The Story of Inky Boys

Reader response criticism places vast autonomy of reading pleasure to the reader. “The death of the author” gives birth to the reader. This school of literary theory provides much attention to the reader as well as the reader’s experience over a literary work. According the theorists of this school of thought, the role of the reader is critically important in understanding of literature and actively seeking the meaning of the literary text.
The Story of The Inky Boys is a moral story and was written by Heinrich Hoffman for his children in 19th century. I personally feel that this is not really a story about discrimination due to the differences in skin color. The whole text may be structured with some forms of offensiveness and negative implications. The black moor is the bullied subject to the white naughty kids. It means that minority is under the subjugation of colonial power. The inferior always lacks power and being submissive in the society. This is especially significant during the colonialism era during 15th -20th centuries. However, the subjugated minority may become the leader of the dominant group in the society one day as the black moor leads the white boys in the end. This tells us that a person with positive traits would not be always the looser instead the negative traits a person has may cause him in trouble or suffering. This is nothing to do with the skin color, background, social status differences of a person. The prominent emphasis on differences between the black and white could be nothing more than their social status. The moor: black, strange color trousers, green umbrella, shirtless, bare footed as well as untidy. While the whites: proper attire, clean and tidy. The stereotypical of the moor depicted in the story has remanded him to be the fun making object and discriminated. However, from a female point of view, I would say the writer himself also has some forms of discriminatory towards gender equality. It is so prominent that the