Historical lenses: Analyzes a work in its historical context (understanding the time

period, author’s background, and how the events of the time affect the author and
possibly the characters of the text) such as what time period was the work written,
and what time period is the literary work taking place in.
Example: “The Gift of the Magi”

Economic hardships:

- The story is set against the backdrop of economic Challenges faced by many

people in the early 20th century. The young couple, Jim and Della, live in a small

apartment and struggle to make ends meet.

- The sacrificial nature of their gifts (Della’s hair and Jim’s watch) can be seen in

the context of limited financial resources. The gifts reflect the characters’

willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of expressing love.

Structuralism: Structuralist criticism literary text to a larger structure, which may

be a particular genre, a range of intertextual connections, a model of a universal

narrative structure, or a system of recurrent patterns or motifs.

Example: “Mouthful of Birds”

In Mouthful of Birds, you can explore the ways in which stories presrnt binary

pairs such as reality/fantasy, sanity/madness, or life/death, Schweblin’s narratives

often blur the boundaries between these oppositions, challenging traditional

distinctions.

Environmental: Environmental may refer either to actual physical surroundings or

to social or cultural background factors: an environment of crime and grinding
poverty. Milieu, encountered most often in literary writing, refers to intangible
aspects of the environment: an exhilarating milieu of artistic ferment and
innovation.
Examples: “The Rocking-Horse Winner”
The rocking horse itself can be seen as a symbol of the destructive consequences of
materialism. The horse is described as rocking furiously, reflecting the anxiety and
desperation of the character in their pursuit of wealth. This frenzied rocking can be
likened to the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and the impact on the
environment.

Marxist Criticism: A type of literary criticism based on the writings of German

philosopher Karl Marx. In its simplest form, Marxist criticism attempts to show the
relationship between literature and the social conditions mainly economic under
which it was produced.
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