1. Power Critical Theory and Animal Farm
Who has got the power?
Power Critical Theory and Animal Farm

2. The Ocean – How do you see it?
As a fish ( A fish sees the ocean as a home…)
As someone living on the coast
As a Tennessean
As a scientist
As an Oil Driller
As a sea-gull
As a surfer
As a painter
SO many ways to look at the same thing!
This is called examining through a Critical Lens

3. Multiple Lenses Looking a text from a different perspective
Constructing meaning from a text
Many different types of meaning!
Questioning the text and the world
A good reader and a good thinker

4. Multiple Lenses
Reader Response Lens (How are my own background/beliefs/attitudes shaping the text)
Feminine Lens/Gender Lens (How is gender treated in this text? where are all the women?)
Marxist/Power Lens (who has the power? How does class shape the text?
New Historicism (How is the time period that this text was written affect the text?)
Post-Colonialism (What cultures are valued here?)

5. POWER Lens Marxist Literary Theory Who has the power and who doesn’t
“Places literature in the context of important social questions” (Bonnycastle, 1996)
Why reading actually matters

6. Power Vocabulary Power: the ability to direct or influence others
Ideology: a system of ideas and ideals
Lens: a way to look at something
Privilege: a special right or advantage, only given to a certain group
Egalitarian: everyone is equal; everyone deserves equal rights and opportunities

7. What are we going to do with this lens?
Analyze: to break down a text and look at the parts in detail
Question: to challenge the text
Find textual evidence: to bring in proof of analysis
Construct an argument: To explain how you analyzed the text through this lens and why it makes sense (and your reader should agree with you!)

8. Who is Karl Marx? Famous German 19th c. philosopher and economist
Revolutionary Socialist
Wrote The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels in a call to arms for the proletariat (“workers of the world, unite!”)

9. How to think/talk/read like a Marx(ist)…

10. Power Lens: Who’s got the power (and who doesn’t)
Examining how the balance of power plays out in a text
Questions to ask myself while reading through this lens
What is the main ideology (belief) in this text?
Does the author want me to agree, disagree, or question this ideology? What are my existing feelings on this ideology?
Who holds the “power” in this text?
What does the “power” look like?
How does having this power affect them?
How do they get this power?
How do they keep this power?
How does this power change them?
Who does not hold the “power” in this text?
How does the “lack” of power affect them?
How do they feel about the lack of power?
What can they do about this lack of power?
Are those who do not have power inferior to those who do in any way?
Is this power dynamic
Beneficial to those involved? Harmful? In between?

11. Practice with Text

12. What is the main ideology (belief) in this text?
Does the author want me to agree, disagree, or question this ideology? What are my existing feelings on this ideology?
Who holds the “power” in this text?
What does the “power” look like?
How does having this power affect them?
How do they get this power?
How do they keep this power?
How does this power change them?
Who does not hold the “power” in this text?
How does the “lack” of power affect them?
How do they feel about the lack of power?
What can they do about this lack of power?
Are those who do not have power inferior to those who do in any way?
Is this power dynamic
Beneficial to those involved? Harmful? In between?

13. Three Little Pigs