Audience Examples

Audience refers to the readers, listeners, viewers that a writer has in mind when constructing a text. Often writers consider their audience-what background knowledge do they already have, how do they feel about the subject, what will draw them into the story or to the argument of an essay?

Works of literature that have struck a chord or impacted large numbers of us over time have done so because they resonated with the audience. They taught us something about society or ourselves, turning a mirror on our faults, fears, or experiences.

Examples of Literature Texts and Audience

Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird has appealed to audiences across several decades. Set in a segregated South, the novel is told from the perspective of Scout Finch, a young girl coming of age in Maycomb, Alabama one summer when her attorney father defends a black man accused of abusing a white woman. The novel's appeal over time has to do with the perspective of a young, innocent girl who can shine a light on society's hypocrisy in a way that does not turn readers off. The audience responds, as does Scout, to the gentle instruction of Atticus, who teaches us all to consider things from another's point of view-to "walk a mile" in his shoes.

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal is a satire meant for an audience of English and Irish aristocrats. Swift addresses the "Irish problem," which is the issue of the starving poor in Ireland, from a purely economic standpoint. His satire is to suggest that the starving children be "fattened up" and fed to rich landowners. Swift's satire was written to shock an audience that likely lamented the "problem" and acted as if starving children were, indeed, a problem and a blight on society. Swift's satire is meant to get the audience to see the humanity behind a "problem," instead of only thinking about the economics.