William Faulkner’s That Evening Sun and Wolfgang Iser’s Reception Theory

Demanding the reader’s attention in order to investigate and proliferate meanings, Faulkner’sshort story, That Evening Sun , asks for the reader’s active and creative reading. In thisnarrative, a personified narrator figure—Quentin—prominently mediates between the author andthe audience to reconstruct a story of the past. The mind of the reader simultaneously observes,remembers, and interprets the incidents. Adopting a case–study approach, this article features anexploration of That Evening Sun in light of the ideas of Wolfgang Iser regarding the status ofreader in the dynamic process of reading a literary text. In order to constitute meaning, theperspective of the reader establishes the interaction between past, present, and even future. Theactivation of the reader’s imagination leads to the interaction between the reader and the text.

Keywords:

reader , active reading , meaning , Wolfgang Iser