Critical Strategies for Reading



Critical Strategies for Reading

(excerpted from The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 2008.)

Each of these perspectives is sensitive to point of view, symbol, tone, irony, and other literary elements, but each also casts those elements in a special light.

Analysis – describes how a character, symbol, or rhyme scheme supports a theme

Interpretation – your articulation of what the work means to you as supported by an analysis of its elements

The appropriateness of a specific critical approach will depend, at least in part, on the nature of the literary work.

|Critical Theory |General Features/ Questions to Ask |Application to “The Story of an Hour” |

| |Focus on elements of a work. Literary features |Analyze ironic features |

| |Care about what’s happening in the story |Look for signs when imagery ends |

|Formalist |How does diction reveals meaning | |

| |How repeated words reinforce thematic significance | |

| |Examine relationship with form and meaning | |

| |What is background info |Husband died 12 yrs before she wrote story |

| |How does events in one’s life give new meaning to one’s story |But, if she could get him back she would give up her growth |

|Biographical | | |

| | | |

| | | |

| |Used to explain motives of character through unconscious though |Unhappiness with marriage depicted through Mallard’s actions/lack|

| | |of emotions |

|Psychological |What causes character to act? | |

| |Do character’s actions reflect that of the author/reader? | |

| |Historians goal is to shed light on the time period |Historical Reconstruction emphasizes on the struggles on that |

| | |time period (ex. Woman Struggles) |

|Historical |Make connections to other literary writings in that time period | |

| | | |

| |Time Period shifts the tone | |

| |How does the outside world affect the literary characters? |Protagonist’s conflicts -> part of a class struggle (big picture)|

| |What is the characters position in the world? | |

|Marxist |How does a characters social class impact their conflicts? |Mrs. Mallard’s repression or social injustices are part of a |

| |Challenge economic oppression against race, culture, and social |social revolution of the relations between men and women |

| |class | |

| |Emphasize the context of a work and modern readers understanding |Medical records, without the awareness of how selfish and self |

| |and interpretation of the work. |destitute mrs.mallards impulses |

|New Historicist |Background info ? | |

| |Political, social, cultural concerns ? | |

| |Social, political, and economic contexts of the culture |Potential dangers and horrors of train travel in the 1890’s |

| |Expressions and behaviors based on culture |How heart disease was often misdiagnosed by physicians or used as|

|Cultural |How different races, genders, and classes are treated within a |a metaphor in Mrs. Mallard’s culture for a variety of emotional |

| |culture |conditions |

| |What is masculine and feminine? |Psychological stress created by the expectations that marriage |

| |Do women use language differently from men? |imposes on Mrs. Mallard. |

|Gender: Feminist, Gay and |Gender criticism expands categories to be more complex than just | |

|Lesbian |feminine and masculine. | |

| |Did this have a universal response? |The transition from winter to spring symbolizes her new life |

| |Attempt to identify what creates deep universal responses in |(ironically, she dies; contrasting the new spring symbol) |

|Mythological |reader | |

| |Attempt to explain how archetypes are embodied in literary works | |

| |Focuses on the readers. |Chopin doesn’t say her marriage is repressive, instead the reader|

| |Different readers may interpret it differently |figures it out through Mrs. Mallard’s conscience |

|Reader-Response |How we read and what influences our readings |In 1894, reader may see it as her only escape from a repressive |

| |Social and cultural values influence |marriage |

| | |in modern times marriage should have died rather than her |

| |Discovering and describing how a variety of possible readings are|The ending that the narrative shares the doctors inability to |

| |generated by the elements of a text. |imagine a life for Mrs. mallard apart from her husband |

|Deconstructionist | |Mrs. Mallard’s death to her sense of lost personal freedom |

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download