Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Feminist
Marxist
Psychoanalytic
New Historicist/Multicultural
Approach
According to Jeffrey N. Cox and Larry J. Reynolds,
For the most part new historicism can be
distinguished from old historicism by its lack of
faith in objectivity and permanence and its
stress not upon the direct recreation of the past
is rather the processes by which the past is
constructed or invented. (Booker 135)
Postcolonial and minority writers are involved in
serious efforts to develop viable cultural identities
to replace those thrust on them by the culture of
their former colonial masters (Booker 150)
New Historicism/Multicultural
Approach and Joseph Conrad
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped
and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly with a
slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She
carried her head high, her hair done in the shape of
a helmet, she had brass leggings to the knees, brass
wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her
tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads
on her neck, bizarre things, charms, gifts of witchmen, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at
every step. She must have had the value of several
elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb,
wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something
ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And
in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole
sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal
body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to
look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at
the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
(Conrad 60)
Passage
from
Heart of Darkness
Questions to consider:
Feminist Approach
Passage
from
Macbeth
Passage
from
Macbeth
brows.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Hamlet:
Good madam.
King:
Queen:
Passage
from
Hamlet
Questions to consider:
How is the relationship between men and
women portrayed?
What constitutes masculinity and
femininity?
Do characters take on traits from
opposite genders? How so?
How does this change others reactions
to them?
How are male and female roles defined?
Marxist Approach
Passage
from
Pygmalion
Questions to consider:
Psychoanalytical Approach
Passage
from
Lord of the Flies
Questions to consider:
How do the operations of repression
structure or inform the work?
Are there any Oedipal dynamics at work
here?
What does the work suggest about the
psychological being of its author?
What psychoanalytical concepts can be
applied to events, images, or characters?
Works Cited
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/criticalthinking
Booker, Keith. A Practical Introduction to Literary
Theory and Criticism. New York. 1996.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York.
1988.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York.
1954.
Holt McDougal. Literature: British Literature.
Orlando. 2012.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York. 1992
http://www.bartleby.com/138/5.html