the ways of the world, and the other characters should realize that morality is not to be
exploited for the promotion of vice. In this case, the negative aspects of each position
would simply have to be j- fe- W* effort /H& ,M*A all U* pW&m^i Wttfe'#<•
2lG Interaction between Text and Reader
In principle, such an exchange of positive and negative aspects is perfectly feasible, and, indeed, it is a basic pattern in the lighter forms of literature. However, with Fielding the pattern is not so simple. Even if at the beginning of the novel one does have the impression that the negative aspects may be balanced out in this way, the possible exchange of qualities and defects from one pole to the other forms no more than the background for the meaning of the novel. Negation, in actual fact, blocks this simple exchange of poles and is thus restrictive as to what can be combined. For the fact that Adams's steadfast virtue prevents him from adapting himself to the situations that arise, does not mean that the as yet undiscovered balance is to be found in continual adaptation to circumstances. Those characters who do adapt themselves to each new situation unmask their own worldly corruption.
Thus, although a balancing of the two poles is definitely intended by the author, this will not be in the sense of reconciling steadfastness with inconstancy, cunning with virtue; it will be a convergence at a point somewhere between or even above the two poles. It is possible simply because the reader has that which both poles lack and, in equal measure, need, insight into themselves. The acquisition of this insight enables the reader to unmask the hypocrisy of human conduct, and so to produce the
conditions that will enable him to achieve in his own life a balance between norms and empirical situations. The novel fulfills its didactic purpose by developing the reader's own sense of discernment. Now this discernment arises purely out of the mental images with which the reader fills the blanks produced by negation. Here we see something of the nature of these blanks, from which to a great extent springs the whole interaction between text and reader. They are present in the text, and they denote what is absent from the text and what must and can only be supplied by the reader's ideational activity. They are structured, in so far as the possession of virtue does not guarantee worldly success, and at the same time worldly wisdom is not to be equated with opportunism. This structure prevents any straightforward combination of virtue and opportunism, and so marks out the path to an ultimate balance between the seemingly irreconcilable positions. Thus the function of the blanks is dual in nature: on the syntagmatic axis of reading they constitute the links between the perspective segments of the text; on the paradigmatic axis they constitute the links between negated norms and the reader's relation to the text. The intimate connection between the two functions is the basic condition that gives rise to the interaction between text and reader. They are the hollow fonn into which the meaning is to be poured, and as such they bring about \\-\r iiroooss. imiruie to literature, whereby knowledge is offered or in-
How Acts of Constitution Are Stimulated 3.17
voked by the text in such a way that it can undergo a guided transformation in and through the reader's mind. It is through the blanks that the negations take on their productive force: the old negated
meaning returns to the conscious mind when a new one is superimposed onto it; this new meaning is unformulated, and for precisely this reason needs the old, as this has been changed by the negation back into material for interpretation, out of which the new meaning is to be fashioned.
Negation produces blanks not only in the repertoire of norms but also in the reader's position, for the invalidation of his norms creates a new relationship between him and the familial" world. This
relationship is determinate, in the sense that the past is negated, but indeterminate in that the present
is not yet formulated. The formulation takes place—or the blanks are filled—-when attitudes are adopted through which the text can actually be experienced by the reader. Whatever experience each individual reader may have, he will always be compelled to adopt an attitude, and this will place him into a prearranged position in relation to the text.
This process can again be illustrated by our Fielding example. The reader becomes increasingly certain that the characters lack insight into themselves and their own conduct, but this awareness becomes ambivalent for him in one vital respect. He feels that he has a far better grasp of Adams's
situation than the parson himself, confined as the latter is within the limitations of his own steadfast convictions, and this engenders a feeling of superiority. But his awareness of Adams's unworld-liness is two-edged, for it maneuvers him into the position of the worldly-wise characters who regard Adams as ridiculous because he lacks all pragmatic sense. And thus the reader finds himself siding with characters whose pretensions he is meant to see through, and whose perspective can therefore scarcely be the best from which to judge Adams's behavior. To adopt their standpoint would mean to abrogate the insight he has already gained, mainly through Adams's conduct, into their hypocrisy. If he then keeps viewing Adams in the same way as the characters whose attitudes he cannot adopt, he finds himself in a sort of halfway position, and his superiority becomes problematical. The fact that he often finds Adams's conduct naive puts the parson in a negative position, and so the question then arises as to how the reader is to deal with this negativity. His own position is now characterized by a blank which has relatively clear outlines. There can be no doubt that the cause of Adams's unworld-liness is his moral inflexibility, which is apparent to the reader whenever the parson gets into trouble. But does this mean that morality leads to failure? Or does it now dawn upon the reader how small a part morality plays in conditioning his insight, even though lie knows that opportun-
2i8 Interaction between Text and Reader
ism cannot be his criterion? Where can he find the orientation which Adams has in such abundance?
At such moments, he loses his -superiority, and the configurative meaning of the events assumes a dramatic momentum; the reader becomes trapped by his superiority.
Now the moral conflict takes place within the reader himself, because thanks to the intervention of Providence the characters are relieved of the consequences of their actions. The solution can only lie in the con-cretization of a hitherto virtual morality. If the reader feels superior to the worldly-wise characters because he can see through them, from the Adams perspective he is then forced to see through himself, because in a similar situation he knows he would have reacted like them and not like the parson. But if he wishes to see through Adams and not himself, in order to maintain his
superiority, then, as we have seen, he must share the viewpoint of those whom he is continually unmasking. Fielding actually informs his readers that he wants to hold a mirror up before them, "that they may contemplate their deformity, and endeavor to reduce it, and thus by suffering private mortification may avoid public shame."45 With the worldly wise lacking morality, and the moralist
lacking insight, the negative poles taken together reveal the virtual ideality of their . meaning, and the reader must measure himself against this, because it is a balance which is produced by his insight and which he himself must not fall short of.
At this point the role of the reader starts to become more concrete. He now has to occupy certain standpoints, so that his relation to the text, hitherto undefined, takes on a degree of determinacy. The negation of specific elements of the repertoire had shown him that something was to be formulated which was outlined but concealed by the text. The gradual progress of this formulation draws the reader into the text but also away from his own habitual disposition, so that he finds himself impelled more and more to make a choice between standpoints. He is caught, as it were, between his
discoveries and his habitual disposition. If he adopts the discovery standpoint, his own disposition may then become the theme for observation; if he holds fast to his governing conventions, he must then give up his discoveries. Whichever choice he may make will be conditioned by the tension of his position, which forces him to try and achieve a balance. The incongruity between discovery and disposition can generally only be removed through the emergence of a third dimension, which is perceived as the meaning of the text. The balance is achieved when the disposition experiences a correction, and in this correction lies the function of the discovery. The reader begins to negate his disposition—not in order to revoke it, but temporarily to suspend it as the virtualized base for an experience of which he can
45Fielding, Joseph Andrews, III, 1, p. 144.
How Ads of Constitution Are Stimulated 219
only say that it seems self-evident, because he has produced it himself through his own discoveries. Negations of the sort described have varying degrees of intensity, which give a good indication as to the author's intentions and the expectations attributed to the reading public. They have a direct bearing
on the historical function of the text: intensified negations denote deeply entrenched dispositions, as well as the degree of reflection necessary if the negation is to lead to a positive outcome.
In modern literature 'negation comes, as it were, into full flower, though it is now somewhat
differently applied. The Fielding example is fairly typical of literature: negation is used to reveal the virtual theme of the negating act. For the purposes of our discussion we might call this the thematic relevance of negation. But even this example shows that by discovering the theme, the reader produces a secondaiy negation when he has to link his discovery with his own disposition. It is possible to derive a criterion for evaluating literature from this process: wherever negations can be so motivated that their final outcome need not transcend the reader's own disposition, there will be little or no secondary negation and therefore little or no effect on that disposition; having to motivate nega- tions and then finding one's disposition confirmed by the motivations constitutes the dominant strategy in certain types of fiction which we would normally classify as 'light reading'.
In many modern novels there is a clear trend toward intensified production of secondary negations. A good example of this is Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. The arrangement of the narrative
perspectives, with the monologues of the Compson brothers, gives rise to a pattern of expectations which the reader has to abandon from one account to the next.'"1 This pattern arises primarily out of
the fact that each of the monologues shows the brothers to be lacking in certain faculties—deficiencies which could quite conceivably be balanced out. Thus the reader may feel that the feeble-minded Benjy's diffuse perception only requires an enhanced degree of consciousness to establish a proper means of access to the world; that Quentin's consciousness needs to be supplemented by action, if it is not to disintegrate into a shadowy multiplicity of possibilities; and that Jason must temper his actions with observation and insight, if he is to remain master of the situation. But although the reader expects the sequence of accounts to balance the deficiencies, in fact, he finds that by the manner in which the sequence is presented, he is called upon to cancel out his own expectations. He is confused, for instance, by Benjy's fragmented perception, and so expects a certain
48For details of the premises underlying the following discussion, see Iser, The Implied Reader, pp. 136-52.
22O Interaction between Text and Reader