Mrs. Loux's English Class | The Class of 2015



Name: ____________________________Date: ____________________Period: _______Directions: Follow the steps below with your small group. Be prepared to share this information with the class.Read your assigned literary criticism. Highlight and take close reading notes in the margins to decode the text.Read the sample excerpt from a scholarly journal/book that discusses Death of a Salesman through the lens of your assigned criticism. Highlight and take close reading notes in the margins to explain how your literary theory is being revealed in this critical text about Death of a Salesman. (Consider which question(s) the author is answering).Synthesize the information. Summarize your literary theory in FIVE statements/bullets. This should only be relevant information. (Consider how you would explain this literary theory to a room of middle school students.) Be direct, concise and clear. These statements/bullets will be shared with the class.Provide one statement exploring how a critic in your assigned theory would view William Carlos William’s short story “The Use of Force”. Consider one alternate perspective about how to view Death of a Salesman through the lens of your literary criticism. Record all of the information in your “Literary Theories and Criticism” chart. BE PREPARED TO CLEARLY EXPLAIN ALL OF THIS TO YOUR CLASSMATES. Formalism (1930s-present)Formalists disagreed about what specific elements make a literary work "good" or "bad"; but generally, Formalism maintains that a literary work contains certain intrinsic features, and the theory "...defined and addressed the specifically literary qualities in the text" (Richter 699). Therefore, it's easy to see Formalism's relation to Aristotle's theories of dramatic construction.Formalism attempts to treat each work as its own distinct piece, free from its environment, era, and even author. This point of view developed in reaction to "...forms of 'extrinsic' criticism that viewed the text as either the product of social and historical forces or a document making an ethical statement" (699). Formalists assume that the keys to understanding a text exist within "the text itself," (..."the battle cry of the New Critical effort..." and thus focus a great deal on, you guessed it, form (Tyson 118).Typical questions:How is the work structured or organized? How does it begin? Where does it go next? How does it end? What is the work’s plot? How is its plot related to structure? What is the relationship of each part of the work to the work as a whole? How are the parts related to one another? Who is narrating or telling what happens in the work? How is the narrator, speaker, or character revealed to readers? How do we come to know and understand this figure?Who are the major and minor characters, what do they represent and how do they relate to one another? How is the setting related what we know of our characters and their actions? To what extent is the setting symbolic?How does the work use imagery to develop its own symbols? (i.e. making a certain road stand for death by constant association)How do paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension work in the text?How do these parts and their collective whole contribute to or not contribute to the aesthetic quality of the work?How does the author resolve apparent contradictions within the work?What does the form of the work say about its content?Is there a central or focal passage that can be said to sum up the entirety of the work?The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.FORMALISM SAMPLE:“When the adolescent Willy had "almost decided to go" to find his father in Alaska, he met Dave Singleman, an eighty-four-year-old salesman who had "drummed merchandise in thirty-one states" and who could now simply go into his hotel room, call the buyers, and make his living in his green velvet slippers. Willy saw that and "realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want" (81). Obviously, Willy found in Dave Singleman a substitute father figure. Singleman had explored and imposed his will (through selling) upon a vast territory, as Father Loman had, but Dave Singleman had managed it in a civilized and comfortable way: in a train rather than a wagon, a hotel room rather than around a fire, and with the Green World transformed into the ease of the green velvet slippers, which he wore even in his death in the smoker of a train. The myth of Dave Singleman is equally as strong for Willy as the myth of his father, imaging as it does for him the perfect life and death, as Dave Singleman died the "death of a salesman," with "hundreds of salesmen and buyers" at his funeral and sadness "on a lotta trains for months after that" (81). Singleman's name implies his lack of dependence on women, and he demonstrates to Willy that a life of material comfort without pioneer ruggedness can still be manly. The realm of comfort had probably been associated in Willy's mind with his mother. Through Dave Singleman's model, Willy realizes that it is possible to establish himself as "well liked" in an all-male community outside of and larger than the male immediate family. This community is the Business World, which provides more stability and comfort and more variety of and competition among consumer goods than those handcrafted in the vast outdoors. In the face of both temptations to choose the Green World, Willy chooses the Business World, the realm of his surrogate father, Dave Singleman.”Stanton, Kay. “Women and the American Dream of Death of a Salesman.” Feminist Rereadings of Modern American Drama. Ed. June Sehlueter. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989. 120-154. Web.Structuralism (1920s-present)The structuralist school emerges from theories of language and linguistics, and it looks for underlying elements in culture and literature that can be connected so that critics can develop general conclusions about the individual works and the systems from which they emerge. In fact, structuralism maintains that "...practically everything we do that is specifically human is expressed in language" (Richter 809). Structuralists believe that these language symbols extend far beyond written or oral communication.For example, codes that represent all sorts of things permeate everything we do: "the performance of music requires complex notation...our economic life rests upon the exchange of labor and goods for symbols, such as cash, checks, stock, and certificates...social life depends on the meaningful gestures and signals of 'body language' and revolves around the exchange of small, symbolic favors: drinks, parties, dinners" (Richter 809).Patterns and ExperienceStructuralists assert that, since language exists in patterns, certain underlying elements are common to all human experiences. Structuralists believe we can observe these experiences through patterns: "...if you examine the physical structures of all buildings built in urban America in 1850 to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition, for example, principles of mechanical construction or of artistic form..." you are using a structuralist lens (Tyson 197).Moreover, "you are also engaged in structuralist activity if you examine the structure of a single building to discover how its composition demonstrates underlying principles of a structural system. In the first example...you're generating a structural system of classification; in the second, you're demonstrating that an individual item belongs to a particular structural class" (Tyson 197).Structuralism in Literary TheoryStructuralism is used in literary theory, for example, "...if you examine the structure of a large number of short stories to discover the underlying principles that govern their composition...principles of narrative progression...or of characterization...you are also engaged in structuralist activity if you describe the structure of a single literary work to discover how its composition demonstrates the underlying principles of a given structural system" (Tyson 197-198).Sign SystemsThe discipline of semiotics plays an important role in structuralist literary theory and cultural studies. Semioticians "...appl[y] structuralist insights to the study of...sign systems...a non-linguistic object or behavior...that can be analyzed as if it were a language" (Tyson 205). Specifically, "...semiotics examines the ways non-linguistic objects and behaviors 'tell' us something.For example, the picture of the reclining blond beauty in the skin-tight, black velvet dress on the billboard...'tells' us that those who drink this whiskey (presumably male) will be attractive to...beautiful women like the one displayed here" (Tyson 205). Lastly, Richter states, "semiotics takes off from Peirce - for whom language is one of numerous sign systems - and structuralism takes off from Saussure, for whom language was the sign system par excellence" (810).Typical questions: Using a specific structuralist framework (like Frye's mythoi)...how should the text be classified in terms of its genre? In other words, what patterns exist within the text that make it a part of other works like it?Using a specific structuralist framework...analyze the text's narrative operations...can you speculate about the relationship between the...[text]... and the culture from which the text emerged? In other words, what patterns exist within the text that make it a product of a larger culture?What patterns exist within the text that connect it to the larger "human" experience? In other words, can we connect patterns and elements within the text to other texts from other cultures to map similarities that tell us more about the common human experience? This is a liberal humanist move that assumes that since we are all human, we all share basic human commonalitiesWhat rules or codes of interpretation must be internalized in order to 'make sense' of the text?What are the semiotics of a given category of cultural phenomena, or 'text,' such as high-school football games, television and/or magazine ads for a particular brand of perfume...or even media coverage of an historical event? (Tyson 225)What are the elements of the work—words, stanzas, chapters, parts, for example—and how can these be seen as revealing “difference”?How do the characters, narrators speakers, or other voices heard in the work reveal difference?How do the elements of the work’s plot or overall action suggest a meaningful pattern? What changes, adjustments, transformation, shifts of tone, attitude, behavior or feeling do you find?How are the work’s primary images and events related to one another? What elements of differentiation exist, and what do they signify?What systems of relationships govern the work as a whole?The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.STRUCTURALIST SAMPLE“The father's bravado is the son's shame. At the root of Biff's wrongdoing and feelings of guilt lie shame and feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. But, unlike his father, he faces, and learns from, his shame. Consequently, the play suggests that he can rebuild his sense of self- worth and re-establish his relation to others on healthier grounds. He makes sense of his guilt by confronting the shame buried deep in his sense of identity. Ultimately, the ability to do so enables him to empathize with his father. Biff's inherited sense of inadequacy and inferiority send him "running home" (22) in springtime from the outdoor life out West—a life that reflects his own desires and needs. And yet, it is his father's wrong, a shameful act of adultery, coupled with Biff's failure to pass math and go to university to become a football star (as he and his father had hoped), that shatters Biff's already fragile sense of identity and sends him out West in the first place. His own desires and needs cannot hold him still. He is plagued by his father's, and his society's, measure of a person—the mighty dollar, the dream of "building a future" (22). Until Biff discovers his father with "The Woman" in Boston, Willy is as good as a god to him. So, rather than expose his father's shame, which, at some level, he experiences as his own. Biff runs, and attempts to hide, from the collapse of the ideal, invulnerable, infallible image of his father. Thus the source of his sense of identity in shame goes unquestioned. He continues to steal and to move from job to job, not so much because he feels guilty but because he feels ashamed of himself for not living up to an image of success that has already been proven to be a "fake." After he witnesses his father give "The Woman" in Boston "Mama's stockings!" Biff calls his father a "liar!" a "fake!" and a "phony little fake!" (121). He does not, however, reconcile this image of his father with his sense of himself Not, that is, until he is in the process of stealing a fountain pen belonging his old boss. Bill Oliver. As he says to his father, "I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw—the sky" (132)—the same sky that is obscured from view by the "towering, angular shapes . . . surrounding" the Loman home "on all sides" (11), and which also forms part of the "inspiring" outdoor world Biff has left behind (22). Biff goes to see Oliver in a futile attempt to fit his, if you will, circular self into an "angular" world—a world in the process of crushing both the son and the father, men far more adept at using their hands than at using a pen. Biff reveals to his father that he has taken Oliver's pen, and that he cannot face Oliver again, but Willy accuses him of not "want[ing] to be anything," and Biff, "now angry at Willy for not crediting his sympathy," exclaims, "Don't take it that way! You think it was easy walking into that office after what I'd done to him? A team of horses couldn't have dragged me back to Bill Oliver!" (112-13). There is no question that Biff feels guilty for what he has "done to" Oliver, first, by stealing "that carton of basketballs" (26) years ago, and second, by stealing his fountain pen. On the other hand, he also feels extremely ashamed of himself.Biff's inherited sense of shame drives him to steal and to perform for his father. The fact that he steals does not, however, bother his father too much. Guilt can be concealed and, perhaps, forgiven and forgotten. Willy suggests as much when he advises Biff to say to Oliver: "You were doing a crossword puzzle and accidentally used his pen!" (112). But Biff's sense of himself is at stake, and he knows it. He knows that he cannot bear to be seen (the classic sign of shame) by Oliver. He can no longer separate his sense of himself from the act of stealing. Biff says to his father. "I stole myself out of every good job since high school!" (131). But, in essence, as Biff now realizes, his self was stolen by his inherited, shame-ridden sense of identity. He never had a chance to see himself outside his father's point of view. Biff understands his relation to others, notably his father, only after he literally goes unnoticed and unidentified by someone he thought would recognize him: Bill Oliver. Biff comes to the realization that there is no reason why Oliver should have recognized him, given that he couldn't recognize himself That is, as Biff says to Happy, "I even believed myself that I'd been a salesman for him! And then he gave me one look and—I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been! We've been talking in a dream for fifteen years. I was a shipping clerk" (104). Unlike his father's true self, which is immersed in shame and guilt. Biff's self surfaces and stays afloat because he learns about his guilt from his shame.”Ribkoff, Fred. “Shame, Guilt, Empathy, and the Search for Identity in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.” Modern Drama 43.1 (2000): 183-192. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.Post-Structuralism/Deconstructive (1930’s-present)This approach concerns itself with the ways and places where systems, frameworks, definitions, and certainties break down. Post-structuralism maintains that frameworks and systems, for example the structuralist systems explained in the Structuralist area, are merely fictitious constructs and that they cannot be trusted to develop meaning or to give order. In fact, the very act of seeking order or a singular Truth (with a capital T) is absurd because there exists no unified truth.Post-structuralism holds that there are many truths, that frameworks must bleed, and that structures must become unstable or decentered. Moreover, post-structuralism is also concerned with the power structures or hegemonies and power and how these elements contribute to and/or maintain structures to enforce hierarchy. Therefore, post-structural theory carries implications far beyond literary criticism.If we are questioning/resisting the methods we use to build knowledge (science, religion, language), then traditional literary notions are also thrown into freeplay. These include the narrative and the author:NarrativeThe narrative is a fiction that locks readers into interpreting text in a single, chronological manner that does not reflect our experiences. Postmodern texts may not adhere to traditional notions of narrative. For example, in his seminal work, Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs explodes the traditional narrative structure and critiques almost everything Modern: modern government, modern medicine, modern law-enforcement. Other examples of authors playing with narrative include John Fowles; in the final sections of The French Lieutenant's Woman, Fowles steps outside his narrative to speak with the reader directly.Moreover, grand narratives are resisted. For example, the belief that through science the human race will improve is questioned. In addition, metaphysics is questioned. Instead, postmodern knowledge building is local, situated, slippery, and self-critical (i.e. it questions itself and its role). Because post-structural work is self-critical, post-structural critics even look for ways texts contradict themselves (see typical questions below).AuthorThe author is displaced as absolute author(ity), and the reader plays a role in interpreting the text and developing meaning (as best as possible) from the text. In “The Death of the Author,” Roland Barthes argues that the idea of singular authorship is a recent phenomenon. Barthes explains that the death of the author shatters Modernist notions of authority and knowledge building (145).Lastly, he states that once the author is dead and the Modernist idea of singular narrative (and thus authority) is overturned, texts become plural, and the interpretation of texts becomes a collaborative process between author and audience: “...a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue...but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader” (148). Barthes ends his essay by empowering the reader: “Classical criticism has never paid any attention to the reader...the writer is the only person in literature…it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (148).Typical questions:How is language questioned in the work? How does the work undermine or contradict generally accepted truths?How does the author (or a character) omit, change, or reconstruct memory and identity?How does a work fulfill or move outside the established conventions of its genre?How does the work deal with the separation (or lack thereof) between writer, work, and reader?What ideology does the text seem to promote?What is left out of the text that if included might undermine the goal of the work?If we changed the point of view of the text - say from one character to another, or multiple characters - how would the story change? Whose story is not told in the text? Who is left out and why might the author have omitted this character's tale?What opportunities exist in the work? Which of the two opposing terms of each pair is privileged or more powerful term? How is this shown in the work?What textual elements (descriptive details, images, incidents, passages) suggest a contradiction or alternative to the privileged or more powerful term?What is the prevailing ideology or set of cultural assumptions in the work? Where are these assumptions more evident?What passages of the work most reveal gaps, inconsistencies, or contradictions?How stable is the text? How decidable is its meaning?The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.POST STRUCTURALISM/DECONSTRUCTIVE SAMPLE“Scattered images of family unity in Death of a Salesman evoke the sense of loss: "All I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in Mama's lap, sitting around a fire, and some kind of high music" (p. 157). Loman's very early family life remains the vaguest of memories, symbolized by the high-pitched sound of the flute which, as Edward Murray has noted, acts as an "auditory binder" in the play.'^ It juxtaposes Loman's pastoral longings for the past with the overbearing actualities of the city towering around him. Also, Loman's image contrasts the quiet repose of the past with the restlessness that characterizes the rest of his life. Another passage evoking an image of lost family unity captures his relationship with the young Biff, when life was "so full of light, and comradeship" (p. 213). Loman wants to feel a unity of generations linking his father and Ben with him and his sons. He appeals to Ben: "You're just what I need, Ben, because I—I have a fine position here, but I—well. Dad left when I was such a baby, and I never had a chance to talk to him and I still feel—kind of temporary about myself (p. 159). Yet the need for family unity is juxtaposed against the reality of family disintegration. Loman's father abandons his family, and Ben leaves soon afterward. Loman violates the unity of his family with the woman in Boston, not only by sexual infidelity but by giving her the stockings that should go to Linda. Biff leaves home because of his discovery, and Happy leaves to set up his own apartment and enjoy his women. Sex proves a powerfully divisive force among the Lomans, separating parents from each other and parents from sons. Happy abandons his father in another way, by merely sending him away to Florida when Loman's emotional breakdown becomes embarrassingly visible. He cannot respond sympathetically to his father's problems. "No, that's not my father," he dismissively remarks in the restaurant scene, "He's just a guy" (p. 205).”Jacobson, Irving. “Family Dreams in Death of a Salesman.” American Literature. 47.2 (1975): 107-119. Web. 3 Mar. 2013Psychoanalytic Criticism (1930s-present)Sigmund FreudPsychoanalytic criticism builds on Freudian theories of psychology. While we don't have the room here to discuss all of Freud's work, a general overview is necessary to explain psychoanalytic literary criticism.The Unconscious, the Desires, and the DefensesFreud began his psychoanalytic work in the 1880s while attempting to treat behavioral disorders in his Viennese patients. He dubbed the disorders 'hysteria' and began treating them by listening to his patients talk through their problems. Based on this work, Freud asserted that people's behavior is affected by their unconscious: "...the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware..." (Tyson 14-15).Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by childhood events. Freud organized these events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents and drives of desire and pleasure where children focus "...on different parts of the body...starting with the mouth...shifting to the oral, anal, and phallic phases..." (Richter 1015). These stages reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of genitals, loss of affection from parents, loss of life) and repression: "...the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological events" (Tyson 15). Tyson reminds us, however, that "...repression doesn't eliminate our painful experiences and emotions...we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to 'play out'...our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress" (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.Id, Ego, and SuperegoFreud maintained that our desires and our unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood:id - "...the location of the drives" or libidoego - "...one of the major defenses against the power of the drives..." and home of the defenses listed abovesuperego - the area of the unconscious that houses judgement (of self and others) and "...which begins to form during childhood as a result of the Oedipus complex" (Richter 1015-1016)Oedipus ComplexFreud believed that the Oedipus complex was "...one of the most powerfully determinative elements in the growth of the child" (Richter 1016). Essentially, the Oedipus complex involves children's need for their parents and the conflict that arises as children mature and realize they are not the absolute focus of their mother's attention: "the Oedipus complex begins in a late phase of infantile sexuality, between the child's third and sixth year, and it takes a different form in males than it does in females" (Richter 1016). Freud argued that both boys and girls wish to possess their mothers, but as they grow older "...they begin to sense that their claim to exclusive attention is thwarted by the mother's attention to the father..." (1016). Children, Freud maintained, connect this conflict of attention to the intimate relations between mother and father, relations from which the children are excluded. Freud believed that "the result is a murderous rage against the father...and a desire to possess the mother" (1016).Freud pointed out, however, that "...the Oedipus complex differs in boys and girls...the functioning of the related castration complex" (1016). In short, Freud thought that "...during the Oedipal rivalry [between boys and their fathers], boys fantasized that punishment for their rage will take the form of..." castration (1016). When boys effectively work through this anxiety, Freud argued, "...the boy learns to identify with the father in the hope of someday possessing a woman like his mother. In girls, the castration complex does not take the form of anxiety...the result is a frustrated rage in which the girl shifts her sexual desire from the mother to the father" (1016).Freud believed that eventually, the girl's spurned advanced toward the father give way to a desire to possess a man like her father later in life. Freud believed that the impact of the unconscious, id, ego, superego, the defenses, and the Oedipus complexes was inescapable and that these elements of the mind influence all our behavior (and even our dreams) as adults - of course this behavior involves what we write.Freud and LiteratureSo what does all of this psychological business have to do with literature and the study of literature? Put simply, some critics believe that we can "...read psychoanalytically...to see which concepts are operating in the text in such a way as to enrich our understanding of the work and, if we plan to write a paper about it, to yield a meaningful, coherent psychoanalytic interpretation" (Tyson 29). Tyson provides some insightful and applicable questions to help guide our understanding of psychoanalytic criticism.Typical questions: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"?What connections can you make between your knowledge of an author’s life and the behavior and motivations or characters in his or her work?How does your understanding of the characters, their relationships, their actions, and their motivations in a literary work help you better understand the mental world and imaginative life, or the actions and motivations, of the author?How does a particular literary work—its images, metaphors, and other linguistic elements—reveal the psychological motivation of its characters or the psychological mindset of its author?What kind of literary works and what types of literary characters seem best suited to a critical approach that employs a psychological or psychoanalytical perspective? Why?How can a psychological or psychoanalytic approach to a particular work be combined with an approach from another critical perspective?The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.PSYCHOANALYTIC SAMPLE“Of course, Happy's sexual pattem has strong Oedipal overtones as well. Raised within a family dynamic in which Dad's attention was focused on Biff, who was an authority figure for the younger child, it is no wonder that Happy's struggle for identity and recognition early took the form of masculine competitiveness. "I lost weight. Pop, you notice?" (44; Act I) is this character's pathetic boyhood refrain as he undertakes the impossible task of competing with his brother-the-football-hero for paternal esteem. While Willy frequently embraces Biff, in flashback as in the present, he never touches Happy. And the younger brother must listen to Dad's continual boasting about Biff without ever himself being the object of his father's pride. Happy is, thus, the perpetual benchwarmer, the onlooker at the lives of his father and brother, just as Willy had been before him. Mother's neglect of the younger brother adds insult to injury and fans the flame of an already unhealthy Oedipal situation. While Linda frequently addresses Biff using the same language and tone she uses to address Willy—"I know dear" (47; Act I), "Please, dear" (59; Act I), "Thanks, darling" (69; Act II)—she uses such terms for Happy only to express contempt: "You never asked, my dear!" she responds angrily to Happy's remark that he was unaware of his father's demotion to straight commission work (50; Act I). Indeed, Happy barely exists for his mother. She frequently acts as if he were not there, as we see when the brothers return home after the restaurant scene. Although Happy does all of the talking as he and Biff enter the house, Linda ignores him to vent her emotion on Biff: ''Linda, cutting Happy off violently to Biff 'Don't you care whether he lives or dies?'" (116; Act II). Only Biff's feelings matter. Only Biff's behavior can change anything. "I'm gonna get married. Mom" (61 ; Act I) is Happy's new hopeless bid for attention and approval. And it is in his attitude toward marriage and women that we find his Oedipal symptomology most clearly revealed. Happy's compulsion to seduce the fiancés of executives he works with is a rather obvious enactment of his Oedipal desire: he wants to compete with his father and brother and, especially, punish his mother for ignoring him. For Happy is a psychologically castrated man who has to use his penis to assert his existence and value. The executives he works with are, like his father and brother, authority figures. They're wealthier and more successful than he is and each has won the (symbolically) exclusive attention of a woman. He can't compete with these men in the marketplace any more than he has been able to compete with Biff and Willy in the home. So he punishes them by "ruining" heir fiancés. Happy can't find a girl "with resistance," a girl "like Mom" (19; Act I) that he could marry, because he doesn't want to. By sticking to his pattern of one "easy" woman after another, he can continue simultaneously to fulfill two conflicting Oedipal needs: he can continue, symbolically, to preserve his mother (no woman can take her place), and he can continue, symbolically, to soil her (to seduce a woman is to seduce his mother).”Tyson, Lois. “The Psychological Politics of the American Dream: Death of a Salesman and the Case for an Existential Dialectics.” Essays in Literature. 19. 2 (1992): 213-240. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)Feminist criticism is concerned with "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and "...this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women" (Richter 1346). This misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" (83).Feminist criticism is also concerned with less obvious forms of marginalization such as the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon: "...unless the critical or historical point of view is feminist, there is a tendency to under-represent the contribution of women writers" (Tyson 82-83).Common Space in Feminist TheoriesThough a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there exist some areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson:Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept soIn every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and valuesAll of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the worldWhile biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine)All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equalityGender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not (91).Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some theorists call the three waves of feminism:First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth AmendmentSecond Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, 1972) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movementThird Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see below) to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to "...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 97).Typical questions: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 work say about women's creativity?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)To what extent does the representation of women (and men) in the work reflect the place and time in which the work was written?How are the relations between men and women, or those between the members of the same sex, presented in the work? What roles do men and women assume and perform and with what consequences?Does the author present the work from within a predominately male or female sensibility? Why might this have been done and with what effects?How do the facts of the author’s life relate to the presentation of men and women in the work? To their relative degrees of power?How do other works by the author correspond to this one in their depiction of the power relationships between men and women?The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.FEMINIST SAMPLE“Just as The Woman was the scapegoat for Willy's desertion and failure of the family, so Miss Forsythe and Letta are the scapegoats for his sons' desertion and failure of him. But as masculine failure had been the means of bringing The Woman out of the bathroom of the Business World, so it brings Linda out of her limited position of foundation and support in the Home. Significantly, Linda is at her most assertive and ominous after the incident with The Woman. She fiings down the boys' proffered bribe of flowers, presented by Happy as he displaced blame onto women for his and Biff's desertion of their father. But in herwrath, Linda is a superior match for both boys. They cannot cover up or smooth over the truth in her presence, although they sheepishly continue to try. Linda can be threatening not in her own right, but for Willy. Her reaction in this scene is perhaps what could be expected from a woman whose husband had been unfaithful. Yet her devotion to Willy is such that we believe she would not have come at him that way. Although Linda has bought into the system enough to condemn the women as "lousy rotten whores!" (124), she blames her sons more for going to them. She attempts to throw the boys out of the house and stops herself from picking up the scattered flowers, ordering them, for once: "Pick up this stuff, I'm not your maid any more." Linda finally declares her independence from her role, recognizing that she is better than they are” For both Linda and The Woman, male failures have provoked female sense of injustice and realization of victimization. Happy turns his back on Linda's order, refusing to acquiesce to feminine dominance, but Biff gets on his knees and picks up the flowers, as he understands that he is a failure as a man. Willy has been put into the position of the humiliated and abandoned one, like The Woman, the football kicked around in the competition. Linda achieves this position through empathy with him but rises above it into female control, short-lived as it is: women can take charge when the men are defeated by one another. When Linda accuses Biff, "You! You didn't even go in to see if he was all right!" (124), she is condemning him partly for shunning all of her influence, the nurturing and tending, the human compassion. But Biff insists on seeing Willy now, over Linda's objections. Because he has become as bad as Willy in betraying Linda, he and Willy can understand each other.” Stanton, Kay. “Women and the American Dream of Death of a Salesman.” Feminist Rereadings of Modern American Drama. Ed. June Sehlueter. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989. 120-154. Web.New Historicism (1980s-present)This school, influenced by structuralist and post-structuralist theories, seeks to reconnect a work with the time period in which it was produced and identify it with the cultural and political movements of the time (Michel Foucault's concept of épistème). New Historicism assumes that every work is a product of the historic moment that created it. Specifically, New Historicism is "...a practice that has developed out of contemporary theory, particularly the structuralist realization that all human systems are symbolic and subject to the rules of language, and the deconstructive realization that there is no way of positioning oneself as an observer outside the closed circle of textuality" (Richter 1205).A helpful way of considering New Historical theory, Tyson explains, is to think about the retelling of history itself: "...questions asked by traditional historians and by new historicists are quite different...traditional historians ask, 'What happened?' and 'What does the event tell us about history?' In contrast, new historicists ask, 'How has the event been interpreted?' and 'What do the interpretations tell us about the interpreters?'" (278). So New Historicism resists the notion that "...history is a series of events that have a linear, causal relationship: event A caused event B; event B caused event C; and so on" (Tyson 278).New historicists do not believe that we can look at history objectively, but rather that we interpret events as products of our time and culture and that "...we don't have clear access to any but the most basic facts of history...our understanding of what such facts mean...is...strictly a matter of interpretation, not fact" (279). Moreover, New Historicism holds that we are hopelessly subjective interpreters of what we observe.Typical questions:What language/characters/events present in the work reflect the current events of the author’s day?Are there words in the text that have changed their meaning from the time of the writing?How are such events interpreted and presented?How are events' interpretation and presentation a product of the culture of the author?Does the work's presentation support or condemn the event?Can it be seen to do both?How does this portrayal criticize the leading political figures or movements of the day?How does the literary text function as part of a continuum with other historical/cultural texts from the same period?How can we use a literary work to "map" the interplay of both traditional and subversive discourses circulating in the culture in which that work emerged and/or the cultures in which the work has been interpreted?How does the work consider traditionally marginalized populations?When was the work written and published? How did the critics perceive it?What social attitudes and cultural practices related to the action of the work were prevalent during the time the work was written?What kinds of power relations does the work describe, reflect, and embody?To what extent can we understand the past as it is reflected in the literary work? To what extent does the work reflect differences from the ideas and values of its time?The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.SAMPLE NEW HISTORICISM“Much of the scholarly criticism, both past and current, focuses on whether or not Death of a Salesman functions as a "true" tragedy. Miller provided much of the impetus for this debate with his well known essay "Tragedy and the Common Man," which upset many of the central assumptions about the genre that Aristotle had described some two thousand years before, and started off a heated debate among critics. Traditional classical tragedy, as in Greek theatre or Shakespeare, depicts a hero who is often upper-class and who challenges, because of some personal flaw in his nature, the moral values of his society; for example, Oedipus is considered a classic Greek tragedy. The hero suffers, while society and its sacred values remain unbreakable, and in the end, the hero experiences an epiphany or self-realization.Willy Loman is not a typical tragic hero. He belongs to a lower economic class and is not particularly smart. Furthermore, the society in which he lives is an amoral, capitalistic big-business society. In "Tragedy and the Common Man," Miller argues, "the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." He argues that tragic heroes are defined by their willingness to sacrifice everything in order to maintain their personal dignity. Loman is flawed in his skewed idea of what makes a person successful, but he refuses to give up that popular vision. Miller viewed Willy Loman as a believer in the American Dream, who in the end chooses not to suffer the loss of dignity. The essay was reprinted many times, and now is a popular reading assignment for high school and college students. When it appeared in The New York Times, some influential critics, including George Jean Nathan, Eleanor Clark, and Eric Bentley, saw the essay as a challenge, and it became a starting point for astute critical discussions about dramatic tragedy.”Sickels, Amy. “Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman History of Criticism.” Critical Insights. (2010): 76-91. Web. 3 Mar. 2013. ................
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