We will explore the ideas established by Seymour Chatman on the difference between what he terms story and discourse as a means to establish the notion of the implied reader of a given narrative. Chatman argues that the way in which a narrative operates on the story level, the plot and sequence of events in narrative, and the discourse level, the way in which the events are presented so as to produce meaning for the audience, provides clues to the implied reader for a given narrative. This affords us a view of the kind of audience the author of a given narrative was attempting to address through the telling of the story.

The work of Stanley Fish and his concept of the interpretive community developed in reader-response criticism presents a method to contextualize an implied reader within a community that interprets a text within a given framework. Fish argues that the meaning of a narrative is found within the reader rather than within the text—that as a reader responds to the events presented in a narrative meaning is produced. Thus, meaning is found in the act of reading a narrative and not in the narrative itself. Nevertheless, to avoid the danger of relativism, where any narrative can mean anything depending on the way a reader responds to it, Fish establishes the notion of the interpretive community. The interpretive community is the social setting and cultural context in which a reader resides that sets boundaries to the ways in which an implied reader might be able to respond to a given narrative and derive meaning from it. Every reader, whether implicitly or explicitly, is part of an interpretive community that aids in the understanding and production of meaning in the act of reading. Likewise a text, and the reading of a text, influences the development of the interpretive community and the form of understanding that a text can allow a community to develop. Thus a text and an interpretive community are in a reciprocal relationship where each influences the shape the development of the other.

Finally, Roger Chartier’s approach to reception theory and the role that a text’s physical form and organization plays in the production of meaning and interpretation sets a groundwork for our consideration of.....