Literary Theory

Post-Colonialism
Post Colonialism
• Concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and works
produced by those who were/are colonized
• Post-colonial theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics,
religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to
colonial hegemony (western colonizers controlling the colonized).
• Deals with the literatures produced by the peoples who once were
colonies of the European imperial powers (e.g. Britain, France, and
Spain); and the literatures of the decolonized countries engaged in
contemporary, postcolonial arrangements with their former mother
countries
Post Colonialism

• Postcolonial literary criticism comprehends the literatures written by

the colonizer and the colonized, wherein the subject matter includes
portraits of the colonized peoples and their lives as imperial subjects
• Focussing on the omnipresent power struggles between cultures and
the intersection of cultures which results in multiculturalism and poly-
valency of culture, Postcolonialism analyses the metaphysical, ethical
and political concerns about cultural identity, gender, nationality,
race, ethnicity, subjectivity, language and power
Typical questions:
• How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
• What does the text reveal about the problematics of post-colonial identity, including the relationship
between personal and cultural identity and such issues as double consciousness and hybridity?
• What person(s) or groups does the work identify as "other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups
described and treated?
• What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
• What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference - the ways in which race, religion,
class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form individual identity - in
shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which we live?
• How does the text respond to or comment upon the characters, themes, or assumptions of a
canonized (colonialist) work?
• Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of different post-colonial populations?
• How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its
representation of colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples?
Feminism
 Feminism
• Literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of
feminism
• "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine
the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women"
• This school of thought seeks to analyze and describe the ways in which literature
portrays the narrative of male domination by exploring the economic, social, political,
and psychological forces embedded within literature
• Goals of feminist criticism include both the development and discovery female tradition
of writing, and rediscovering of old texts, while also interpreting symbolism of women's
writing so that it will not be lost or ignored by the male point of view and resisting
sexism inherent in the majority of mainstream literature
Feminism
• Identifying with female characters: This is a way to challenge the
male-centered outlook of authors. Feminist literary criticism suggests
that women in literature were historically presented as objects seen
from a male perspective.

• Reevaluating literature and the world in which literature is read: This

involves questioning whether society has predominantly valued male
authors and their literary works because it has valued males more
than females.
Feminism
• A feminist literary critic resists traditional assumptions while reading a
text. In addition to challenging assumptions which were thought to be
universal, feminist literary criticism actively supports including
women's knowledge in literature and valuing women's experiences.

• Feminist literary criticism assumes that literature both reflects and

shapes stereotypes and other cultural assumptions. Thus, feminist
literary criticism examines how works of literature embody patriarchal
attitudes or undercut them, sometimes both happening within the
same work.
• Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and
psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so
• In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined
only by her difference from male norms and values
• All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for
example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world
• While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender
(masculine or feminine)
• All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate
goal to change the world by prompting gender equality
• Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience,
including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously
aware of these issues or not
 Typical questions:
• How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
• What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female
roles)?
• How are male and female roles defined?
• What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
• How do characters embody these traits?
• Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others’ reactions
to them?
• What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or
psychologically) of patriarchy?
• What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
• What does the work say about women's creativity?
• What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the
operation of patriarchy?
• What role the work play in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition?
Marxism
Marxism
• Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism
based on socialist and dialectic theories. Marxist criticism views
literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they
originate. According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social
institution and has a specific ideological function, based on the
background and ideology of the author
Marxism
• According to Marxists, and to other scholars in fact, literature reflects
those social institutions out of which it emerges and is itself a social
institution with a particular ideological function. Literature reflects
class struggle and materialism: think how often the quest for wealth
traditionally defines characters. So Marxists generally view literature
"not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but
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
Marxism
• Marxist criticism is not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned
with how novels get published and whether they mention the
working class. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and
this means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and, meanings.
But it also means grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the
product of a particular history.
• All about the power struggle: rich versus poor, owners versus workers
Marxism
• Literature is directly connected to real life. Marxism tries to explain
exactly what that book has to do with the real world.
• Marxists are interested in money, food, and material goods above all
else. That means that they read texts to see how those texts depict
material and socioeconomic reality; it also means that they read texts
to see how material and socioeconomic reality of the author and the
author's time actually shaped those texts in the first place
 Typical questions:
• Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
• What is the social class of the author?
• Which class does the work claim to represent?
• What values does it reinforce?
• What values does it subvert?
• What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays?
• What social classes do the characters represent?
• How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?
• 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?