读者反应理论下的《眼前的生活》
Summary：In 1900s , the center of the literary criticism changed to readers. They thought the regeneration and spread of the literary text‟s meaning could not depart from the response of readers , and presented some basic theories , such as “horizon of expectation” “blank” and “meaning not qualitative”. This paper will analysis and comment the famous movie THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES from this two basic theories.
Key words : Reader-oriented theory horizon of expectation blank theory
Reader-oriented theory began in 1930s, and thrived in 1970s. They thought that former literary criticism only focused on the writer or the text , and ignored the readers . They believed this is a big misknowledge and their
aim is to against the misknowledge in literary activity . They had some basic characteristics. The first one was they objected to regard the writer and the text as the most important part , and emphasized the importance of the readers. The second one was they insisted that the object of Art Studies should be the readers and the response of the readers . The last one was they thought the readers‟ aesthetic receive about the literary text was a subjective and creative process .
After that , many critics put forward to their ideas . Of them , Hans Robert Jauss presented a concept whose name is horizon of expectation . Horizon of expectation means in the activities of literary reception, readers had all sorts of experience, interest, literacy, and ideal ,those synthetically formed a appreciative request and appreciative level about the literary works . In another words , it referred to the reader‟s comprehensible range
about the literary works from the condition they have now. It is an important concept in those reader-oriented theories . Jauss advocated to pay attention to the readers , and suggested that literary studies should analyze the reader‟s response in different period from the works was came out . So horizon of expectation was widely concerned and applied to all kinds of art areas . Some people use it to describe the change of the mentality and perceiving during the process of receiving an art works ; some people use it as a methodology to suggest that the art‟s creation should consider the horizon of expectation of the receiver .
Wolfgang Iser started from the microcosmic act of reading , regarded the personal act of reading as object of study . He thought reading activities is a interactional process between the readers and the text . Based on that , he came up with the Blank Theory and Meaning Not
Qualitative Theory . He thought during reading , the readers would have a lot of Blanks, which we called uncertain points , and the readers needed to constantly fill in those Blanks . Only did this , the reader could complete the process of reading . What‟s more , he thought each reader would have different feeling when they read the same works. Even thought the same people read the same works , they will have different ideal in different time . Therefore , the meaning of works are not qualitative . This theory also is very important . Because it indicated the abundance of the literary text ‟ meaning and the creative of reader during the activity of literary reception . The movie THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES was directed by Vadim Perelman . It‟s protagonist is Diana , young Diana was acted by Evan Rachel Wood and older Diana was acted by Uma Thurman. Dania , a high school
girl , aways have a large amount of passion . She is impetuous and wild , and likes dream . In wonderful spring , she wears away the last time of high school with loves and drugs and disregarded the care of her conservative friend . However , this kind of passion was crushed by a shooting accident . She and her best friend ‟ life was changed from that time . 15 years later , Dania still tried to forget the miserable experience of that day …… Apparently , adult Dania formed a beautiful life for herself : she still lived in suburb of Connecticut and got married with a profession whose name is Poral , what‟s more , they had a lovely daughter. However , reality is less perfect than presentation . Especially when the 15th anniversary of the miserable day in her teens approaches, the darkness that Diana has been trying to escape enveloped her again. Her husband Poral became estranged , her daughter developed a habit of lying and the best terrible is the real truth began to appeal ……
girl , aways have a large amount of passion . She is impetuous and wild , and likes dream . In wonderful spring , she wears away the last time of high school with loves and drugs and disregarded the care of her conservative friend . However , this kind of passion was crushed by a shooting accident . She and her best friend ‟ life was changed from that time . 15 years later , Dania still tried to forget the miserable experience of that day …… Apparently , adult Dania formed a beautiful life for herself : she still lived in suburb of Connecticut and got married with a profession whose name is Poral , what‟s more , they had a lovely daughter. However , reality is less perfect than presentation . Especially when the 15th anniversary of the miserable day in her teens approaches, the darkness that Diana has been trying to escape enveloped her again. Her husband Poral became estranged , her daughter developed a habit of lying and the best terrible is the real truth began to appeal ……
The two periods of Dania „s life was combined together in THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES . It used a unique angle of view to let us understand a truth : a simple decision will change everything!
In this movie , a lot of meaning is not qualitative and it gives us a large amount of blanks to image . For example , at the beginning , the movie described the Dania‟s indulgent high school life carefully , we may think it is a movie about a beautiful girl‟s youth life . However , it changed fastly ! It challenge the horizon of expectation of us. The shooting accident happened . The murderer is their schoolmate who like Dania , and he force Dania and her best friend to do a
decision that which one to be shot Of course , they all are very panic , but Dania‟s best friend said “shoot me ” . What will Dania do ? This is the biggest uncertain in the movie . The director give us the blank , we can image if Dania is OK ， what will happened ? And if Dania is died , what will be performance ? Yes , that looks reasonable , one of them will die and the story of another girl continue . All of sudden , the story change to Dania‟s life of 15 years later and what happened just now is a bad dream of Dania . It is amazing , right ? It challenge the horizon of expectation of us again . And the more blanks was leaved . What happened in deed that day ?
Then , the next plots look puzzled . The youth life of Dania and the adult life of her was across . Those parts of fragment combinate together make people can not find the reality ,and the meaning is not qualitative at all . So people have different ideals about the
movie . On the one hand ,people think it is a wonderful movie , because the movie not only tell us the life is precious ,but also make us think that should we blame those people who protect themself when they face with death ? Should we appropriate those people who abundant their life to save other people ? They belive we can learn many things from the movie . On the another hand , people think this movie always repeat some fragments and the story is out of order .What ‟s more ,they think the logic is not very smooth and make the audience feel tired and boring.
So we can see , the story always challenge people‟s horizon of expectation and those blanks and uncertain meaning make readers constantly add their personal ideals into the text meaning .Therefore , the reader‟s responses are also different . In the movie ,the most uncertain is whether Dania was died . Many people think much evidence in the ending parts indicate that Dania is died , those
fragments of 15 years later are her imagination that if she is lived before said “shoot me ” towards the murderer . Maybe it is true .
In my opinion , this movie is excellent . After watching this movie , I was totally shaken and had a passionate discuss with my roommates .Uma Thurman said ：“At least , I think it is a unforgettable works and I always can‟t help thinking how wonderful it is if more teenagers watch the movie . After going out form the cinema , I belive those people will be the most influencing . They may change their way of talking and the way they communicate with parents . Whatever which point they realize, it will bring enormous meaning for their life . ” I can not agree more .
读者反应理论下的《眼前的生活》
Summary：In 1900s , the center of the literary criticism changed to readers. They thought the regeneration and spread of the literary text‟s meaning could not depart from the response of readers , and presented some basic theories , such as “horizon of expectation” “blank” and “meaning not qualitative”. This paper will analysis and comment the famous movie THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES from this two basic theories.
Key words : Reader-oriented theory horizon of expectation blank theory
Reader-oriented theory began in 1930s, and thrived in 1970s. They thought that former literary criticism only focused on the writer or the text , and ignored the readers . They believed this is a big misknowledge and their
aim is to against the misknowledge in literary activity . They had some basic characteristics. The first one was they objected to regard the writer and the text as the most important part , and emphasized the importance of the readers. The second one was they insisted that the object of Art Studies should be the readers and the response of the readers . The last one was they thought the readers‟ aesthetic receive about the literary text was a subjective and creative process .
After that , many critics put forward to their ideas . Of them , Hans Robert Jauss presented a concept whose name is horizon of expectation . Horizon of expectation means in the activities of literary reception, readers had all sorts of experience, interest, literacy, and ideal ,those synthetically formed a appreciative request and appreciative level about the literary works . In another words , it referred to the reader‟s comprehensible range
about the literary works from the condition they have now. It is an important concept in those reader-oriented theories . Jauss advocated to pay attention to the readers , and suggested that literary studies should analyze the reader‟s response in different period from the works was came out . So horizon of expectation was widely concerned and applied to all kinds of art areas . Some people use it to describe the change of the mentality and perceiving during the process of receiving an art works ; some people use it as a methodology to suggest that the art‟s creation should consider the horizon of expectation of the receiver .
Wolfgang Iser started from the microcosmic act of reading , regarded the personal act of reading as object of study . He thought reading activities is a interactional process between the readers and the text . Based on that , he came up with the Blank Theory and Meaning Not
Qualitative Theory . He thought during reading , the readers would have a lot of Blanks, which we called uncertain points , and the readers needed to constantly fill in those Blanks . Only did this , the reader could complete the process of reading . What‟s more , he thought each reader would have different feeling when they read the same works. Even thought the same people read the same works , they will have different ideal in different time . Therefore , the meaning of works are not qualitative . This theory also is very important . Because it indicated the abundance of the literary text ‟ meaning and the creative of reader during the activity of literary reception . The movie THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES was directed by Vadim Perelman . It‟s protagonist is Diana , young Diana was acted by Evan Rachel Wood and older Diana was acted by Uma Thurman. Dania , a high school
girl , aways have a large amount of passion . She is impetuous and wild , and likes dream . In wonderful spring , she wears away the last time of high school with loves and drugs and disregarded the care of her conservative friend . However , this kind of passion was crushed by a shooting accident . She and her best friend ‟ life was changed from that time . 15 years later , Dania still tried to forget the miserable experience of that day …… Apparently , adult Dania formed a beautiful life for herself : she still lived in suburb of Connecticut and got married with a profession whose name is Poral , what‟s more , they had a lovely daughter. However , reality is less perfect than presentation . Especially when the 15th anniversary of the miserable day in her teens approaches, the darkness that Diana has been trying to escape enveloped her again. Her husband Poral became estranged , her daughter developed a habit of lying and the best terrible is the real truth began to appeal ……
girl , aways have a large amount of passion . She is impetuous and wild , and likes dream . In wonderful spring , she wears away the last time of high school with loves and drugs and disregarded the care of her conservative friend . However , this kind of passion was crushed by a shooting accident . She and her best friend ‟ life was changed from that time . 15 years later , Dania still tried to forget the miserable experience of that day …… Apparently , adult Dania formed a beautiful life for herself : she still lived in suburb of Connecticut and got married with a profession whose name is Poral , what‟s more , they had a lovely daughter. However , reality is less perfect than presentation . Especially when the 15th anniversary of the miserable day in her teens approaches, the darkness that Diana has been trying to escape enveloped her again. Her husband Poral became estranged , her daughter developed a habit of lying and the best terrible is the real truth began to appeal ……
The two periods of Dania „s life was combined together in THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES . It used a unique angle of view to let us understand a truth : a simple decision will change everything!
In this movie , a lot of meaning is not qualitative and it gives us a large amount of blanks to image . For example , at the beginning , the movie described the Dania‟s indulgent high school life carefully , we may think it is a movie about a beautiful girl‟s youth life . However , it changed fastly ! It challenge the horizon of expectation of us. The shooting accident happened . The murderer is their schoolmate who like Dania , and he force Dania and her best friend to do a
decision that which one to be shot Of course , they all are very panic , but Dania‟s best friend said “shoot me ” . What will Dania do ? This is the biggest uncertain in the movie . The director give us the blank , we can image if Dania is OK ， what will happened ? And if Dania is died , what will be performance ? Yes , that looks reasonable , one of them will die and the story of another girl continue . All of sudden , the story change to Dania‟s life of 15 years later and what happened just now is a bad dream of Dania . It is amazing , right ? It challenge the horizon of expectation of us again . And the more blanks was leaved . What happened in deed that day ?
Then , the next plots look puzzled . The youth life of Dania and the adult life of her was across . Those parts of fragment combinate together make people can not find the reality ,and the meaning is not qualitative at all . So people have different ideals about the
movie . On the one hand ,people think it is a wonderful movie , because the movie not only tell us the life is precious ,but also make us think that should we blame those people who protect themself when they face with death ? Should we appropriate those people who abundant their life to save other people ? They belive we can learn many things from the movie . On the another hand , people think this movie always repeat some fragments and the story is out of order .What ‟s more ,they think the logic is not very smooth and make the audience feel tired and boring.
So we can see , the story always challenge people‟s horizon of expectation and those blanks and uncertain meaning make readers constantly add their personal ideals into the text meaning .Therefore , the reader‟s responses are also different . In the movie ,the most uncertain is whether Dania was died . Many people think much evidence in the ending parts indicate that Dania is died , those
fragments of 15 years later are her imagination that if she is lived before said “shoot me ” towards the murderer . Maybe it is true .
In my opinion , this movie is excellent . After watching this movie , I was totally shaken and had a passionate discuss with my roommates .Uma Thurman said ：“At least , I think it is a unforgettable works and I always can‟t help thinking how wonderful it is if more teenagers watch the movie . After going out form the cinema , I belive those people will be the most influencing . They may change their way of talking and the way they communicate with parents . Whatever which point they realize, it will bring enormous meaning for their life . ” I can not agree more .