CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

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1 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE Literary Criticism is based on close analysis of a text. It is the process of merging your own opinions on a book with those of professional critics. It s like joining a conversation with a bunch of other people who have studied the book, telling them your thoughts, reacting to theirs, and finding that place where their opinions overlap with yours. As we learned from reading Mark Twain s Fable, there is no one set way of reading, interpreting, or understanding a book; in essence, there are as many different ways to read as there are readers who read. Because of this, there is a variety literary criticism techniques designed to compliment these different ways of understanding. You ll choose one of the following approaches, the one that sounds most like you, or what you re interested in, or the way you read, and use it as your primary approach to analyzing your American novel. If you like history, try the Traditional approach; if you liked the theme of oppression we studied in the fall, or are passionate about women s rights, try your hand at a feminist critique; if you like to analyze a book for its meaning by interpreting images and metaphors and all that good stuff, you want the Formalist approach; Archetypal Criticism is great for those interested in religious or mythological symbolism (like the Greek Gods), or if you want to revisit the topic of Heroism from sophomore year; if you like to analyze people and characters and investigate their feelings and emotions, psychoanalysis lets you do just that! To be clear: it is not your duty to become experts on these terms or theories; that is not the point. The point with presenting you with these different approaches is simply to give you multiple ways of thinking and writing about the book. You are essentially choosing the direction you want to go with your research and the topic you want to focus on with your analysis; think of these just as fancy names for those possible directions and topics. Traditional Criticism - How do facts about the author s life, personality, or historical time period get revealed in the fictional text? TJ, FTA, S5, CC Formalism Who cares about the author and history, what does this book mean, what s its purpose, message, or main themes? Let s analyze the characters, settings, and other literary devices and see what this book has to teach us. Any/All Feminist Criticism How are women represented in this book? Is the book revolutionary, or does it simply perpetuate the same old female and gender stereotypes? SL, FTA Archetypal Criticism Does this book follow conventional storytelling techniques, or does it do something really cool and different? Does it have religious undertones? Is that tree just a tree, or is it supposed to represent The Tree Of Life? SL, S5, CC Psychoanalytic Criticism Let s play therapist and analyze the heck out of these characters. Are they in denial, or simply over-compensating for something? What was the author thinking and feeling, either consciously or unconsciously, when s/he wrote this? SL, TJ, FTA

2 Traditional Criticism In traditional criticism, you examine how the author s life, his or her biographical information and context, is reflected in the text. You research all facets of his/her background OR of the historical time period in which the author wrote, and find traces of his/her experiences and/or the time period shown in the text. Question how the work shows pieces of the author s past, his/her interests, biases, etc., or how the work shows pieces of the historical time period in which it was written. See Motivation in Cisneros's "Never Marry a Mexican": A Historical-Biographical Critical Approach for example.

3 Formalism Formalism, focuses on what the text means. By examining elements such as tone, repetition, and diction, Formalists develop a meaning as to what the author is trying to say. Because of this, Formalism does not concern itself with any information outside of the text itself: biography of the author, historical or literary allusions, mythological patterns, or the psychoanalytical traits of the characters (except those traits specifically described in the text) are all irrelevant. Examine each part of the text: the chapters, parts, characters, settings, tone, point of view, diction, symbolism, irony, metaphor (and other literary device), the fictional world in which the characters live. After analyzing individual parts of the text, describe how they work together to express major theme or message. In an attempt to answer the over arching question, What Does This Book Mean/Say? ask yourself questions as you go about various parts of the text. Keep notes of what is important (obviously), but also what you find interesting, surprising, and confusing. Here are some guiding questions to help you with a Formalist approach: --How much time is devoted to each setting? Is the book evenly divided between the different settings, or is one setting given more space? Why would the author do this? --What point of view is used? Does this help or hinder the reader's understanding of the novel? Who do you think the author chose this point of view? --Is the narrator reliable? Imagine if the author had chosen a certain other character to narrate the story: What would not get told? What would be told in greater detail? Would anything be changed? Would that character be a reliable narrator? --How are the characters developed? How do you get introduced to them--through direct description, the narration of events, or another character's comments? Why? --Does the fictional world mirror the actual world, or is it total fantasy? Could it happen? Why? --Are there too many coincidences? Are there links between causes and effects, or is there just a series of unrelated incidents? What affect does this have on the reader? --Does the ending give you a sense of closure? What is the significance of the ending? --Is the title appropriate? Why or why not? What does it mean/refer to? --When are there instances of extended description or great detail? Why those? --What literary devices does the author use and to what end does s/he use them? For example, what symbols, ironies, or metaphors are used to develop the particular themes of the novel? What tone does the novel take? --How do these parts fit together to create one universal theme, message, or meaning? See Evidence of the New Orthodoxy: Sound in William Shakespeare's The Tempest for example. (note: this author occasionally refers to Formalism as New Criticism ).

4 Feminist Criticism Its purpose is to observe and challenge the role women play in literature and decide whether or not this role is appropriate. It seeks to raise consciousness about oppression and exclusion and promote change in these areas (much like what you did with the Modern Persecution Essay, only here it directly concerns women in particular). Concerned with literary representations of the female. Concerned about the exclusions of the female voice from literature Analyzes stereotypes and anti-stereotypes of women and gender roles Pays attention to images of women in literature...exclusion of women from history in society...oppression of women in society connection between social and literary mistreatment of women See In a New Country : Women and Nation in My Ántonia for example

5 Archetypal Criticism Archetypal criticism deals with instinctual human behavior in response to events, character situations, conflicts, etc. Because this type of criticism deals with basic universal human functions death, birth, childhood, heroism, old age, and the possibilities of after-life and rebirth this approach will at times touch on religious themes and symbols. Archetypal Criticism shows how the text uses these ancient categories and images to express a particular theme/message. What point is the author making by using this imagery? One way of spotting the presence of these topics is by looking at the author s use of imagery. For instance: 1. Water: birth, death, resurrection; life cycle; eternity 2. Colors red: blood; sacrifice; violence green: hope, fertility; death, decay black: the unknown; death; evil 3. Numbers three: spiritual unity; male four: life cycle; four seasons; four elements; female seven: powerful because it unites three and four; perfect 4. Garden: paradise; innocence; unspoiled beauty 5. Tree: immorality; inexhaustible life Another way of spotting the presence of these topics is by looking at the author s use of motifs. For instance: 1. Creation 2. Immortality 3. Wise Old Man/Woman [savior, guru]: appears when hero is desperate 4. Woman: birth, protection; witch, promiscuity, danger 5. Hero archetypes (aka, The Hero Cycle) --The Quest: hero decides to undertake a dangerous journey for sake of a greater good. This usually requires leaving a world of safety and venturing out into dangerous, unknown territory. --Road of Trials: hero undergoes ordeals to achieve maturity and personal growth. --Sacrificial Scapegoat: the hero must die or suffer to achieve his/her goal. --The Return: hero attempts to impart his/her newfound wisdom upon others See The Supermyth: Archetypal Understandings of Superheroes for example

6 Psychoanalytic Criticism This approach concentrates on basic human emotions and the confusion they can produce. Psychoanalytic critics often see all imagery as having hidden emotional implications. The purpose of a psychoanalytic paper would be to diagnose either the characters or the author with certain underlying emotional conditions. Uses a variety of techniques created by Sigmund Freud to diagnose characters and author. If using this critical approach you look for indications of every one of these terms while reading the novel, incorporating all or nearly all of them into your paper. --Oedipal complex: an unhealthy attachment (usually originating from early childhood) of a boy to his mother. This is usually accompanied by hostility and aggression toward the father, for the father is seen as a rival. The Oedipal complex is to a boy's relationship toward his mother and father as The Electra Complex is to a girl and her relationship toward her father and mother. --Aggresion Phase: urges rebellion against those in authority. For the young, this authority may be the father; for the mature, it may be a boss, the police, a government official, etc. Because such aggressiveness must be controlled, it often causes a conflict between a person's desires and duties (think Huck s desire to help Jim versus his duty as a member of society) and can result in severe guilt. This guilt or frustration can often explain the main conflict in a novel. --Over-Compensation: an undesirable attitude is suppressed and replaced by an extreme form of its opposite. This happens when you don t like how you feel or think about something and decide to over-compensate by doing the extreme opposite: Loneliness is replaced by love; cruelty, by gentleness; stubbornness, by obedience. --Denial: refusal to admit an unpleasant reality by willfully ignoring or denying it. --Projection: attributing an unwanted desire or feeling to another person; like blaming another for your own failure, or criticizing them for acting a certain way when really you should be turning that criticism upon yourself. --Psychic zones: id: insistent, selfish, pleasure-seeking, our gut desires, wants. Think children. superego: the conscience, values gleaned from parents and society. ego: the resolution between the id and the superego, a balancing force; pleasing the id in realistic ways while also being mindful of the long term stuff Focuses on a work of literature as an expression (in fictional form) of the inner workings of the human mind. For instance, when using this technique you might see objects such as a flower cup, cave or vase as symbolizing a female. Images of a sword, tower, knife or

7 pen represent the male gender. Or a character s possession of 15 cats may indicate that he is overcompensating for a lack of love in his life. What truth(s) do each of the main characters have to endure? Do they indeed endure the truth? Or do they ignore it? Are their reactions true to their characters? If you were the characters would you react in the same way? Why? What can this text teach readers about the emotional responses to events in their lives? What might this book reveal about the author s inner turmoil or struggles? How do you know? See With great power comes great responsibility : Psychoanalytic Motifs in Spider- Man and Spider-Man 2 for example.