Joyce Carol Oates's Short Story Where Are You Going Where Have You. Been

618 Words3 Pages

Everyone who reads a story interprets the story differently. Each reader has in or her own way of how the story goes on or how it ended. This is called reader-response in reader response the author cares about what the reader thinks and how the reader would interpret his or her poem, short story, or novel. Two short stories for reader-respone are “Where Are You Going Where Have

You

Been.”

By Joyce Carol Oates and “The one who walk away from omelas.”

In the short story,

Where

are

you

going

where

have

you

been

the author, joyce carol oates is thinking how the reader will interpret her short story. She has several moments in her short story that the reader has to make an inference about what …show more content…

The author wrote this short story just so she could see how the reader would interpret it. In “the ones who walk away from omelas.” The author is doing the same but in this short story there is a child in a community who is being tortured for the people in the community. Reader--response is good for this short story because Jonathan Swift makes the reader think if he or she would live in this community and if he or she feels bad for the child. Swift is allowing the reader to figure out his or her point of view and their perspective about how the people in the community treat the child. When writing this short Swift also like oates was wonder how the reader would interpret his short story. The child in this story is being used as a thing like how jesus died for our sins but the child is not dying . The child is being hurt so that the people living there were sinless. Then some of the people started to leave the community, but none were trying to help the child. This makes the reader question did the people who left the community feel bad for the child, if so why didn't anyone who left attempt to save the child. This also makes the reader question did the people who left even feel bad for the child at all. These are all questions that Swift makes the reader think about when reading this short story. The author wants to know how the story is interpreted because she wants to know how her story is