A Meditation on the Effects of Genre

Every book we pick up is published with the intention of falling within the parameters of a particular genre, or sometimes, even a mix of several.

This quarter, I am one of five students to be taking a seminar in literary studies, this one with a focus on dramas written in and around Shakespeare’s lifetime, that are not by Shakespeare himself. During the first week and a half of class, my fellow classmates and  I were instructed to complete several readings on what the meaning of genre is, and it’s effects on the reader. The following selection is from one of these articles, “Genre” by Heather Dubrow:

“Assume that the following paragraph opens a novel entitled Murder at Maplethorpe: 

‘The clock on the mantelpiece read ten-thirty, but someone had suggested recently that the clock was wrong. As the figure of the dead woman lay on the bed in the front room, a no less silent figure glided rapidly from the house. The only sounds to be heard were the ticking of that clock and the loud wailing of an infant.’

Now read it through again, this time pretending that it appears under a title The Personal History of David Marplethorp and represents the first paragraph of a Bildungsroman, the narrative genre that traces the maturation and education of its hero.”

If you are anything like myself, you will find that passage to have a particularly interesting effect. Reading the inserted paragraph the first time around, you as a reader are under the impression that the selection yields from a novel that would fall under the genre of murder/mystery. Upon the second read, as though it yields from a story perhaps tracing a typical hero’s journey. And once again, if you are anything like myself, you may be startled to realize what that passage means to you as a consumer of literature.

Genre. Changes. Everything.

Before entering into this seminar class, and reading these articles, I, and perhaps, similarly many of you, never gave genre much thought. Genre for me has always been nothing more than a passing idea, a mere way to categorize the vast number of books and titles in existence into something more manageable. But I never would have thought that such a small idea as genre could truly influence the way I experience what I read. I’ve been reading avidly since I was a child, understanding that books fall in categories, fiction or nonfiction, humor, romance, or thriller, murder mystery or hero’s journey, etc.

But the truth is, as the selected passage above illustrates, genre plays a much larger role than simply categorizing.

First, it shapes what we expect from the book we’ve picked up. If a novel is labeled a horror or a thriller, we expect to be frightened or thrilled. We expect a comedy to make us giggle, a romance to make us yearn for our own epic love story, a fantasy to take us to another world entirely, an autobiography to share a true story, etc. If the book we are reading violates these expectations, we feel violated as readers. Our trust has been betrayed, and we are left wondering why this book is labeled in such a way if it is not doing the job intended for it to do.

Second, genre helps to dictate what we pay attention to, as we read. I would feel it is safe to assume that, much as we may like to think otherwise, we do not always pick up on, and recall with perfect accuracy, every detail of the novel we just read once we close the jacket. We pay attention to the details we feel are most relevant to movement of the plot overall, and as pointed out by the aforementioned passage above, genre plays a very large part in this process. Reading the provided portion of story from the two different perspectives, it is as though you are reading from two completely different novels. As a murder mystery, you may find yourself taking note of the ticking of the clock as a clue, perhaps assuming the silent figure is the murderer, and wondering just how the woman died. Your sense of curiosity and excitement is aroused. As a story of a hero’s journey, the entire focus shifts to the crying child, and the rest of the details that may come to define his life. Perhaps you feel a sense of sadness, wondering what the cruel world has in store for our hero, as the dead woman may very well be his mother, having died in childbirth, and the gliding figure a heartbroken father left alone to care for the newborn.

I believe that unconsciously, we as readers are actually well aware of the effects genre exercises on our experience of reading. I mean, once they’re outlined,  the effects of genre should seem naturally obvious. But how often do you really take the time to think about them, once you’ve sat down and become absorbed in your most recent page-turner? It’s amazing, really, and startling to realize that we do not have maybe as much control over our experience with literature as we may have assumed. And I know for myself, this was something that I never would have realized had it not been shoved so blatantly under my nose.