My Second Excursion to Whangedoodleland: An Analysis of Reader’s Response Theory First proposed by the late Louise Rosenblatt, reader’s response theory is an innovative conjecture on how and why people react in varying ways to a text. Specifically, Rosenblatt states in her work that a reader brings to the work personality traits, memories of past events, present needs and preoccupations, a particular mood of the moment and a particular physical condition when interacting with a text. In her second major work, Rosenblatt argues that one can read a text efferently or aesthetically, which simplistically means reading for information and analysis, respectively. She also states that while reading a text, readers will shift between both types of…show more content… My first encounter with The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles seven years ago, proved this novel to be a wondrous story of perseverance and love. I found the plot thrilling, the characters had great wit and personality, ultimately the good guys prevailed and the adventure was a great success. Looking back, I am unable to validate this sentiment because that review came from a rather vacuous third grade girl who only read when school required it because she abhorred reading with every ounce of her body. In hindsight, I probably developed this hatred because of the argument presented in Carolyn Kellogg’s article “Prefer Not To? Kevin Smokler Says You Should Reread ‘Bartleby’”, which states that “to read” equivocates to be dissected and tested upon at a later point. My aversion to reading most likely sprung from my dislike of tests, as this argument states. Unfortunately, my return to this story as a sixteen year-old with over 400 more books under her belt and whose opinion on reading has completely changed found this seemingly infallible novel falling flat of her expectations. Similar to the situation described in Bruce Handy’s article “Where the Wild Things Weren’t”, with the accumulation of seven more years of knowledge and a vastly different opinion on reading my