Barthes & Ong: Audience and Fictionalization

We have come across some very interesting pieces of text since the term began, but we each have a different or similar favorite read that has been discussed recently in class. Roland Barthes “The Death of the Author” and Walter Ong’s “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction,” are both interesting texts that have differences on what defines an “audience,” “author,” and a “reader.” However, Ong defines “fictionalization” which focuses on the audience while also discussing how the writers words are interpreted by the audience or reader. According to Ong there are two definitions, the first focuses on the role of a writer/ author, “First, that the writer must construct in his imagination, clearly or vaguely, an audience cast in some sort of role-entertainment seekers, reflective sharers of experience, inhabitants of a lost and remembered world of prepubertal latency, and so on,” (12). However, the second definition, which I was confused with its meaning, is about what an audience is and how it is a fiction, “Second, we mean that the audience must correspondingly fictionalize itself. A reader has to play the role in which the author has cast him, which seldom coincides with his role in the rest of actual life,” (12). Although he gives examples on what defines an audience, what is Ong saying when he states how the reader is playing a role that corresponds with their life?

Walter Ong is clearly in love with the terms “audience” and “fictionalization”. I had a hard time understanding what he means when he states how, “…the question of what fictionalizing may be called for in the case of the audience for oral performance, the fictionalizing of readers was relatively simple,” (11). In the texts he lists some examples such as Tolkien, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemmingway, etc. But, what does it mean? Ong discusses how words play a role in how they are interpreted in different ways and have different meanings based on the context in which they are used. For instance, he says how, “The spoken word is part of present actuality and has its meaning established by the total situation in which it comes into being,” (10). What I’m trying to figure out is if the term “fictionalization” is forced more towards the reader in general or does it have a different meaning based on how it’s addressed?

In Roland Barthes “The Death of the Author,” he discusses how the “reader” should interpret the work of the author in a way that gives meaning to them. He states how, “The author is a modern figure, a product of our society,” (3). The author is more of a figurehead that has influence over their work. Ong however, believes that the reader is meant to play a role that’s forced on them by the writer and that the reader’s interpretation of the text is less important. Both Barthes and Ong have different distinctions as to what the role of the reader is and how they are defined.

~Daphne

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Third Edition. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 868, 874-877.

Ong,Walter J. “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction.” PMLA 90 (1975): 9-21.

**Blogger would not allow me to comment on others post so I posted my comment here**
-To Koral Griggs:
Koral, your question on Ong's "fictional audience" is exactly what I was thinking and it left me very confused when he states how, "the audience must correspondingly fictionalize itself"(12). But why should the audience not be real? You make a very interesting point on how Ong's main focus, which we see in the text, is more on what the audience is and less on the writer or author itself. While Barthes article is more on the author dying during the process of writing, it's interesting to think about if the audience doesn't exist then is the authors death sudden? You did a good job and this is really interesting to discuss in class.