Reading Reflection Essay

The reader-response appeal to literature relies on the reader’s ability to process the information being shared rather than the author or the text itself. With the reader-response, a person reads text and then relates to automatic explanations about life that are triggered moment by moment as they continue to read. The literature uses triggers that the reader’s nervous system spontaneously responds to. This type of approach to reading allows people to imagine and be creative within them. It allows the reader to hear, feel and smell what they are reading as if it were happening right now in front of them. The reader-response approach with â€Å"the Road Not Taken† by Robert Frost offered a common understanding for situations in which I had to choose between two decisions. There was a visceral vision of a dilemma to make a choice that would eliminate the other option from ever becoming a possibility when Frost submitted that there was remorse for not being able to travel down the paths for both decisions. Every decision we make causes a difference in some sort of way. Since Frosts’ dilemma was not clear and concise I was able to implement my own choices to make a decision on. The key linguistic that triggered the process was use of the term ‘path’. I was able to relate the poem to a difficult decision of whether or not I was going to move across the country for a job offer. When Frost wrote â€Å"because it was grassy and wanted wear† I was able to relate to the yearning to want to move to Florida (grassy), but not leave the support of his family behind in Michigan (wanted wear). My fiancà ©e and I had to sort through the mutual acknowledgement of each others concerns, have common understandings, and act with the other persons concerns in mind. Both ideas were individually acceptable and understanding by themselves, however; the path â€Å"to where it bent in the undergrowth†, was our childlike needs to be close to family and always have them to be there for us when needed. To travel across the country without a guarantee of success was non existent. The road â€Å"less traveled by† was the decision my fiancà ©e and I ended up executing; we moved to Florida with a faith that the decision was for the better. Most of our peer group still lives in Michigan; and while moving to Florida may carry unknown factors we feel as if we know how our lives will plan out by staying in Michigan. By taking the road less traveled we are unaware of the consequences that await me – both positive and negative – and that makes life more thrilling and I greet each week with anticipation. Mr. Frost’s ability to craft a poem with generic terms allows for the possibility to implement my own experience and apply absolute creativity. I suppose that people who take more risk and accept the unknowns about life can relate more to this poem than others but we can all still relate. I think that at some point I our lives we all come across a path that could go either way and we have to choose which path we will take. Perhaps in some cases the road that is more traveled may be safer or predictable, however, the road less traveled will have more twists and turns that can make the risk a more debatable question of whether it is acceptable or not. Though the poem is not one that I would typically gravitate towards, I’ve realized that by going out of the normal reading habits it allows my imagination to be inspired to find ways to relate. The reader-response approach to the poem would allow most viewers to find some way to relate to it because the way that it is crafted allows a reader to examine each sentence as something personal of the author and the vagueness allows for unlimited boundaries of the reader to interpret for themselves what could and will happen. The notion that everyone can interpret this poem differently is intriguing and inspires my creativity with reading and finding a way to relate myself. In the past, present or future – this poem is applicable to any area of thought that the reader allows. The theme of the poem may after all be to seize the day, and the creativity that comes out from our imagination ensures that the reader-response approaches to be guaranteed when reading â€Å"The Road Not Taken†. References (Clugston R W 2010 Journey into Literature)Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into Literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.