Literary Criticism/ 2

Literary Criticism
I. STRUCTURALISM
A. Assumptions:
a. Codes, signs, and rules govern all human social and cultural practices, including communication
b. These codes give meaning to all our social and cultural customs and behavior
c. The proper study of meaning-and, therefore reality- is an investigation of the system behind these practices, not the individual parts fit together to function.
d. Meaning can be found in the relationship among the various components of a system.
e. The proper study of literature involves an inquiry into the conditions surrounding the act of interpretation itself (how literature conveys meaning), not an in-depth investigation of the
individual work.

f. Structure of literature is similar to the structure of language having self-enclosed system.

g. The center of interpretative methodology focuses on how the text a text conveys meaning rather than what meaning is conveyed.
h. How the text mean – not what text mean – is the chief interest.
i. Structuralism demystifies literature by using scientific and objective analysis of how readers interpret text. (It does not consider a literary work as mystical or magical relationship between
the author and the reader, a place where author and reader share emotions, ideas, and truth.)

j. Meaning is governed by the system that governs the writer, not an individual author’s personal quirks.
k. Meaning can be expressed only through this shared system of relations, not in an author’s stated intentions or the reader’s private experience.
l. It emphasizes the form and structure not the actual content of the text. That is, its focus is mainly in the rule-governed system that underlies text rather than the text themselves.
B. Methodologies
C. Concepts
a. Mythemes- recurrent themes which transcended culture and time, speaking directly to the minds and hearts of the people. It finds its meaning through opposition.
b. Minimal Pair – or binary opposition. – difference (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/,/g/) (/s/, /z/) – meaning
c. Structuralist narratology- the science of narrative. Illustrates hos the story’s meaning develops from its overall structure of langue.
d. Narratemes- thirty-one fixed elements that occur in a given sequence whose function identifies predictable patterns that central characters enact to further the plot of the story.
e. Five-point system:
i. A lack of something exists
ii. This lack forces the hero to go on a quest to eliminate this lack
iii. On the quest, the hero encounters a magical helper
iv. The hero is subjected to one or more tests
v. After having passed the test(s), the hero receives a reward
f. Metalanguage- words used to describe language so we can understand how a text means not what it means.

II. DECONSTRUCTIONISM
A. Assumptions
a. Signification is both arbitrary and conventional. (Transcendental signified- external point of reference upon which one build a concept or philosophy)
b. Once found, this transcendental signified would provide ultimate meaning since it would be the origin of origins.
c. The meaning of transcendental signified would originate directly with itself not differentially or relationally as does the meaning of all other signified or signifiers.
d. The transcendental signified functions as or provides the center of meaning allowing those who believe in one or more of them to structure their ideas of reality around such center of
truth.

e. Meaning is ongoing activity that is always in progress, always based on differance.

f. The linguistic sign is defined by differences that distinguishes it from other signs, not by any innate properties.
B. Methodology
a. Acknowledging binary operations – once any of hierarchies is recognized and acknowledged, we can readily reverse its elements through decentering. Once it is reversed, examining the
values and beliefs that give rise to both the original hierarchy and newly created one is possible. This process involves “erasure” by assuming, for the moment, that each of the signifiers
is clear and definitive. The realization that each value or belief is absent of any definitive meaning and reveals how the meaning of terms arises from the differences between them.

b. Arch writing- language is a special kind of writing which is determined by reversing of the speech/writing hierarchy.
c. Writing and language are means of signification, and each can be considered a signifying system.
d. Difference- the basic element of language (we know phoneme or word because each is different from another)
e. There is no innate relationship between a signifier and a signified. (phone /b/ can become the symbol for /d/)
f. It is this free play or undecidability in a system of communication that Derrida calls for writing. This eludes a speaker’s awareness when using the language, for the speaker assumes a
position of supposed master of his or her speech.

g. The relationship between any binary hierarchy is always unstable and problematic. By inverting these hierarchies or showing the fragile basis for establishment of such hierarchies, we
may be able to get insights into language and life.

h. By reversing the hierarchies, deconstruction challenge the fixed views assumed by the hierarchies and values associated with such rigid beliefs.
i. Aims to free us from the constraints of our prejudiced beliefs which will allow us to see a text from exciting new perspectives that we have never before recognized.
j. Deconstruction looks for places in the text where the author misspeaks or losses control of the language and says what was supposedly not meant to be said which can be found or occurs
in questions, figurative language, and strong declarations.
C. Concepts
a. Linguistic sign (
i. Signifier – the spoken or written constituent such as the sound or /t/ and the orthographic (written) symbol t.
ii. Signified – the concept signaled by the signifier
b. Logocentrism- the belief that there is an ultimate reality or center or truth that can serve as the basis for all our thoughts and actions.
c. Binary opposites- represents the established and accepted ideologies that posits the existence of transcendental signifiers. It restricts meaning because it already assumes a fixed
interpretation of the reality (truth and falsehood, reason, and insanity, good and bad)

d. Supplementation- refers to the unstable relationship between elements in binary operations. It exists in all binary oppositions.
e. Differance- coined from the word differer “to defer, postpone, or delay” (What if question)
f. When reversal of binary operations occurs:
i. Human knowledge becomes referential (we know something only because it differs from some other bit of knowledge
ii. Since no transcendental signified exists, all interpretations concerning life, self-identity, and knowledge are possible, probable, and legitimate, we must forgo closure.
g. The text can never state a definitive meaning because it has no “one” correct or definitive interpretation. This is because all meaning and knowledge are based on difference, no text can
simply mean one thing.

III. PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM

A. Assumptions:
a. All artists are neurotic. (a way of an escape of many outward manifestations and results of neurotics, such as madness or self-destruction, by finding a pathway back to saneness and
wholeness in the act of creating his or her art)

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 b. An author’s chief motivation for writing is to gratify some secret desire, some forbidden wish that probably developed during the author’s infancy and was immediately suppressed and
dumped in the unconscious. (hidden meanings contained within the story and housed in symbols)

c. The text can and must be analyzed like a dream. (dreams are interpreted as a disguised wish)
d. Ego distorts and hides the wish or latent content of the dream, thereby allowing the dreamer to remember a somewhat changed and oftentimes radically different dream also called as the
“manifest dream.”- Sigmund Freud
e. Mythological as well as sexual images appear in our dreams – Carl Jung
f. Dreams are highly structured as language itself. No one can achieve wholeness because we are all and will always remain fragmented individuals who are seeking completeness. – Lacan
B. Methodologies
a. Psychobiography- amassing biographical information about the author through biographies, personal letters, lectures, and other document related in some way to the author.
b. Character analysis- studying the various aspects of characters’ mind (the author had in mind the particular personality for his or her characters)
c. Freud’s key assumption – that all human behavior is sexually driven – directly to a text. Yonic symbol (female) concave images such as flower, a cup, a cave, a vase; phallic symbol
(male) image such as a tower, a sword, a knife, a pen whose length exceeds its diameter. (Everything in the text is ultimately the hidden wishes of the author’s libido)

d. Archetypal criticism- By showing where and how these images appear in the text and whatever they form recognizable patterns, the archetypal critic believes that he or she will be able
to determine the text meaning. (red symbolizes danger, water symbolizes life)

e. Mythic concepts within the text- understanding the ancient stories and themes, seeing their relationship to modern stories and applying archetypal psychoanalysis, we may be able to
understand ourselves and our inner psyche.
C. Concepts
a. Conscious (rational) -perceives and records external reality and is the reasoning part of the mind
b. Unconscious (irrational) – governs the large part of our actions. It receives and stores our hidden desires, ambitions, fears, passions, and irrational thoughts.
i. Eros (sexual instincts referred to as libido)
ii. Destructive or aggressive instincts
c. Parapraxes or Freudian slips- disguised truths and desires which inevitably make itself known though so-called slips of tongue or our actions.
d. Id- irrational, instinctual, unknown, and unconscious part of the psyche. It contains our secret desires, our darkest wishes, and our most intense fears. It fulfills the pleasurable urges
including libido and all psychosexual desires.
e. Ego- rational, logical, waking part of the mind. It regulates the instinctual desires of the id and allows it to be released in nondestructive way.
f. Superego- causes moral judgement and operates according to moral principle which creates a sense of guilt and fear.
g. Overlapping Phases of development for a healthy psyche
i. Oral phase- when we suck our mother’s breast to be fed, our sexuality (libido) is activated.
ii. Anal Stage – the anus becomes the subject for pleasure when children learn the delights of defecation and, simultaneously, realize that they are independent persons who are
separate from their mothers.

iii. Phallic stage- child’s sexual desire or libido is directed toward the genitals when child learns that pleasure results from stimulating one’s sexual organs
h. The Oedipus Complex- recognizes a rival for his mother’s affection: the father
i. Castration complex- repression of the sexual desire
j. Electra complex- women’s unfulfilled desire (penis envy) will be mitigated and her sense of lack will be somewhat appeased.
k. Displacement- redirects and reshapes concealed wishes into acceptable social activities, presenting them in the form of images or symbols in our dreams and/writings.
l. Personal conscious (waking state)- image or thought of which we are aware at any given moment
m. Personal unconscious- storage where forgotten image or thought that are stored
n. Collective unconscious- houses cumulative knowledge, experiences, and images of the entire human species.
o. Archetypes- patterns or images of repeated human experience inherited genetically through psyche. (Birth, death, rebirth, the four seasons, motherhood). These are expressed in stories,
dreams, religions, and fantasies.

p. Anima- the feminine in the male

q. Animus – The masculine in the female
IV. FEMINISM
A. Assumptions:
a. All people – men and women – are politically, socially, and economically equal.
b. By defining the female in relation to male and claiming simultaneously the superiority of the male, Western society and many other cultures are, for the most part, patriarchal, decreeing
that the female, by nature, is inferior.

c. Women are individuals with their own right and are not incomplete or inferior to men. (angels, barmaids, bitches, whore, brainless, housewives, old maids)
d. Women must challenge the established literary canon that has shaped such images of female inferiority and subordination. (They must establish literature in all disciplines, by defining
and validating what it means to be a woman, and by establishing and creating feminist literary theories and criticism)

B. Methodology
a. Aims to debunk male superiority by exposing stereotypes of women
b. Scrutinize the American, the English or non-western literary canon, and rediscovering works written by women.
c. Aims to expose the multiple ways that patriarchal discourses empower males while disenfranchising women.
d. Challenges the structure of language that reflect gender or the creation of female language
C. Questions for Analysis
a. Is the author male or female?
b. Is the text narrated by male or female?
c. What types of roles do women have in the text?
d. Are the female characters the protagonist or secondary and minor characters?
e. Do any stereotypical characterizations of women appear?
f. What are the attitudes toward women held by the male characters?
g. What is the author’s attitude toward women in the society?
h. How does the author’s culture influence her or his attitude?
i. Is feminine imagery used? If so, what is the significance of such imagery?
j. Do the female characters speak differently than do the male characters?
k. Compare the frequency of speech for the male characters to that of the female characters.
D. Concepts
a. Men have treated and continued to treat women as inferiors
b. Males define what it means to be female and determine who controls the political, economic, social, and literary structures
c. Shakespeare’s sister- prevented of having “a room of her own” –(Virginia Wolf, 1882-1941)
d. French society (and Western societies in general) are patriarchal, controlled by males wherein they define what it means to be human, including what it means to be female. – (Simone
de Beauvior, 1908-1986)

e. Since the female is not male, she becomes the Other, an object whose existence is defined and interpreted by the dominant male. (women must see themselves as autonomous beings)
f. Female is born but a woman is created (one sex is determined by birth, but one’s gender is a social construct created by cultural norms) (boys- aggressive, self-assertive, domineering;
female- passive, meek, humble) – Kate Millett (1968)

g. Sexual politics- sex roles are dictated by society

h. Misogyny- describes the male hatred to women

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 i. Phallus is power which means that women are incomplete males who possesses penis envy, desiring male phallus and obtain power. – (Sigmund Freud)
j. Language ultimately shapes and structures our conscious and unconscious minds, thereby shaping our self-identity, not the phallus. – (Jacques Lacan)
k. Gynocriticism- framework for analysis of women’s literature to develop new models based on the study of female experience
i. Biological model
1. Emphasizes hoe the female body marks itself on the text by providing a host of literary images along with personal, intimate tone
ii. Linguistic model
1. Addresses the need for a female discourse, investigating how men and women use language
iii. Psychoanalytic model
1. Analyzes the female psyche and demonstrates how such an analysis affects writing process, emphasizing the flux and fluidity of female writing as opposed to male
writing’s rigidity and structure

iv. Cultural model

1. Investigates how society shapes women’s goals, responses, and point of view
l. Lacan’s three parts of the human psyche:
i. Imaginary (birth – 6 months)
1. Preverbal state that contains our wishes, our fantasies, and our physical images
2. Genderless- not able to distinguish differences between gender
ii. Symbolic (after successfully navigated from the Oedipal crisis)
1. The male- fears the father (Law) then obeys to become life the father
2. The female- fearing castration by the father
iii. Real (the actual world perceived by the individual)
1. For male- The pre-Oedipal boy desires, becomes direct threat to the male
2. For female- becoming subservience to males makes her second-class citizen
E. Present-day Feminism
a. Anglo-American Feminism
b. Poststructuralist feminism
c. Materialist Femism
d. Postmodern Feminism
e. Amazon Feminism – dedicated to female images – either fictional or real – in literature and art that emphasize the physiques of female and athletes and physical equiality of both males
and females
f. Cultural Feminism- personality and biology differences exists between men and women. They argue that women are inherently and biologically “kinder and gentler” than men
g. Ecofeminism- assumes that patriarchal societies are relatively new and that the society’s original condition was matriarchal. They argue that patriarchal society dominates both women
and nature, plundering and destroying our planet while the matriarchal society protects the environment, natural resources, and animal life and especially cares for women and children.
h. Seperatist Feminsim- advocates separation from men, either total or partial for achieving growth and individuality.
i. Third-world feminism/postcolonial feminism- rejects the phallocentric, patriarchal system established by the white males and recognizes that it is engaged in a political and social struggle
against male dominance.

V. Marxism
A. Assumptions:
a. Ultimate reality is material, not spiritual. (What we believe, what we value and even what we think are a direct result of our culture and our society, not our religion, our supposed
philosophy of life, or our worldview)

b. Nothing exists in isolation. (Everything is interrelated and exists in a dynamic relationship)

c. Our society is built on a series of ongoing conflicts between social classes. (The methods of economic production and the social relationships they engender form the economic structure
of the society referred to as the “base.” From this base arises the superstructure, or the multitude of social and legal institutions, political and educational systems, religious beliefs,
values, and a body of art and literature.)
d. Capitalists, not the working classes, control society’s ideology (its hegemony) and its social consciousness.
e. Consciously and unconsciously, social elite inevitably forces its ideas on the working classes.
f. Marxism addresses its rallying cry to the working classes. ( By recognizing that working people are not free agents who are being controlled by an intricate social web dominated by self-
declared, self-empowered, and self-perpetuating social elite)
g. Bourgeoisie control literature which is one of the elements of superstructure and ideology.
B. Methodology
a. Aims to uncover the author’s world and his or her worldview.
b. Exposes the class conflict in order to reveal the dominant class and its accompanying ideology being imposed either consciously or unconsciously upon the proletariat
c. Reveals the workers detachment not only from that which they produce but also from society and from each other also called as alienation.
d. Aims to uncover and denounce this antiproletariat ideology and show how an ideology entraps the working classes and oppresses them in the area of their lives.
e. It may begin by elucidating how an author’s text reflect the writer’s ideology through an examination of the fictional world’s characters, setting, society and any other aspects of the text.
f. It may investigate into the author’s social class and its effects on the author’s society.
g. Examines the history and the culture of the times reflected in the text and how the author either correctly or incorrectly pictures this historical period.
C. History
a. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
b. Freidrich Engels (1820-1895)
D. Core Principles
a. Reality itself can be defined and understood
b. Society shapes our consciousness
c. Social and economic conditions directly influence how and what we believe and value
d. The world as we know it can be changed for a place of bigotry, hatred, and conflict due to class struggle into a classless society in which wealth, opportunity, and education are accessible
for everyone.
E. Concepts
a. Dialectical materialism
i. Dialectic – a form of logical argumentation involving conflicting ideas, propositions, or both
ii. A thesis is presented, followed by counterstatement, the antithesis. This will result into a new idea called the synthesis.
iii. It brought the understanding of how workers can lead to a class war and establish a new social order.
b. Consciousness does not define life: life determines consciousness
i. A person’s consciousness is not shaped by any spiritual entity; through daily living and interacting with others, humans define themselves.
c. Base- economic means of production of society engenders or controls the superstructure
d. Superstructure- human institutions and ideologies (social and legal institutions, all political and educational systems, all religions, and all art)
e. Socialism is not a true historical period but a transitional stage between capitalism and society’s ultimate goal, communism also called as the worker’s paradise. This is when the
benevolent self-rule be established.

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 f. Capitalists/ bourgeoisie – controls and provides the economic policies and production of goods. They gain social and political control. They control the dominant discourse and formalize
and articulate their beliefs, their values, and their arts to develop their ideology thereby allowing them to enjoy the prestige of the masses.

g. Working class/proletariat - (wage slaves) are bound to revolt and strip the bourgeoisie of tis economic and political power and place the ownership of all property in the hands of the
government, who will fairly distribute the people’s wealth. Through a so called “deception” whereby they forget or abandon their own interests and desires and accept the dominant
values and beliefs as their own.
h. Ideology- referred to as the “science of ideas”. It is the bourgeoisie’s ruling ideas, customs, and practices. By controlling material relations, the bourgeoisie control’s social ideology.
i. False consciousness- an understanding which assumes that the material relationships are the expression of the ruling ideas in which the dominant social class shapes and controls each
person’s self-definition and class consciousness. Here, the working class fail to see the exploited, oppressed version of themselves.
j. Alienation and fragmentation- individuals are cut off from the value of their work.
k. Hegemony- the assumptions, values, and meanings that shape and define reality. These are being maintained by the capitalists.
F. Analytic Approach
a. Traditional historical approach- place a work(text) in its historical setting, paying attention to the author’s life, the time period in which the work was written, and the cultural milieu of
the both the text and the author
b. Reflection theory – declares that a text directly reflects a society’s consciousness.
c. Alienation effect- keeping the audience (reader) constantly aware of the moral and social issues wherein they must be forced into action and into making decisions, instead of reveling in
emotions.
d. Hailing the subject/interpellation- dominant hegemony or prevailing identity forms the attitudes of the people through a complex network of messages sent to each individual through
the elements contained in the superstructure, including arts which may also aim to prevent the insurrection of the working class.
e. Attentive reading- exposing ideologies operating in a given text.
f. Dialectic criticism- tries to determine the ideologies in analyzing a text.
g. Political unconscious- repressed conditions of exploitation and oppression.
G. Questions for Analysis
a. What class structure are established in the text?
b. What characters or groups control the economic means of production?
c. What class conflicts are exhibited?
d. What characters are oppressed, and to what social classes do they belong?
e. What characters are oppressors?
f. What is the hegemony established in the text?
g. What social conflicts are ignored? Highlighted?
h. Who represents the status qou?
i. Does the work suggest a solution to society’s class conflicts?
j. What is the dominant ideology revealed in the text?
k. Did the main character support or defy the domination ideology?
l. Is the narrator a member of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat?
m. Whose story gets told in the text?
n. Did the main character support or defy the dominant ideology?
o. Is the narrator a member of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat?
p. When and where was the text published?
q. What were the economic issues surrounding the publication of the text?
r. Who is the audience?
s. Who is the ideal reader? Virtual reader? Real reader?

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