The_Things_They_Carried

The Things They Carried All too often, literature is misunderstood by a reader due to the simple fact that he or she has no idea what happened in the author’s life to cause him or her to write a particular literary piece and what the author is trying to pass on to the reader. There are many factors that affect the way an author writes his or her literature including experiences that took place in his or her life, occurrences around the world, and values and beliefs he or she has. In order to understand a text, the reader must first have an understanding of the author. By this, I mean that the reader must seek to identify with the author and try to read the text as the author intended. This involves the reader learning some things about the author and determining what assumptions the author made about the reader’s knowledge, beliefs, and previous literary experiences. Peter Rabinowitz, a literary strategist, referred to this sort of perspective as “authorial” reading and encouraged this view vehemently. As we read a piece of literature, we will try our best to read as “authorial readers” and relate the author and things, carried, about, o’brien, author, story, reader, war, soldiers, try, burdens, tim, each, because, way, vietnam, through, readers, read, order, martha, love, literary, intangible, authorial, world, while, weight, understand, text, sort, soldier, relate, referred, probably