The red tree. Fictionality improves our heahth.

Abstract

The theoretical basis for the present work is reader response criticism, a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader and his or her experience of a literary work. According to this school of thought, the reader of a particular text is an active agent who completes the meaning of the work through interpretation. So, meaning is created by the interaction of the reader and the text. I have chosen to work with the picture book The Red Tree by Shaun Tan because its interpretation depends very much on the mood and sensitivity of the reader. The reading of this picture book can indeed produce effects in the reader’s mind and emotions, as I shall explain. Through The Red Tree children can learn how they can get over their problems. They can obtain a hopeful message and they will learn about and from their problems. It tells a wonderful story, dealing with the topics of hope and desperation. It reflects feelings such as absolute sadness or happiness for living your life. Curiously enough, the different depressing situations that appear in the story follow the actual order of the phases undergone by depressed people. I have the purpose of working with this book in hospitals. In many hospitals, there are classrooms where children can learn and socialise. My aim is that these children do not forget their school days and they can learn in a different way. They will learn by drawing, singing songs and creating murals. So, they have a new opportunity of relation with the other children, they can work in groups and they can know between them.