In If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, we see how Calvino attempts to compare the reading of a novel about a man pursuing a woman. In this text, the reader plays a male protagonist trying to read a book. Along the way, the protagonist meets a reader, whom he begins to pursue throughout the novel. This quest reflects the interactions between us, as readers, and the text. As we read, we are drawn to the narrative beginnings. Although this interpretation may at first glance seem sexist or misrepresented towards female readers, a deeper analysis will reveal the validity of this statement. In this novel, Calvino's main goal is to examine the reader's experience. By describing this as a romantic encounter, we can draw important conclusions about the reader's experience. Although it may seem that Calvino only values ​​the male experience of the reader, this comparison will prove to enrich the understanding of the relationship between the text and the reader by discovering the extent to which Calvino's novel fits more into the female pleasure.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayIn 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 it affects the reader. Traditional narrative 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 a Traveler on a Winter's Night by eliminating story endings. Calvino repeatedly grabs readers' attention with tantalizing story beginnings, only to abruptly stop them at the most compelling part of the story. Calvino's intention is to make the reader question their experience of the text. He wants the reader to value the text for the reading experience itself rather than waiting for a certain ending. For many years, the value of the story lies in the plot, in a good ending. If the story doesn't have good rising action, a good climax, and a good 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 pleasure and death drive. These drives drive humans to desire pleasure and to desire their own end. Peter Brooks wrote in his essay “Freud's Masterplot” about this theory; even in the story, the characters desire a good ending: an honorable death. Calvino and others in postmodern literature began to question this notion. Instead of pursuing the end, these postmodern thinkers claim to find pleasure in the process. According to Ingersoll, “Calvino posits 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 to examine If, ​​on a Winter's Night, a Traveler. 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 experiences while reading; he wants the reader to value the text beyond the simple 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 when writing a narrative" (235). Calvino is aware that the author has the power to manipulate his reader by what he chooses to write, andhe writes with the intention of making the reader aware of it. In doing so, Calvino manages to challenge traditional narrative trends. For example, in Traveler there is no real ending. Some aspects of the storyline may end, but they don't end. None of the ten books Reader and Other Reader read are ever finished. Even the novel itself lacks an ending.The last line of the book tells us that we/Reader have “almost finished [reading] If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino” (Calvino 260). Therefore, we can never really get to the end because the last line says we are "almost" done. By questioning the traditional notion of an ending in narrative, Calvino reinforces his postmodern ideology that the pleasure of narrative lies in the text itself. By comparing this experience to a romantic relationship, we see Calvino's point more clearly. There are two types of romantic activities: those who are only interested in one thing and those who desire a genuine relationship with another human being. When it comes to literature, it can be said that those who read for the plot are only interested in that one thing. -a good ending; then we move on to the next book. On the other hand, those who read for the pleasure of the text truly appreciate the story for what it is, even if the plot does not produce a satisfying ending. Susan Winnett explores this idea in more detail in her essay “Coming Unstrung: Women, Men, Narrative, and Principles of Pleasure.” In this essay, Winnett argues that for centuries, authors have written stories with male pleasure in mind. This is why the narrative structure of the rising conflict, its climax, and its resolution or ending has been so strongly emphasized. She presents the idea that writing with female pleasure in mind would create an entirely different style of storytelling. She does not intend to create a style that would replace the traditional literary style, but she makes a compelling case for a new aspect of literature. She directly compares the pleasure of reading to the romantic pleasure experienced between a man and a woman. This comparison is surprisingly revealing when we examine what Calvino did in his story. Winnett begins his essay with this statement: "Given the preoccupations of the past decade with sexual difference and the pleasure of 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. reading pleasures of men” (505). This is something that most people, including women, have probably never thought about when it comes to reading. Winnett goes on to explain how male pleasure is more closely tied to the traditional plot narrative, while female pleasure is not. Male pleasure tends to end in conquest or termination, while female pleasure continues with forward movement, new life, or sharing pleasure with another. Winnett explores the phenomenon of male and female orgasm in comparison to the pleasure felt from reading a good story. Winnett cites Peter Brooks in his essay "Freud's Masterplot" (mentioned above) to describe this experience: "the trajectory of male arousal [follows this pattern]: 'arousal, an arousal, the birth of appetite, of ambition, desire or intention' on the one hand and 'important discharge'... and satisfaction... on the other" (506). This pattern of excitement is mimicked in the traditional narrative structure of the plot: beginning, rising action, middle, climax, falling action, and resolution. The desire for an end agrees here with the pleasure ofto drive. Winnett argues that this concept is inherently masculine and therefore representative of a wide range of readers. She says: "Brook's articulation of what ultimately are the Oedipal dynamics that structure and determine traditional fictional narratives and psychoanalytic paradigms is brilliant, and she reminds us, in case we have forgotten, what men want, how they go about getting it, and the stories they tell about that pursuit” (506). Calvino explores these ideas in Traveler as Reader/We read the ten different novels contained 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 tries to pursue the woman in the story romantically. Some of these stories involve actual physical intimacy, while others show the male protagonist pursuing the woman until the story changes at the most exciting moment. These stories could be presented as proof that the novel is sexist since Calvino seems to depict women solely as objects of male affection, but looking at this literary choice from this new perspective may show a completely different analysis. Perhaps Calvino contrasts his own narrative with the narratives found in each of the inner stories. Each of the interior stories is structured like the beginning of a traditional plot, leaving out only the satisfying ending. In contrast, the subplot of the reader's pursuit of another (Ludmilla), which seems to be the only unifying storyline in the entire novel, is not objectifying at all. Ludmilla is mysterious and respectable, if anything, and Reader's pursuit of her companionship is characterized by a desire to actually know her. Their story does not end with the consummation of arousal or the conquest of the female by the male. As the seventh library reader stated, 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 their normal reading in bed. Unlike the traditional novel, which wants to end, Calvino's story wants to continue. In light of the dichotomy between men and women, the notion of continuity in life aligns with the woman because she is the one who continues human life, literally by 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 as a man, but it is inherently different. While the male experience ends in death or liberation, the female experience of birth and breastfeeding ends in continued life. Furthermore, the female experience depends on the other. One woman's pregnancy depends on another; childbirth itself depends on the other; and the pleasure of breastfeeding depends on the dependence of the other. Winnett's argument is: “However, most important for our narratological purposes, childbirth and breastfeeding force us to think forward rather than backward; whatever purpose birth has as a physical experience, it pales in comparison to the exciting and frightening feeling of the beginning of a new life” (509). Even though this process is painful, the new life is worth it. There seems to be pleasure in sharing the experience with another. This is 2015.