responses” (139). Beacher also examines an interesting topic in his book – the issue of a predominantly male literary canon. Critics are examining the affects of student readers working with primarily patriarchal texts, where male dominance and feminine submissiveness are exemplified. Some believe this is conditioning student readers to automatically seek out the supreme male figure and timid female figure in all texts (139-­‐141). When examining The Outsiders, this automatic gendered reading would fit quite well, as the novel stars almost all dominant male characters, fighting, essentially, to assert absolute dominance over the other group of males. Students may very well pick up on this power struggle of male assertiveness quickly, as they are Sawyer 5 highly conditioned to read for male dominance. The interesting aspect of The Outsiders comes in the lone female character of Cherry, a “member” of the Socs. Students may see her role in the gang as atypical at best, but a student seeking out a feminist interpretation of the text could argue that Cherry asserts the most power out of any of the male characters, as she converses back and forth with the Socs’ opposing gang, the Greasers. She is easily the most interesting “game changer” in the novel. However, I myself am a feminist reader, and could therefore be asserting my own beliefs onto the text. All in all, poststructuralist and gendered cultural reader response theory holds a large roll in a student’s interpretation of a text, and specifically The Outsiders. Teachers must recognize the pertinence of the aforementioned cultural reader response theories and begin tying them into daily and unit lesson plans. Using cultural theories of reader response to base text discussion upon could aid student understanding of and connection to the text. Connection is key to student learning, as the learning then becomes personal to each student as an individual, so teachers are not simply teaching to the group, or middle, but teaching students on an independent level. Personal student learning is what teachers can argue is the result of practical application of cultural theories of reader response. Therefore, in teaching The Outsiders, a teacher is not only instilling skill sets within students, but personal meaning that will make the student’s learning stand the test of time, just as The Outsiders has. Sawyer 6 Works Cited Beach, Richard, and Urbana, IL. National Council of Teachers of English. A Teacher's Introduction To Reader-­‐Response Theories. NCTE Teacher's Introduction Series. n.p.: 1993. ERIC. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. Bennett, Tony, Colin Mercer, and Janet Woollacott, eds. Popular Culture and Social Relations. Milton Keynes: Open UP, 1986. Drimmer, Sonja. "Saussure: An Introduction." Saussure: An Introduction. Columbia University, 2007. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. Hinton, S. E. The Outsiders. New York: Speak, 2012. Print.