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Feminist Literary Analysis

What is it?
Feminist theory is an approach that focuses on the way women are represented in literature. This mode of
interpretation is important not only to understanding how gender affects characters in a work, but also in
understanding the societal values that are reflected by the work.

Since the world of academe has privileged the male sex for most of history, it is not surprising that the traditional
literary canon mostly overlooks or ignores works by female authors. Hence, written women often adhere to traditional
gender roles determined by patriarchal, or male dominated, society. Women are often depicted as submissive wives,
dutiful homemakers, and selfless nurturers, considered virtuous by right of beauty and dominated by emotions.
Feminist theory tries to answer the question of whether a character perpetuates traditional female stereotypes, and to
what extent the text supports those views. Though much of feminist scholarship focuses on rediscovering and
analyzing works by women authors, feminist theory can be applied to any work. Because of this, there are many
varieties of feminist theory.

Sub-types

Historical feminist criticism focuses on how a work correlates Important Feminist Literary Figures
with women’s position at a certain point in time. By thinking about
the work in its historical context, the reader can better analyze
how the characters typify or transgress the gender norms of their
society. For instance, a historical feminist approach could be
effectively used to analyze “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” by
Katherine Mansfield because the death of an unmarried woman’s

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father had much different consequences in the 1920s than it does

today.

Psychoanalytic feminist criticism focuses on the mental state

and the unconscious impulses of a character and how they were
formed by early life experiences. Feminist criticism is more
specifically interested in the ways in which the social construct of
gender have influenced their personality. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell
Jar would be a good novel for psychoanalytic feminist criticism
because you could focus on the ways in which patriarchal
oppression contributed to or interacted with the heroine’s mental
illness.

Marxist/socialist-feminist criticism focuses on the ways in

which the socioeconomic system oppresses women based on
Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of
both class and sex. In A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary
the Rights of Women (1972).
Feminist Literary Criticism, Maggie Humm explains that “Marxism
offers both a way of linking historical evidence of women’s
oppression with literary texts and understanding how writers
consciously or unconsciously transpose that evidence into their
text” (75). A Marxist feminist approach might look at the ways in
which a woman is divested of social power by the inability to
legally own property. You could use Marxist feminist approach
when analyzing Kate Chopin’s The Awakening by looking at
Edna’s perception of her husband’s wealth and her decision to
leave the material comfort of his lavish house.

Poststructuralism / deconstruction feminist criticism analyzes

the ways in which language is ingrained with the ideologies of the
ruling society. In the case of feminist theory, the interest is how
language inherently supports patriarchal ideas and is oppressive
to women. This is not only because the value judgement language
Virginia Woolf, author of A Room of One's Own
implies, but also because it is an inadequate tool for women’s
(1929).
expression of their experience. For example, you might look at the
ways active and passive sentence structures relate to Edna's
experience in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Postructuralism
feminist theory is a good approach to more modern works, where
sexism or gender expectations might be subtly expressed by
connotations.

Black feminist criticism focuses on works both by and about

African American women. It focuses heavily on their cultural
traditions and history that make a black woman’ experience
unique. Toni Morrison’s Beloved could be explored using black
feminist criticism because the novel is deeply rooted in Afro-
American culture and female characters struggle with both racism
and sexism.

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Simone de Beauvoir, author of The Second Sex

(1949).

What can you find in this section?

This Feminist Analysis section includes a step-by-step walkthrough for creating your own feminist analysis
essay as well as specific examples for each step, following the composition of my essay analyzing Susan
Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers".

Steps:
Reading
Asking Questions
Inventing
Big Idea
Research
Planning
Drafting
Revising
Finalizing

Archived Process for Feminist Analysis of Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of her Peers"

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