PART 1

1. What is the difference between comprehension and interpretation of a

literary text? Explain it using examples from the novel studied in the
course.

Interpretation means to look for a meaning in a literary text to find the true
meaning for the reader from a personal point of view. According to Mario Klarer,
there are many ways of interpretation though, as it is subject to individual
knowledge, values, cultural and historical background, criteria and judgments,
but also to the reader’s reading mood. For Herman Rapaport, interpretation
gives a step further from mere understanding, implies seeing problems and
develop a hypothesis. A text read twice might not have the same reader´s
interpretation between the first and the second time. Interpretation within
literature is the decoding of the text, in a way being translated to give it another
meaning. In this sense, it relates to hermeneutics, which is to explain what is
intended to communicate verbally, non-verbally and by writing. Whereas
comprehension, according to Herman Rapaport, is related to the accuracy of
the literary text, such as the description of the characters; the context; action
taken in order; narrative devices; themes; key allusions; in short, gathering
information from the text that can lead to an interpretation. For instance, in
chapter 16 she says. “I would give up the unessential; I would give up my
money […] but I wouldn´t give up myself” she is stating how important is herself
(comprehension), criticizing her strict role in a traditional marriage and
motherhood against the different woman she is becoming to from conventional
society rules, she stands up from women to run their own lives as they desire
(interpretation).

2. If you were a Marxist literary theorist, what would you look for in a literary
text?

Considering the different Marxist perspectives throughout the literature of the

late 19th and 20th centuries like Terry Eagleton, Ken Newton or Louise
Althusser, if I were a Marxist literary theorist, what I would look for in a text is
the class struggle, and historic materialism, in terms of how a society is
reflected by its economic base system. How the social transformation context is
globally explained through the text by the proletariat's fight to eradicate the
social classes; the individual struggle for independent financing in the face of
class stratification. Marxism continues to change reality through the struggle of
social classes which is helped by literature in terms of showing the social reality
as the most orthodox positions describe (realists like Balzac). Also, I would look
for a complex main character who tries to progress in this structured society, a
middle-class figure unable to accept the reality of inequality, like Emma Bovary
(Gustave Flaubert), Ana Ozores (Alas Clarín) or Edna Pontellier (Kate Chopin).
I would look for a person unsatisfied with reality as Lukacs mentions. I would
seek the meaning of the context through the linguistic interaction of the
characters, lower and upper classes as presented by Bajtin. That is well
recognised in the novel.
PART 2
CONTEXT (Max. 100 words): Identify and contextualize the literary work and
author (0,75 marks). *Failing to contextualize the text correctly can seriously
affect the evaluation of this part of the PEC.
This text belongs to Kate Chopin´s novel The Awakening, written in 1899, in late
Victorian age which genre is Bildungsroman, focusing on the emotional
maturation process of the main character, mainly a young woman. At this
period, the turn-of-the-century in America, a woman was considered a property
of her husband in a society mainly conservative. The novel questions this social
structure probably as the writer spent her childhood surrounded by women of
her creole family who had an intellectual influence teaching Chopin music and
French culture and being independent. However, Chopin got married and
became a mother of six children.

FORM AND CONTENT (Max. 200 words in total): 1. To which part of the work
does this paragraph belong? 2. Identify and describe briefly the characters
found and implied in the fragment; 3. Who is talking? Identify and explain its
function (1,75 marks).
It belongs to chapter 23 of Kate Chopin´s novel The Awakening. We can identify
three characters of the novel apart from the narrator: Doctor Mandelet, who is a
family doctor, friend of the Pontelliers and the Ratignolles. He is an old, wise
doctor who understands Edna´s needs and desires very well due to his
professional long experience. Despite the fact he understands her, he just
wants to live in calm aside other else´s lives. Arobin is a flirting young man
known for his relationship with married women who becomes Edna´s lover. The
Pontelliers refers to Leonce, Edna´s husband, a conventional businessman who
expects his wife to stick to social conventional rules, and Edna, a dissatisfied
housewife and mother, the main character, who starts to realize the real woman
she is becoming. Who is talking is the narrator who describes the story in third
person except when in direct speech with commas speaks the doctor, a wise
semi-retired physician always consulted by everyone in town who regrets
having accepted the invitation as he refuses to keep more secrets, he is not
involved in like knowing Edna is having an extra-marital affair which is
inappropriate for an upper-class woman in this society.
THEORY AND CRITICISM (Max. 200 words): What is the implication of the
“inner life” the fragment is referring to within the whole work? Explain it using a
feminist literary criticism lens (2,5 marks).
One of the most important revolutions of the times the novel was written (end of
19 century) was the gender roles in society by the first wave feminist movement
and the concept of the New Woman. Apart from the suffrage movement, it was
shown up a radical feminist in favor of a sexual liberation and professional
equality like men. It´s clearly seen through the novel this revolution by the
complex and changing emotions of Edna described in relation to her role of
Creole offspring of wife and mother and her desire to be an independent woman
who intends to break society´s rules by the influence of new feminist ideas. The
entire novel describes this intricate journey exploring her sensual and sexual
identity against the social approval especially of her husband. Edna Pontellier
represents the phenomenon of the liberated woman with ambitions and
autonomy. As Gilbert and Gubar say “while moralists, educators, and
physicians continued to explain to women why they should lead decorous,
selfless private lives as wives and mothers, a number of artists responded
angrily and triumphantly to the fact that many women no longer did so”
(1985:956). That was exactly what Kate Chopin showed in The Awakening.