2. Major Stages in Writing about Literature
Characters
Historical
Period &
Background
Social &
Major Ideas Economic
Conditions
Artistic Additional
Qualities Approaches
3. Character Study
• What are the characters like at the beginning of the story?
• How do they change throughout the story?
• Dynamic? Static?
• Round/Complex? Flat/Simple?
• Why do the characters undergo change?
• Do the characters act in ways that might
be normally expected in the circumstances?
• If not, what is the reason for their behavior?
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.
Santiago experiences internal and external struggle
throughout the text in his fight with the marlin and
the subsequent sharks.
4. Historical Period & Background
• When was the work written?
• How well does it portray details about life at the time it was
written?
• What is historically unique about the work?
• To what degree does it help you learn something about the past or
the present?
• How do the actions in the work compare
with actions going on today?
Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Even though
Shakespeare changed some of the story, the
tragedy is based on the true story of Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth and their rise to and fall from the
throne of Scotland.
5. Economic & Social Conditions
• To what level of life, economically, do
the characters belong?
• How are events in the work related to
their condition?
• How does their money, or lack of
it, limit what they do?
• How do their economic circumstances
either restrict or liberate their
imaginations?
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner.
Miss Emily’s social and economic
• How do their jobs and their apparent
standing in the community, while they income determine their way of life?
are slipping from their past glory, play a • How do women’s circumstances differ
role in the way the community from men’s in the story?
addresses her. Her position as a
southern spinster leaves her vulnerable
and secluded, a source of curiosity.
6. Major Ideas (Theme)
• Examine the context and content
of the story to determine the
theme or major idea that the
writer is presenting.
• Examine the title, the characters’
names for clues
• Think about what you expected to
happen vs. what actually
happened.
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
contains many themes: good vs.
• Think in terms of the broad evil, love conquers all, coming of age
meaning and overall lessons or and self-discovery of talents and
morals of the story. values, love of family, the value of
friendship.
7. Artistic Qualities
• Consider the author’s narrative
method or writing style.
• What type of narrative voice is present
within the work?
• Does the author employ
symbolism, irony, or humor?
• Consider the work’s plan or
organization.
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by • How is the work structured?
Flannery O’Connor employs • Is the closing full-circle or open-ended?
humor, irony, symbolism, and an
illusive theme. The work is full-
circle.
9. Critical Approaches
• Critical theories or approaches are lenses through which literature
is studied.
• Literary Theories:
• Moral / Intellectual
• Historical / New Historicism
• New Critical / Formalist
• Structuralist
• Feminist Criticism / Gender Studies / Queer Theory
• Marxist / Economic Determinist
• Psychological / Psychoanalytic
• Archetypal / Symbolic / Mythic
• Deconstructionist
• Reader Response
10. Moral / Intellectual
• Concerned with values & morals
• Studied texts are often religious in theme
• Examines character’s intellect, morals, values, and religion
• Seeks to determine whether the work of literature is both true and
significant.
• Determines whether a work conveys a message
or a lesson and whether it can help readers lead
better lives and improve their understanding of
the world.
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
depicts the religious values of colonial Salem and
addresses how the actions of the town’s inhabitants
live up to the demands of their strict Puritan views.
11. Historical / Topical & New Historicism
Historical / Topical New Historicism
• Stresses the relationship of • Stresses that historical
literature to its historical perspectives should stay
period, sometimes to the neglect of
connected to the literary work
the story itself
• Time considerations have 3 layers: • Understands that we lack certain
• Time it’s read in…present day knowledge and that we have the
• Time it’s written in… advantage of 20/20 vision for
• Time its characters live in…
historic events
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë depicts the story of Jane and her
beleaguered love interest, Edward Rochester, who has hidden
away his wife – the “madwoman in the attic” – and must lead a
lonely, unfulfilling life while she lives. It is told from an
historical/colonial perspective.
**Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys depicts the same story as told
by the madwoman in the attic – Mrs. Rochester – and looks at the
events through her perspective as the colonized, unwanted,
imprisoned, and ill-treated wife. It is written with a New
Historicism angle.
12. New Critical / Formalist
• Has been the dominant force in modern literary studies.
• Focuses on the belief that literary texts are formal works of art –
can be seen as a reaction against the topical/historical approach
• Looks at what a work says…the content
• Also examines how it is said…the artistic style of the author
• Works best with shorter works or poetry, but can be used with
novel-length works when used in conjunction with discussions of
point of view, tone, plot, character, structure, etc.
“Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver
depicts the tragic outcome of a couple’s
argument, but also includes interesting stylistic
choices such as en medias res (coming into the
middle of the action), irony, and dialogue-driven
action.
13. Structuralist
• Works on the premise that apparently unrelated texts reveal many
common patterns or contain similar structures with important
variations
• Looks for relationships and connections between works that are
separate and unique – comparative literature
• In doing so, it finds commonalities in literature, establishes the
basic premises for writing in particular genres (i.e., modern
romances, detective stories, soap operas, sitcoms, and film).
Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
follows the prescribed formula for detective
stories.
14. Feminist Criticism / Gender Studies / Queer Theory
Feminist Criticism Gender Studies / Queer Theory
• Evolved from the women’s • Brings attention to gender rather
movement of the 1960s and first than sexual differences
began to question why women
writers were missing from the • Sees the masculine/feminine divide
literary canon. as socially constructed rather than
• Studies the way both male and innate
female characters are portrayed in • Explores the ways in which powerful
literature, and the way societal institutions organize our society
norms about sexual difference are
either enforced or subverted.
• Focuses on patriarchal structures • Explores the heterosexual/
and institutions such as marriage. homosexual divide
• Examines the way that homosexuals
are portrayed in literature, both
openly and in veiled references
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin explores
the hidden desires of the heart and women’s
expectations, duties, and limitations in marriage
and society.
15. Marxist / Economic Determinist
• Cultural and economic determinism is one of the major political
ideas of the 19th century.
• Karl Marx argued that the primary influence on life was
economic, and he saw a society embroiled in the continuous
struggle between capitalist oppressors and oppressed working
people.
• This “proletarian” literature often focuses on the poor and
oppressed, whose attempts to rise out of poverty usually fail.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
examines the lives of a family of migrant farm
workers as they move from the Oklahoma dust
bowl to California in search of economic stability
in the wake of the Great Depression.
16. Psychological / Psychoanalytic
• The scientific study of the mind is a product of psychodynamic
theory as established by Sigmund Freud.
• Psychoanalysis provides a key to understanding a person’s
character by claiming that behavior is caused by hidden and
unconscious motives.
• Looks for hidden causes behind a character’s actions as a way of
explaining a character’s behavior.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte
Perkins Gilman delves into the mind of
an increasingly delusional heroine.
17. Archetypal / Symbolic / Mythic
• Derived from the work on Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung
(pronounced “young”) who purported that human life is built up
out of patterns or archetypes that are similar throughout various
cultures and historical times.
• Supports the idea that the very best literature is grounded in
archetypal patterns (i.e., God’s creation of human beings, the
sacrifice of a hero, or the search for paradise).
• Jung asserts that these recurring patterns in literature are evidence
of a “universal human consciousness” that all humans retain in their
minds.
Paradise Lost by John Milton is the epic
tale of Adam and Eve’s banishment from
the Garden of Eden and of humanity’s
fall from grace.
18. Deconstructionist
• Considered more a strategy of reading than a critical approach
• Assumes the instability of language and the impossibility of arriving
at a fixed standard to anchor interpretation
• Ex: male/female and good/evil obtain their significance by contrast with
one another, so that their meanings are relative, not absolute
• Aim is to find disunity and disruption of language in a
work, whether binary interpretations or duality of meaning
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a study in contrasts
which lends itself well to a Deconstructionist
examination of binary language and meaning.
19. Reader Response
• Assumes that our quest for truth is not found in the external
world, but in our interpretation and perception of external events
• Holds that the reader is a necessary third party in the writer-text-
reader relationship
• A text is finished only when a reader assimilates the work and
brings his or her own experience and knowledge to the
interpretation of the text
• Interpretation of texts is open
Beloved by Toni Morrison is rich with
emotion, history, and meaning.
Unforgettable texts make excellent
candidates for Reader Response.
