In If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino, we see how Calvino tries to compare reading a novel to a man chasing a woman woman. In this text, the reader takes on the role of a male protagonist attempting to read a book. Along the way, the protagonist meets a female reader, who he begins to chase throughout the rest of the novel. This research reflects the interactions between us, as readers, and the text. As we read, we are drawn to narrative beginnings. While this interpretation may at first appear sexist or misrepresentative to female readers, further analysis will reveal the validity of this statement. In this novel, Calvino's main goal is to examine the reader's experience. By describing it as a romantic encounter, we can draw important conclusions about the reader's experience. While it may seem that Calvino only valorizes the reader's male experience, this comparison will prove enriching to our understanding of the relationship between the text and the reader as we discover how Calvino's novel is more aligned with female pleasure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Earl G. Ingersoll's book Waiting for the End: Gender and Ending in the Contemporary Novel, Ingersoll himself examines the lack of endings in Calvino's novel and how this affects the reader. Traditional fiction has taught readers to read for the plot or to find pleasure in the climax and satisfying ending of a story. Calvino challenges this notion in If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by eliminating endings from stories. Calvino repeatedly grabs readers' attention with enticing story beginnings, only to bring them to an abrupt halt in the most compelling part of the story. Calvino's intent is to cause the reader to question their own experience with the text. It wants the reader to evaluate the text for the reading experience itself rather than expecting a certain ending. For many years, the value of storytelling has been in the plot, in a good ending. If the story doesn't have a good beginning, climax, and ending, then it's not a good story. Sigmund Freud was a proponent of this line of thinking. He postulated that every human being has a drive for pleasure and death. These drives drive human beings to desire pleasure and to desire their own end. Peter Brooks wrote in his essay “Freud's Masterplot” about this theory; even in the narrative, the characters desire a good ending, an honorable death. Calvino and other exponents of postmodern literature have begun to question this notion. Instead of pursuing the end, these postmodern thinkers claim to find pleasure in the process. According to Ingersoll, “Calvino postulates a 'pleasure of the text' itself, transcending the traditional notion of a plot whose ending offers a transformation of meaning” (235). This concept will make more sense as we continue the examination of If a Traveler on a Winter's Night. In the text, Calvino explores how different readers interact with the text in their reading experience. He wants the reader to be aware of what he is experiencing while reading; he wants the reader to appreciate the text for more than just the ending. Ingersoll further describes Calvino's writing style as "a fascination with the process of reading and how that process affects the author's consciousness in writing fiction" (235). Calvino is aware that the author has the power to manipulate the reader through what he chooses to write, and he writes with the intention of making him aware. In this way Calvino manages to challenge trendstraditional narratives. For example, in Traveler there are no real endings. Some aspects of the plot may stop, but they don't end. None of the ten books read by Reader and Other Reader are ever finished. Even the entire novel itself is deprived of an ending.The last line of the book tells us that we/the Reader have “almost finished [reading] Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler” (Calvino 260). Therefore, we can never truly get to the ending because the last line says we are “almost” done. By questioning the traditional notion of purpose within narrative, Calvino is pushing his postmodern ideology that the pleasure of narrative is in the text itself. By comparing this experience to a romantic relationship, we can see Calvin's point more clearly. There are two types of romantic pursuits: those who are only interested in one thing and those who desire a genuine relationship with another human being. As for literature, it can be argued that those who read for plot are simply interested in that one thing. -a good ending; then move on to the next book. In contrast, those who read for the pleasure of the text truly appreciate the narrative for what it is, even if the plot does not produce a satisfying ending. Susan Winnett explores this idea further in her essay titled “Coming Unstrung: Women, Men, Narrative, and Principles of Pleasure.” In this essay, Winnett argues that for centuries authors have written fiction with male pleasure in mind. This is why the narrative structure of escalating conflict, climax, and resolution or ending has been so strongly emphasized. It presents the idea that writing with female pleasure in mind would create an entirely different narrative style. It does not intend to create a style that replaces the traditional style of literature, but presents a compelling argument for a new aspect of literature. He directly compares the pleasure of reading to the romantic pleasure felt between a man and a woman. This comparison is extraordinarily revealing when examining what Calvino did in his fiction. Winnett begins her essay with this statement: “Considering the last decade's concerns with sexual difference and the pleasure of the text, it is surprising that theories concerned with the relationship between narrative and pleasure have largely neglected to raise the question of difference between women and men. pleasures of male reading” (505). This is something that most people, including women, have probably never even thought about in regards to reading. Winnett goes on to explain how male pleasure is more closely tied to traditional narrative plot, while female pleasure is not. Male pleasure tends to end with conquest or termination, while female pleasure continues in forward movement, new life, or sharing pleasure with another. Winnett explores the phenomenon of male and female orgasm by comparing it to the pleasure felt in reading a good story. Winnett quotes Peter Brooks from his essay “Freud's Masterplot” (mentioned above) in describing this experience: “the trajectory of male arousal [follows this pattern]: 'awakening, an excitement, the birth of an addiction, an ambition , a desire or intention' on the one hand, “a significant discharge”… and satisfaction… on the other” (506). This pattern of excitement is imitated in the traditional narrative structure of the plot: beginning, rising action, middle, climax, falling action, and resolution. The desire for the end is combined here with the drive for pleasure. Winnett argues that this concept is inherently masculine and therefore misrepresents a large segment of the reading public. He states:"Brook's articulation of what are ultimately the Oedipal dynamics that structure and determine traditional fictional narratives and psychoanalytic paradigms is brilliant and reminds us, in case we've forgotten, what men want, how they try to get it, and the stories they tell about this quest” (506). Calvino explores these ideas in Traveler Reader/We read the ten different novels within the text. Each of these stories involves the main character pursuing a woman, in one way or another In each of these stories, some more graphic than others, the male protagonist is trying to romantically pursue the woman in the story. Some of these stories involve actual physical intimacy, while others show the male protagonist pursuing the woman as long as the story it doesn't change right at the most emotional moment. These stories could be shown as evidence that the novel is sexist since Calvino seems to portray women only as objects of male affection, but looking at this literary choice from this new perspective can show a completely analysis. different. Perhaps Calvino is contrasting his own narrative with the narratives found within each of the internal stories. Each of the interior stories is structured as the beginning of a traditional plot, leaving out only the satisfying ending. In contrast, the subplot of the Reader's Hunt for the Other Reader (Ludmilla), which seems to be the only unifying plot of the entire novel, is not objectifying in the slightest. Ludmilla is mysterious and respectable, if nothing else, and Reader's pursuit of her company is characterized by a desire to really get to know her. Their story does not end with the consummation of the excitement or the conquest of the female by the male. As the seventh library reader said, their story continues in life rather than death. The seventh reader says: “The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death” (259). Calvino's story continues in life as Reader and Reader get married and continue in their normality of reading in bed. Unlike the traditional novel, which longs to end, Calvino's narrative longs to continue. In light of the male-female dichotomy, the notion of continuity in life aligns with the female as she is the one who continues human life, literally giving birth to new human life. Winnett continues her analysis by examining a woman's experiences of childbirth and breastfeeding. A mother giving birth or breastfeeding may appear to follow similar dynamic patterns to the male experience, but it is inherently different. While the male experience ends with death or release, the female experience of birth and breastfeeding ends with the continuation of life. Furthermore, the female experience is other-dependent. One woman's pregnancy depends on another's; birth itself depends on the other; and the pleasure of breastfeeding depends on the dependence of another. Winnett's argument goes like this: “Most importantly for our narratological purposes, however, both childbirth and breastfeeding force us to think about the future rather than the past; whatever purpose birth possesses as a physical experience pales in comparison to the thrilling and frightening sense of the beginning of a new life” (509). Even though this process is painful, it is worth it. There seems to be pleasure in sharing the experience with another. This is evident in Traveler as the Reader takes pleasure in reading books while thinking of the Other Reader: “Your mind is occupied by two simultaneous concerns: the internal one, with your reading, and the other, with Ludmilla, who is in delay to yours 2015.