Alberto Eco was a reader-orientated theorist and his idea of open and closed text could be a useful tool in describing the morals of Squids Will be Squids. In an open text piece of literature there are many gaps for the reader to fill in. Closed text literature left no information for the reader to fill in. I believe that these morals are better suited to be viewed as open text. The last moral in Squids Will be S

quids says “If you are planning to write fables, don’t forget to change the people into animals and avoid places with high cliffs.” This moral may mean exactly what it says (what the picture in the book depicts) or many other elaborations of meaning could be found. Don’t be mean to others, they may become upset or if you are planning on being mean watch your back.

It seems that the interpretation of the reader would aid in matching certain events in the story to a particular function. Function six says “the villain attempts to deceive his victim in order to take possession of him or of his belongings.” This can be found in “Little Red Cap.” The Wolf deceives Little Red Cap. He claims to be her friend and then befriends her. His plan is to eat her when she arrives at Grandmother’s house. Others might think that function six may be a stretch or may not fit this event of the story.

Stanley Fish’s theory of Affective Stylistics and Vladimir Propp’s theory of 31 functions of fairy tales are tw

Some topics in this essay:
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