Complications between the writer and reader

An agent is someone or something that represents something else. There was a question presented in class; "Can passive observers be an agent?" For the purpose of answering this question, I will conclude that an observer can very well be an audience member or an individual reader.  The term is interchangeable. The reader and writer can be an agent. The reader can view him/herself as just a reader, but to the writer, s/he needs the reader to be more for the purposes of the writers work to be decoded with clarity or truth. The reader is subscribing to the writer’s agency.

But a writer can be subscribing to the reader’s agency in the sense of writing successfully to the reader, the writer must impose certain ‘traits’ into their writing.

As Aristotle points out, the originality of rhetoric became about as means of communication. More specifically communicating through public speaking. In public speaking, the orator has some sensory advantages to successfully use langue to do whatever it is that the orator is trying to do. Aristotle says that the orator can appease his 'real-life' audience with ethos, pathos and logos. Writing is a new technology that began with orators’ speeches being transcribed onto paper. And for a message to carry through "space and time" as Ong puts it, can present a compelling complex. The interpreter, the decoder, or, more specifically the reader is biased of their own experiences. The writer wants to be successful in their particular message, but how can the text be successful if in-fact the readers are invisible (or biased). It can be difficult as Ong points out, when there is no physical audience present in feedback of the verbal language being presented.

This correlates to the reading "The Writers Audience is Always Fiction" by Walter Ong. The writer is the agent, and in order for the reader to successfully do whatever it is the agent (or writer) is trying to achieve, the reader must successfully attribute a role the writer presents.

From what I gather from Ong, writers must manipulate the text for the readers to successfully decode the information being presented. The writer must be inclusive of the reader and consider multiple factors. Factors that which includes economic status, gender, and physical state, etcetera. Writers must also consider the very reason the reader chose the text in the first place. 

Ultimately for a reader to decode what is being said presently within the text, it is argued that the reader must be engaged in the material actively. This idea translates seemingly with the idea of an author being dismissed completely, to encourage full realization of a text. Ong, uses Heminway as an example; Hemmingway uses definite statements as a means to recall a memory within the text. While “recalling of the memory” (because no matter how fresh the material may be, it is already in past tense to the reader) the text invites the reader in (almost challenging the dynamics of time and space) trough definite articles within the text. This alludes to the argument that it is dependent upon a(n) active reader to truly involve themself in text.

Consider if the reader interprets the text ‘incorrectly’ from what the agent (or writer) was trying to say. At that point, an active reader is no longer more important than that of a figure-headed author, if the active reader is clouded in judgment of what the writer is saying. Language can only go so far. The writer can be most accomplished in using rhetoric in the form of written text, but, ultimately the reader will be clouded with personal judgment and experiences to discover the truth in the text.

The very word “true” presents major complications.

What other role does the reader play?  Or is there not any other role, other than decoding the language. Barthes’ believes that a reader understands text through their own interpretation and life experiences. Therefore, how can a writer be confident in written language if it can be decoded improperly?