Revisiting Rosenblatt's Transactional Approach Through Shaun Tan's The Red Tree

Abstract

Readers interpret the meaning from the text in many different manners and Loise Rosenblatt put forward the transactional approach to reading which holds true that reading is more of a transaction between the reader and the text. This theory comes under the umbrella term of  Reader Response Criticism. The Red Tree is a children's picture-book by Shaun Tan. He is an Australian artist, film-maker and a writer as well. This paper tries to interpret The Red Tree using the Transactional Approach to understand whether reading can actually be a transaction instead of being totally passive.

Keywords: Reader Response, Transactional approach, Picture-book, Interaction

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/55-02

Publication date: April 30^th 2019