Can you read this man’s mind?

How about this man’s?

Or this woman’s?

The old way This was the old way of reading. Authors were seen as the meaning of their writing. Readers are nothing.

Romanticism centered on the artist and creative genius text was indebted to previous writers and ideas The power of the natural world

Realism Art should replicate the world around us. Literature represents the times it is written.

Modernism Overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of their time. The Artist as savior. "irrationality at the roots of a supposedly rational world“ Michel-André Bossy

Postmodernism Resist definition or classification The artist is impotent, and the only recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos. Death of the author.

Literary Theory Modernism & Post-Modernism allow for the reader to play a greater role in the interpretation of text. This interpretation can be through the following: Sociology Anthropology Art History Gender Studies Linguistics Philosophy Political theory Psychoanalysis Social history

Questioning? Dispute “common sense” meanings Literary theory suggests that we cannot know what the writer “had in mind”. The text holds no “truths” Instead there are various ways of reading a text and interpreting a text. Be suspicious of that which we find “natural”.

What is theory? Interdisciplinary Speculative Critique of common sense Thinking about thinking

The Author is Dead The reader's role active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation

You have the power!

Marxist Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. means of production are privately owned Key points exploitation of an entire class of society by another the ruling class controls the means of production Subjectification of working class

Questions Marxist theorists ask… Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted/successful/believed, etc.? What is the social class of the author? Which class does the work claim to represent? What values does it reinforce? What values does it subvert? What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays? What social classes do the characters represent? How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?

Suzanne Collins creates a world of inequalities through which we the society should see our own social shortcomings. Katniss, as a young girl from District 12, has never experienced the opulent lifestyle that surrounds the Capitol. While there Katniss wonders “What must it be like…to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to rill in and die for their entertainment?”(54). The most obvious connection to our modern society is the accessibility of food. Katniss seems unable to comprehend the lavish lifestyle that allows food to be served at the press of a button. She then tries to understand not only how she could spend her days in this type of society, but how the citizens of the Capitol spend their days. She comes to the assessment that “these people” decorate their bodies and wait for mere entertainment in the form of a violent game at the expense of the poor. Collin’s first person narrative allows the reader to see (through Katniss) the inequality that is so rife in Panem. In doing so, the audience should make similar assessments of our own society. But, perhaps Collins in lamenting the décor of “these people” is attempting to show us how pathetic the reader’s society has become?

Feminism Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. An example of a marginalized group’s attempt to re-appropriate meaning.

Concerned with the ways in which literature reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women inherently patriarchal

Patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are politically, economically, psychologically or socially oppressed. Women as “other”: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin in the world. Biology determines our sex (male or female); culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine)

Questions Feminist theorists ask… How is the relationship between men and women portrayed? What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles)? How are male and female roles defined? What constitutes masculinity and femininity? How do characters embody these traits? Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others’ reactions to them? What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy? What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy? What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy? What role the work play in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition? (Tyson)

you fit into me like a hook into an eye a fish hook an open eye

Post-Colonialism The East is “created” by the West. “other” or “othering” the post-colonial identity of a colonised people Franz Fanon Edward Said Gayatri Spivak Purely western way of seeing the world

Questions PoCo theorists ask… How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression? What does the text reveal about the problems of post-colonial identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural identity? What person(s) or groups does the work identify as "other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups described and treated? What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance? What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference - the ways in which race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which we live? How does the text respond to or comment upon the characters, themes, or assumptions of a canonized (colonialist) work? How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples?

Gender Studies/Queer Theory Gender Studies challenges the idea that gender is part of the essential self close examination of the socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities.  Much of it is based on the ideas of Michel Foucault. Challenge the cultural notions of "straight" ideology

Challenge the cultural notions of "straight" ideology Imprinting of heterosexual norms manufactures heterosexuality as the dominant sexual format. Media perpetuates dominant masculine stereotypes. This is particularly noticeable in gangster films, action films and westerns, which never have "weak" (read: homosexual) men playing the heroes.

Questions Gender theorists ask… What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine (active, powerful) and feminine (passive, marginalized) and how do the characters support these traditional roles? What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who question the masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those elements/characters? What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the perceived masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what elements exhibit traits of both (bisexual)? What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in...the work's thematic content or portrayals of its characters? What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history? How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are by writers who are apparently homosexual? What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically, psychologically) homophobic? How does the literary text illustrate the problems of sexuality and sexual "identity”?

Psycho-analytical Theory

Questions Psycho-analytical theorists ask… How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work? Are there any oedipal dynamics - or any other family dynamics - are work here? How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example...fear or fascination with death, sexuality - which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior - as a primary indicator of psychological identity or the operations of ego-id-superego)? What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author? What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader? Are there prominent words in the piece that could have different or hidden meanings? Could there be a subconscious reason for the author using these "problem words"?