Theories Flashcards
Marxism
Marx believed that the social environment will determine human values and beliefs.Literature is viewed as ‘products’ of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era” . Literature reflects an author’s own class or analysis of class relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may be.
How to apply a marxist reading:
What role does class play in the work; what is the author’s analysis of class relations?
How do characters overcome oppression?
In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or does it try to undermine it?
What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed elsewhere?
Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to the problems encountered in the work?
Post-Colonialism
The historical period or state of affairs representing the aftermath of Western colonialism; the term can also be used to describe the concurrent project to reclaim and rethink the history and agency of people subordinated under various forms of imperialism.
Postcolonial theory also looks at the broader interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized by dealing with issues such as identity (including gender, race, and class), language, representation, and history.
Examples of post-colonialism:
Irony of the government’s duty to protect their inhabitants but instead the apathy shown to them
The treatment and oppression of indigenous peoples
Dehumanisation of indigenous peoples
Feminism
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women’s and men’s social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality
Argues that human behaviour is the result of the interactions among three component parts of the mind: the id, ego, and superego.
This theory places great emphasis on the role of unconscious psychological conflicts in shaping behaviour and personality. What balance we strike in any given situation determines how we will resolve the conflict.
Id=wants and desires
Superego= social rules and morals
Ego= balance and compromise
Psychoanalytic theory:
Psychoanalytical criticism is a form of literary critique, which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. Psychoanalytic theory allows us to dig deeper and to understand a character’s deeper motivations.Only the application of Psychoanalytical analysis takes into consideration the subconscious of a character.
Postmodernism:
Postmodern literature is a form of literature which is marked, both stylistically and ideologically, by a reliance on such literary conventions as fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators, often unrealistic and downright impossible plots, games, parody, paranoia, dark humor and authorial self-reference
A late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power
New Historical:
New Historicism is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic.
The New Historicist also acknowledges that his examination of literature is “tainted” by his own culture and environment.
New Historical: Current theory
Current literary criticism is affected by and reveals the beliefs of our times in the same way that literature reflects and is reflected by its own historical contexts. New Historicism acknowledges and embraces the idea that, as times change, so will our understanding of great literature.
How to apply new historicism:
The New Historicist also acknowledges that his examination of literature is “tainted” by his own culture and environment.
They want to study how a work of literature reflects its historical and sociocultural context
They want to understand how a literary work comments on and relates to its context
Gender Studies:
Gender studies, therefore, is a study of production, reproduction, and resistance to norms that produce inequality between men and women.
