Gerz 1

Donald A. Gerz

Dr. Nina Morgan

Critical Theory

February 3, 2016

Once Upon a Time in Critical Theory:

A Presentation to Dr. Nina Morgan’s Critical Theory Class

Introduction

How do we make sense out of a piece of literature, whether poem, short story, novel, or,

for that matter, myth or folktale? Our ability to decode, grasp, appreciate, analyze, and

synthesize characteristics of the written and spoken word, particularly the creatively written and

figuratively spoken word, depends on seemingly infinite categories of sense, perception, mind,

brain, symbol, imagination, and innumerable other factors that emerge out of an infinite number

of figurative Russian nesting dolls of perception that reveal particles and waves of life from here

to Macbeth’s “crack of doom.” Language is like that.

To make sense and appreciate text, especially creative text, we have to devise perceptual

lenses of critical theories. Below, twelve tales are seen through the lenses of thinkers from

eleven schools of critical theory.

1.) Russian Formalism / Viktor Sh-klov-sky (1893-1984)

Defamiliarization and “Henny Penny” (English)

Russian formalism’s approach to literature considers it “not as a window to the

world but as something with specific literary characteristics that make it literature as

opposed to philosophy or sociology or biography” (Rivkin and Ryan 3). Furthermore,

 Gerz 2

most formalists see literature as “accessible only through connotative language

(allusion, metaphor, symbolism, etc.) that cannot be rendered in the direct, denotative,

fact-naming language of the sciences” (Rivkin and Ryan 3). Toward such an approach

to literature, Viktor Sh-klov-sky held that literary language employs the quality of

defamiliarization, which is properly understood as presenting the ordinary in ways that

are extra-ordinary.

The literary quality of tales such as “Henny Penny” is in large part due to its

“defamiliar” nature---in this case, the animals’ names, their naive and ridiculous behaviors, and

their total lack of judgment and instinct, a lack that leads to the deaths of all except the killer fox.

Real animals, ones we are familiar with, do not behave in such ways. Certainly, their parents do

not give them ridiculous names. Indeed, real animals do not name their offspring. Most surely,

real animals, even domesticated ones, do not ignore their instincts. The animals of “Henny

Penny” are “de-familiar” to us and therefore characters of literature, not zoology.

2.) Structuralism and Linguistics / Vladimir Propp (1895-1979)

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE and “Jack and the Beanstalk” (English)

Vladimir Propp separated fairy tales into 31 sequence and 7 character functions

(Morgan). In so doing, he was able to discover predictable sequences that occur within Russian

fairy tales. After an initial situation, the tale usually takes one of 31 functions (Propp). Propp

employed this highly structured method to successfully analyze Russian folklore and fairy tales.

Here are some of the sequence functions of “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

ABSENTATION: A member of a family leaves the security of the home environment.

This may be the hero or some other member of the family that the hero will later need to rescue.
 Gerz 3

This division of the cohesive family injects initial tension into the story-line. The hero may also

be introduced here, often being shown as an ordinary person.

PURSUIT: Hero is pursued (pursuer tries to kill, eat, undermine the hero).

RETURN: Hero returns.

And here are some of the character functions of “Jack and the Bean Stalk.”

The dispatcher makes the lack known and sends the hero off.

The villain struggles against the hero.

(Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp#Narrative_structure)

3.) Psychoanalysis / Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) / Condensation, Displacement,

Manifest & Latent Content, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (Disney),

and Literally Every Fairy Tale

Fairy tales can be analyzed in much the same spirit as dreams. Therefore, they can lend

themselves to psychoanalytical interpretations through terms coined and explained by Sigmund

Freud in his landmark work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Fairy tales read in Freudian

terms of latent and manifest content (as described in any fairy tale or dream), provide rich and

familiar narratives as with psychological texts. Two Freudian terms come to mind: condensation

and displacement.

Condensation is a critical function of the unconscious as delineated by Freud by

which "dream work" is accomplished. Freud held that the unconscious automatically

bundles many diverse ideas and chains of associations into condensed and thick

"knots" of the manifest dream. By carefully and expertly unraveling these

condensations, meaning may be found and analyzed within the latent dream (Gerz).
 Gerz 4

Example of Condensation >>> In a sense, every fairy tale is a tangled knot or

series of knots that concentrate the psychic action of the unconscious. One of those

condensed knots is the purity, innocence, and beauty of Snow White. Even her name

speaks volumes of her virtue.

Displacement is another reflexive function of the unconscious as understood by

Freud through which emotional truths too threatening to the stability of the ego may be

made psychically "safe" and tolerable until it is more prepared for full disclosure. Also

an essential part of "dream work," displacement is a mechanism by which the

unconscious displaces and transfers emotional ideas and feelings to less intense and

painful concepts, ideas, things, and other people (Gerz).

Example of Displacement >>> The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but is

unable to kill her because she is so beautiful and innocent. The stability of his ego is threatened

at the mere thought of such a crime. “After raising his knife, he finds himself unable to kill her

as she sobs heavily and begs him: "Oh, dear huntsman, don't kill me! Leave me with my life; I

will run into the forest and never come back!" The huntsman leaves her behind alive, convinced

that the girl would be eaten by some wild animal. He instead brings the Queen the lungs and

liver of a young boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the Queen.

(Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White#Plot)

4.) Marxist Analysis / Karl Marx (1818-1993) / Alienation, Species Being, Communal Life,

and “The Little Red Hen and the Grain of Wheat” (Russian)

“In the Marxist sense, alienation describes the individual's gradual separation and

isolation from traditional communal life within modern industrialized and technological

societies. The result is isolation, dis-empowerment, and depression---all caused by the

 Gerz 5

continual erosion of what Marx calls species being. For Marx, the appropriation of the

proletariat's means of production by bourgeois capitalists results in an irrecoverable loss

of humanity within those who trade their labor for access to things that can never

replace the creativity, life, beauty, knowledge, and consciousness that can be

discovered within human possibility” (Gerz).

The apparent laziness of the farm animals in “The Little Red Hen and the Grain

of Wheat” does not square with the fact that a grain of wheat cannot feed the hen, her

chicks, and all the animals the hen demands to help her. Note that the hen makes no

promise to the animals in exchange for their labor. Instead, she implies that she will

share something that cannot possibly be shared because one grain of wheat cannot

account for enough product to share. The other farmyard animals experience erosion of

their species being because they have been separated and isolated from their

communal life mainly because of the disingenuous intentions of the hen who is planning

to use the labor of many to produce wealth (bread) for herself and her family while

excluding all others. When the other animals do not fall for the Little Red Hen’s ruse,

she berates them for being smarter than she thought they were.

5. Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism / Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) / Untenable

Binary Oppositions, Deconstruction, and “Cinderella” (Perrault/Disney)

Cinderella’s attributes are presented in a highly positive light, but her idealistic dreams

are perceived by her stepmother and stepsisters as an unrealistic waste of time. Her projected

gentleness and sweetness are perceived by them as passivity, and all of them see her as a

hopeless time-wasting daydreamer.

 Gerz 6

Who is the real Cinderella? With his repudiation of facile and untenable binary

oppositions, Derrida would probably hold that Cinderella’s mufti-faceted character will emerge

only if we peal away the layers of a person similar to the fictional character. Theorists such as

Derrida consider not in an either/or manner. Instead, they dismantle (deconstruct) the anatomy

of a given text to come closer to its more likely possibilities.

6.) Post-Structuralism and Post-Marxist Analysis / Julia Kris-teva (b. 1941)

Intertextuality, “Little Red Riding Hood” (German), and

“The History of Little Golden Hood” (Marelles)

 Gerz 7

I define intertexuality as “the intricate and multi-faceted inter-associations

between texts that are instrumental in creating new works and generating additional

awareness, feelings, and attitudes within readers and audiences. As Kris-teva and

others use the term, it applies to all forms of art, communication, media, and advertising

as well as to literature (Gerz).

The second version of “Little Red Riding Hood” sought to extend and improve the

first text by consciously imbuing Riding Hood and her grandmother with power (the

enchanted golden hood) by bolstering Riding Hood as well as her grandmother. Note

that in the original version, both main characters were at the mercy of chance and had

to depend upon the kind huntsman. In the second version, both were more powerful,

resourceful, and less the victim. Their chance for survival and victory over the designs

of the wolf were considerably enhanced as the second version “intertexualized” the first

to strengthen both main characters.

7.) Feminism / Gayle Rubin (b. 1949)

Gender, Sex, and Atlanta Ballet’s “The Nutcracker (2015)” (Russian)

Gayle Rubin suggests we change society by eliminating the many social

structures that create and promulgate gender as "part of the [so called] natural order."

She maintains that gender is a manufactured phenomenon, not a natural feature of life.

She makes the distinction between gender and sex, making it clear she is against the

former and in favor of the later. She sees gender as restrictive to both males and

females, as well as something that makes it difficult for individuals of both sexes to fulfill

their abilities and purposes (Rubin 679-682).

 Gerz 8

Rubin proposes a genderless society because such a situation would allow

greater fulfillment and happiness for all its members. In the Atlanta Ballet’s 2015

version of “The Nutcracker,” Mary-a is not confined to the usual societal expectations

regarding gender. Neither is the Nutcracker Prince.

8.) Gender Studies, Gay/Lesbian Studies,

and Queer Theory / Judith Butler (b. 1956) / Gender Performativity and

“Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs” (Disney)

The seven dwarfs regard Snow White as a maternal figure of domestic civility.

Indeed, she takes care of them much the same as a mother would her children. In so

doing, Snow White “performs” her gender through her subculture’s conception of

femininity, while the men perform their gender in the way most men assume it is to be

performed. Snow White cooks, cleans, does the laundry, and all other typically

perceived mothering tasks. Meanwhile, the dwarfs work in a mine and provide. Both

seem to be engaged in acts of what Judith Baker refers to as gender performativity

(Butler 677).

9.) Historicisms / Stephen Greenblatt (b. 1943)

Juxtaposition of Literary and Non-literary Texts in

“Aladdin” (from The Arabian Nights / Middle Eastern) and Aladdin (Disney / U.S.)

“What Stephen Greenblatt’s new historicism aims to do is to give equal weight to literary

and non-literary material. A simple definition of new historicism is that it puts a literary text

beside a non-literary text and performs parallel readings of them. Instead of viewing the textual
 Gerz 9

landscape as something that comprises a literary “foreground” and a historical “background,” it

asks us to see literary and non-literary texts as equals, engaged in mutually illuminating

relationships. New historicism asks us to acknowledge that literature is in fact inextricably

related to—and even coextensive with—all other products of culture” (Gemmill). http://critical-
methods.commonclass.org/post/34776066086/class-5-an-introduction-to-new-historicism

An analysis using the criteria of Stephen Greenblatt’s historicism might involve a

contrast of Marshall McLuhan’s “hot” medium of the 20th-Century heavily commercial Disney

film, “Aladdin,” created through costly high technology (28 million dollars), one that grossed

over 500-million dollars worldwide over-and-against McLuhan’s “cool” and relatively

inexpensive medium and the low technology of the original written “Aladdin” tale as included in

The Arabian Nights.

Special consideration from critical theory’s school of cultural historicism might also

include the bald Orientalism (see Edward Said immediately below) that permeates the Disney

film that was conceived, directed, and produced in the United States of the late 20th-Century, an

Orientalism that is absent from the original written version of “Aladdin” in The Arabian Nights

as produced in Persia centuries ago.

10.) Ethnic, Post-Colonial, and International Studies / Edward Sa-id (1935-2003)

Orientalism and “Oriental Tales” (French / Marguerite Your-ce-nar)

Edward Sa-id’s work in post-colonial studies, particularly on the topic of Orientalism,

provides excellent tools to evaluate the literature and culture of Asia and the Middle East.

According to David Macey, Sa-id’s Orientalism is "a manner of regularized (or

Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological

biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." It is the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire
 Gerz 10

system of thought and scholarship.” / “Latent Orientalism is the unconscious, untouchable

certainty about what the Orient is. Its basic content is static and unanimous. The Orient is seen as

separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive. It has a tendency towards

despotism and away from progress. It displays feminine penetrability and supine malleability. Its

progress and value are judged in terms of, and in comparison to, the West, so it is always the

Other, the conquerable, and the inferior.” / “Manifest Orientalism is what is spoken and acted

upon. It includes information and changes in knowledge about the Orient as well as policy

decisions founded in Orientalist thinking. It is the expression in words and actions of Latent

Orientalism” (Macey).

It should be noted that Susan Hinerfeld of The Los Angeles Times called the book,

“Oriental Tales," a curiosity, a melange" and continued, "The stories are meant to demonstrate

virtuosity. Instead they demonstrate the dangers of imitation. The story of Wang-Fo is 'faux-

chinois, pretend-fantastic, coy. It is plainly a clumsy Western exercise in Chinese story telling."

While Hinerfeld did not mention the cultural term, manifest Orientalism, she might as well have.

11.) Cultural Studies / Richard Hoggart (1918-2014)

Ordinary decency and “Hercules and the Wagoner” (Aesop)

“The term, “ordinary decency,” is an allusion to George Orwell, and the term

effectively and concisely mirrors Richard Hoggart’s nostalgia for a “decent” society that

strives for stable and homogeneous cultural values that ought to distinguish Great

Britain and are lacking (in his estimation) the uncivilized political atmosphere and the

social and crude cultural underpinnings of life in the United States. Imagine a politically

correct Great Britain that portrays itself as the BBC 24/7 version, and you will grasp
 Gerz 11

Hoggart’s yearning for uprightness, moral rectitude, and “right action” over and against

alleged moral decrepitude and societal decline (Macey). Hoggart might very well say

something similar to what Hercules said to the wagoner in Aesop's fable above

(“Hercules and the Wagoner”), except he might exclaim self-righteously, “Good Lord,

man, God helps those who help themselves.” Instead of silver linings behind clouds,

Hoggart sees morality...the morality of Big Brother.

Conclusion

I imagine you have your favorite theorist and school of critical theory of the 11-

approaches to literature (indeed, to all that exists, whether concrete or abstract). I

suppose most of us do. Of course, all 11 approaches shed light on how symbol

translates life and life, symbol.

According to deconstructionist theorists such as Jacques Derrida, language is an

unstable medium of meanings, one that continually grasps at the straws of realities as

they continuously move away from centers that never existed in the first place. Sheer

diversity of perceptions, impressions, impressions of impressions, and an inexhaustible

hodgepodge of images, thoughts, feelings, expressions, sounds, sights, riddles, words,

and much more make meaning and reality itself hopelessly opaque.

Even inside the small, crowed rooms of our lives, mental permutations bounce off

one another like ping-pong balls as our epistemological and metaphysical possibilities

bound toward Freud’s conscious and unconscious ends, terminals opening onto the

inceptions of still newer meanings and realities. As we persist through our fragmented

histories, cultures, and subcultures, we are fated to acquire more and more language
 Gerz 12

baggage, luggage in which we stuff linguistic clothing, apparel that no longer fits our

meanings when we arrive at where we thought we wanted to be.

Moreover, when we get there, we are faced with the obsolete symbols and signs

of the meanings we cannot help but desire. We yearn like De-leuze and Guattari’s

desiring machines gassed with the high-octane fuel of unstable language, incomplete

meanings, and faulty reality. Complex and technological societies such as ours are not

satisfied with the precisely functioning signs, symbols, and codes of Saussure. These

seem ridiculously inadequate in our plastic world.

However, since we seem to be language-fed beings, we compulsively attempt to

break the codes of signs that cannot possibly keep up with the fluidly evolving realities

of our words, phrases, conversations, dialogues, and other forms of communication we

are damned to repeat in variations of exponentially reproduced voices of an eternal

dialogue with those who may no longer be listening.

We must live in this world, and we have no real choice but to travel to the next

destination where meaning may or may not be found. Usually, it is not found. Instead,

we happen upon still another sign pointing to yet another Bethlehem toward which, as

T.S. Eliot wrote, we have no choice but to slouch.

Who knows? Maybe we will stumble into town with a new idea or experience to

share if we can just put it into words that someone will understand.

I think we will.

- Don Gerz / Midterm Exam English 4220: Critical Theory by Dr. Nina Morgan / March 25, 2004
 Gerz 13

Works Cited and Consulted

Berger, Arthur Asa. Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key Concepts. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Butler, Judith. (52-53). Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory.

London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. (206). Literary Theory: An Anthology.

Revised Edition. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Publishing, 1998.

Derrida, Jacques. Kemerling, Garth. A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names.

27 Dec. 2015. Philosophy Pages. 1997-2006

<http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/d5.htm#derr>.

Freud, Sigmund. (143-145). Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory.

London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Gemmill, Katie. The Common Class Project. Columbia University's Department of

English and Comparative Literature, 2015.

Gerz, Donald. “Definitions of Terms in Critical Theory in My Own Words.” English 4220:

Critical Theory. Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA. 15 Jan. 2004.

Greenblatt, Stephen. “Invisible Bullets.” (786-803). Literary Theory: An Anthology.

Revised Edition. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Publishing, 1998.
 Gerz 14

Hoggart, Richard. (188). Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory.

London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Kristeva, Julia. (218-219). Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory.

London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Martignoni, Margaret E. (Editor). The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature. New

York, NY: Grosset and Dunlap, 1955.

Marx, Karl. “Marxism and Cultural Criticism.” (40-70). Berger, Arthur Asa. Cultural

Criticism: A Primer of Key Concepts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,

Inc., 1995.

Morgan, Nina. Lecture: “Vladimir Propp's Approach to Narratology.” English 4220:

Critical Theory. Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA. 15 Jan. 2004.

Perkins, Patricia Barrett (Forward). A Child’s Book of Stories. New York, NY:

Longmeadow Press, 1986.

Propp, Vladimir. (95-100). Berger, Arthur Asa. Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key

Concepts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1995.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan (Editors). Literary Theory: An Anthology. Revised

Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1998.

Rubin, Gayle. (679-682). Literary Theory: An Anthology. Revised Edition. Ed. Julie Rivkin

and Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1998.

Shklovsky, Viktor. (349-350). Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory.

London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Said, Edward. “Orientalism.” (873-886). Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan (Editors).

Literary Theory: An Anthology. Revised Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell

Publishing, 1998.
 Gerz 15

Sim, Stuart, and Borin Van Loon. Introducing Critical Theory. Duxford, Cambridge: Icon

Books, 2001.