Feminist, Marxist, Psychoanalytic, and Existentialism Critical Lenses Feminist, Marxist, Psychoanalytic, and Existentialism

What are Critical Lenses? Critical lenses are about: Looking into elements of the world in different ways Thinking about things from different perspectives Finding new ways to interpret the world

Feminist Theory A feminist critic sees cultural and economic disabilities in a “patriarchal” society that have hindered and prevented women from realizing their creative possibilities Women’s cultural identification as a merely negative object or “other,” to man the defining and dominating “subject.” This theory asks the reader to focus on the relationship between the genders. Under this theory the reader examines the patterns of thought, behavior, values, and power relations between the sexes.

Feminist Assumptions and Concepts Our civilization is pervasively patriarchal. The concepts of “gender” are largely, if not entirely, cultural constructs, effected by the omnipresent patriarchal biases of our civilization. This patriarchal ideology also pervades those writings that have been considers great literature. Such works lack autonomous female role models Are implicitly addressed to male readers Leave the woman reader an alien outsider or else solicit her to identify against herself by assuming male values and ways of perceiving, feeling, and acting.

Feminist Criticism Keep these questions in mind as you encounter a text: What types of roles do the women play? (Are the intelligent? Do they follow a stereotype? Etc.) What types of roles do the men play? (Are the strong/domineering? Do they follow a stereotype? Etc.) Do any stereotypical characterizations of women appear? Using clues from the text, what is the author’s attitude toward women in society? Is feminine imagery used? If so, what is the significance of such imagery? How does the text reinforce/breakdown the “traditional” gender roles?

Marxism Karl Marx (1818-1883) was primarily a theorist and historian. After examining social organization in a scientific way, he perceived human history to have consisted of a series of struggles between classes--between the oppressed and the oppressing. Marx thought that "historical materialism" was the ultimate driving force, a notion involving the distribution of resources, gain, production, and such matters.

Marxism His inevitable political progression: Bourgeois capitalism: Feudalism  Bourgeois Capitalism  Socialism  Utopian Communism Bourgeois capitalism: The privileged bourgeoisie rely on the labor force proletariat the labor force responsible for survival. Profits are not reinvested in the workers but in creating more factories, the workers will grow poorer and poorer until no short-term patching is possible or successful. At a crisis point, revolt will lead to a restructuring of the system.  

Marxist Criticism Literature reflects class struggle and materialism. Literature as the reflection of the society’s economic and political views rather than a purely timeless artistic work Materialism and the changes in modes of production are the driving forces for changes in the power relations of social classes which carry on a conflict for economic, political, and social advantage. Typically try to “explain” the literature in any era by revealing the economic, class, and ideological determinants of the way an author writes and to examine the relation of the text to the social reality of that time and place.

Marxist Questions Who has he money/power? Who does not? What happens as a result? What social classes do the characters represent? What role does class play in the work? What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere? Which class does the work claim to represent? What values does it reinforce/ subvert?

Psychoanalytic Psychological criticism deals with a work of literature primarily as an expression, in fictional form, of the personality, state of mind, feelings and desires of its author. The assumption of psychoanalytical critics is that a work of literature is correlated with its author’s mental traits and reading a text is a way of experiencing the author’s conscious or subconscious way of thinking.

Psychoanalytic Questions Keep these questions in mind as you are reading a text: Who/what do the character represent in the author’s life? What traits does that main character have that could reflect the author? 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"? How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind? What does the text say about the author’s mental state?

Existentialist Criticism Existentialism was an answer to romanticism which tended to be more oriented to the whole of nature and saw human beings as a part of that wider picture. Romanticism flourished before the wars and genocides of the twentieth century whereas existentialism is born amid those horrors. This is the theory that humans must make their own understanding of the world. That everything is outside of them and meaningless or “absurd” until we make sense of it individually. Each basically agrees that human life is in no way complete and fully satisfying because of suffering and losses that occur when considering the lack of perfection, power, and control one has over their life. Even though they do agree that life is not optimally satisfying, it nonetheless has meaning. Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning in life.

Existentialist Criticism Existential criticism evaluates literature by assessing it in terms of its capacity to satisfy the depths of human need, to clarify the image of "what we are yet to become" on the evolutionary spiral. They want to know what an artist is saying, what concepts of human purpose lie in the basic assumptions of the work, and how far the work succeeds in revealing existence as potentiality. Premises: The existential critic wants to know precisely what a book/poem/movie is saying, not whether it is true to life or tells its story well. The existential critic is in revolt against many of the values of our time - or the tacit assumption that values are unimportant. Existential criticism is the normal procedure with certain kinds of poetry, e.g. “What experience of the poet led to this statement?”

Existentialist Criticism Questions How does the text make life seem possible? (How does the author explain how to interact with the world?) What does the text have to say about how people fit into the world? What did the text teach about how to make sense of the world? What was the text trying to say about pain, and suffering? In what was did the character(s) not have control of their lives? Without considering any emotions or morals, what does the text have to say about the human experience as a whole? In what ways does the author allow emotions and morals cloud the true point of their text? What seems to be the author’s “inevitable ending” to life?

Feminist Criticism What types of roles do the women play? (Are the intelligent? Do they follow a stereotype? Etc.) What types of roles do the men play? (Are the strong/domineering? Do they follow a stereotype? Etc.) Do any stereotypical characterizations of women appear? Using clues from the text, what is the author’s attitude toward women in society? Is feminine imagery used? If so, what is the significance of such imagery? How does the text reinforce/breakdown the “traditional” gender roles?

Marxist Questions Who has he money/power? Who does not? What happens as a result? What social classes do the characters represent? What role does class play in the work? What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere? Which class does the work claim to represent? What values does it reinforce/ subvert?

Psychoanalytic Questions Who/what do the character represent in the author’s life? What traits does that main character have that could reflect the author? 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"? How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind? What does the text say about the author’s mental state?

Existentialist Criticism Questions How does the text make life seem possible? (How does the author explain how to interact with the world?) What does the text have to say about how people fit into the world? What did the text teach about how to make sense of the world? What was the text trying to say about pain, and suffering? In what was did the character(s) not have control of their lives? Without considering any emotions or morals, what does the text have to say about the human experience as a whole? In what ways does the author allow emotions and morals cloud the true point of their text? What seems to be the author’s “inevitable ending” to life?