Oct 21, 2009
Audience Construction- Our Nig
As we just learn from Ryosuke, an audience is being constructed with any type of media that we are exposed to. After reading “Our Nig” and learning about audience construction, I think that anyone that reads “Our Nig” will be constructed in some way. As Harriet Wilson tells her story, the reader begins to feel sad or angry for Frado. With all of the detail that Wilson includes in her book, she connects with her readers on an emotional level. Wilson’s main goal was not to make you feel bad for her but to pass on her story and make it known. Although her main goal was for people to buy her book, she also achieved the control of the reader’s reaction. I think that Wilson does this through her words and how she arranges them. As Ryosuke was saying on Tuesday, regardless the time that the piece of literature was written, that the author and the reader are not in the same century, we can still receive our reaction by reading the book. Therefore, Wilson did well at constructing the reader to feel that way she wanted in this book to be portrayed. The agency of the book would be the genre section, which is that “Our Nig” is about a free black being treated let she was never free and the exigency was how we connected with the author and whether or not we related to the book.
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Lyndsay, I appreciate to you to develop my idea in this post. I think that your statement about Wilson's will is really connecting to my idea about author's intention, especially this part that "she also achieved the control of the reader's reaction".
ReplyDeleteOf course, when we discuss the story and the interpretation of "Our Nig", Wilson cannot have any methods to know the contents of our discussion. In terms of same meaning, the sender would have never received every reader's reaction. That is, we can discuss freely with attachment of our free will. However, the reason why we can discuss the story is that we receive similar impression about the story. The situation just means that we are in the same frame of the genre, and the frame is formed by the author, Wilson. Therefore, it would be able to say that the author can achieve the control of the reader's reaction.
Lyndsay,I completely agree with your statement that while reading "Our Nig", the audience will be constructed in a particular way. However, I do not believe that the primary reason for the writing of story was to solely sell books.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Harriet E. Winston pleads with her readers to buy her book, I beleive that the main goal of her writing is to expose the lifestyles led by free blacks while living in the north. She attempts to shape her audience in such a way that they feel sorry for Frado and the tasks she must endure. Also, because of the way the story is portrayed, Wilson is able to present the information to her readers an informative manner.