1. Lenses for Examining Literature
Literary Criticism
Lenses for Examining Literature

2. What is Literary Criticism?
Schools of literary criticism are like sunglasses specially designed for driving. Driving glasses make red and green particularly bright to the wearer. Different theories make particular aspects of a piece of writing more obvious or crucial to the analyst.

3. Why learn this?
Looking at a novel, story, or poem through a particular lens helps us to notice things we wouldn’t otherwise. Some schools of thought are more relevant to a given work than others. Discussions about relevant approaches to literature are excellent practice in critical thinking.

4. So, what have we been doing so far?
We have used the New Critical approach thus far.
The New Critical approach suggests breaking down a work in terms of themes, symbols, and characterization internally, seeking to attach meaning to literary elements.
We have also approached literature study from the historic, archetypal, and multicultural lenses. More on this later…

5. What other “lenses” are there?
Feminist
Marxist
Multicultural
Psychoanalytic
Reader-Response
Historical
Others
Formalism
Environmentalism

6. Feminist Criticism
A feminist critic sees cultural and economic disabilities in a patriarchal society that have hindered or prevented women from realizing their creative possibilities Feminist critics see males as the dominant force, with women relegated to the role of defining objects for men.

7. Assumptions of Feminist Criticism
1. Our civilization is pervasively patriarchal.
2. Concepts of gender are cultural constructs affected by patriarchal biases.
3. The patriarchal ideology pervades those writings that
have been considered great literature. Those writings:
-lack autonomous female role models
-are implicitly addressed to male readers
-leave woman readers as outsiders

8. So, if I ask you to apply feminist criticism…
Examine the patterns of thought and behavior in male-female relationships.
Seek to identify values put forth about men and women’s roles.
Look at the role of enfranchisement and power in relations between the sexes.

9. Feminism and Current Works
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hermione is initially depicted as unattractive, both physically and socially. Would a smart young wizard get the same treatment? Why is the most evil instructor at Hogwarts a woman (Professor Umbridge)?
In The Hunger Games, although Katniss is very strong, her mother’s weakness after her father’s death brings the family to poverty. Although strong, she would initially be described as masculine (a good hunter, a risk-taker) and struggles to be feminine (she is afraid to twirl in a dress).

10. Marxist Criticism
Marxist criticism is based on the social and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Their beliefs include the following: 

Value is based on labor. 

The working class will eventually overthrow the capitalist middle class. 

In the meantime, the middle class exploits the working class. 

Most institutions—religious, legal, educational, and governmental—are corrupted by middle-class capitalists.

11. Marxist Criticism Assumptions
Human history is determined by the changing mode of its material production--its basic economic organization.
Historical changes in the fundamental mode of production effect essential changes in the power relations of social classes, which carry on a conflict for economic, political, and social advantage.
A Marxist critic typically explains the literature in any era by revealing the economic, class, and ideological determinants of the way an author writes, and he/ she examines the relationship
of the text to the social reality of the time and place.

12. So if I ask you to apply Marxist criticism…
Ask yourself: Who has the power and money in the piece of literature?
Ask yourself: Who lacks these assets?
Ask yourself: Why is that?
Ask yourself: What is the effect?

13. Marxism in Current Works
The premise of The Hunger Games is based on power concentrated in the hands of a wealthy minority who manipulate a poor majority through fear.
In Harry Potter, the Weasleys’ lack of wealth (versus, say, the Malfoy family) is a recurrent topic. The distinction between Pureblood and Muggle-born (“Mudblood”) wizards is another source of conflict.

14. Ecocriticism
“. . . the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Just as feminist criticism examines language and literature from a gender-conscious perspective, and Marxist criticism brings an awareness of modes of production and economic class to its reading of texts, ecocriticism takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies” (Glotfelty xviii).

15. Ecocritics ask… “How is nature represented in this sonnet?
What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel?
Are the values expressed in this play consistent with ecological wisdom?
How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it?
How can we characterize nature writing as a genre?” (Glotfelty xviii-xix)

16. Ecocritical Interconnections
“Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and culture, specifically the cultural artifacts of language and literature. As a critical stance, it has one foot in literature and the other on land; as a theoretical discourse, it negotiates between the human and the nonhuman” (Glotfelty xix).