Reader response is a unique theory in that is relies so heavily on the reader to interpret the literature, not the author. This can make things easy for the reader as it makes literature much easier to read, offering the solution of their being no wrong answer when being read however the author is at a disadvantage because there may be something specific the author intends to make a point in the literature but it can go unnoticed or erased in the mind of the reader. This theory tends to ask how the text and reader form a relationship and the meaning behind the text and, do the words appear as they are meant to.

Stanley fish uses this theory to discuss how sentences are written vs how the reader reads them. He also discusses how literature is dependent on the reader but not vice versa. Fish tends to imply that the reader holds all of the power in the relationship of “reader and writing” which takes away almost all power from the author.