Monthly Archives: July 2013

Reading Empowerment

If a character appears only at the beginning and end of the story, is he always there lurking in the background, waiting for the right time to appear… or is he simply absent from the action? The former feels like reading empowerment where there isn’t any – keeping him central even when he isn’t seen. The latter is reading the character as disempowered – relegated to the sidelines while other people take action. So to what extent is empowerment in the interpretation, not implicitly in the text?