BEYOND EFFERENT AND AESTHETIC READING: A BAKHTINIAN–ROSENBLATT FRAMEWORK FOR CRITICAL READING THROUGH THE WORKS OF CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI

Critical reading in contemporary literary studies has evolved beyond conventional approaches that privilege either information retrieval or personal response. This conceptual study proposes a Bakhtinian–Rosenblatt Framework for Critical Reading by integrating Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of dialogism with Louise M. Rosenblatt's Efferent–Aesthetic Reading continuum. While Rosenblatt's framework explains the dynamic relationship between readers and texts, Bakhtin's dialogism expands this interaction by emphasizing multiple voices, ideological positions, and dialogic meaning-making. The proposed framework offers a comprehensive approach that encourages readers to move beyond literal comprehension and subjective appreciation towards critical interpretation, reflective inquiry, and contextual analysis. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's fiction serves as the literary corpus for illustrating the applicability of the framework because her narratives foreground issues of identity, migration, gender, culture, memory, and belonging through diverse narrative voices. By synthesizing reader-response and dialogic perspectives, the study presents a structured model for examining how readers negotiate meaning through interaction with texts and broader sociocultural contexts. The framework contributes to language and literature studies by strengthening critical reading pedagogy, fostering interpretative competence, and promoting dialogic engagement with literary texts. It also provides researchers, teachers, and students with a theoretically grounded model that can be adapted to diverse literary works and educational settings, thereby advancing critical literacy in higher education.