21st

• Literary Criticism


  The comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or evaluation of works of literature. It is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context. It usually includes discussion of the work's content and integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research.
• Literary Approaches


  Different schools of thought pertaining to how literature as a whole should be viewed and treated
• Literary Criticism


  The comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or evaluation of works of literature. It is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context. It usually includes discussion of the work's content and integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research.
• Literary Approaches


  • A literary text may be critiqued using different approaches. These approaches may correspond to different – even conflicting – schools of thought pertaining to how literature as a whole should be viewed and treated.
• Feminism


  The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.
• HERstory of Feminism as a Movement

  • Early Feminists
  • First Wave
  • Second Wave
  • Third Wave
• Early Feminists


  • Plato
  • Women of ancient Rome
• Belief in the political, economic, and cultural equality of women, has roots in the earliest eras of human civilization.
• Three waves of feminism

  • First wave feminism, dealing with property rights and the right to vote
  • Second wave feminism, focusing on equality and anti-discrimination
  • Third wave feminism, which started in the 1990s as a backlash to the second wave's perceived privileging of white, straight women
• The feminist movement, especially the second wave, are largely limited to white, college-educated women, and that feminism has failed to address the concerns of women of color, lesbians, immigrants, and religious minorities.
• Different Contexts


  • Biographical or Authorial
  • Cultural
  • Historical
  • Social
• Biographical or Authorial


  Formed by the life, beliefs, education, culture, and experiences of the author.
• Cultural


  The ideology, traditions, and values that surround and shape an individual's beliefs.
• Historical


  Refers to the events that occurred around an individual – usually on a national or international scale.
• Social


  The way in which the features of the society it is set in impact on its meaning.
• Sojourner Truth was an African American abolitionist and women's rights activist best-known for her speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?", delivered extemporaneously in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.
• Truth was born into slavery but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. She devoted her life to the abolitionist cause and helped to recruit Black troops for the Union Army.
• Sojourner Truth: '"And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne 13 children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?"'
• Women writers are outnumbered and voiceless: while many literary anthologies now include female writers, they are lamentably outnumbered by the males.
• If any woman had the same literary prowess as Shakespeare, she would have been deprived of the opportunity to write and gain fame.
• Feminism as an Approach to Literary Criticism


  It analyzes textual representations from the woman's perspective, such as those involve the stereotyping and "objectification" of womanhood. It's understood to be concerned with the politics of feminism, and it uses feminist principles to critique the male-dominated literature.
• Feminist Criticism


  It seeks to view women in a new perspective and discover women's contributions to literary history. It aims to reinterpret the old texts and establish the importance of women's writing to save it from being lost or ignored in the male-dominated world. It also seeks to establish female perspectives as being of equal importance relative to male perspectives.
• Feminist Criticism's Major Concerns

  • Women's oppression by the patriarchy
  • The view that women are secondary
  • Cultural discrimination against women
• Patriarchy


  Traditional male-dominated society.
• Marginalization


  The process or state of being forced to the edges of social and political significance.
• Some questions that feminist critics may ask

  • How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
  • What are the power relationships between men and women?
  • How are male and female roles defined?
  • What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
  • What does the work reveal about the operations (economic, political, social, or psychological) 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?
• Feminist criticism, like the broader feminist movement itself, asks us to consider the relationships between men and women and their relative roles in society.
• Feminist critics seek to make us more aware of our societies' attitudes towards women, especially in cases where current attitudes harm or otherwise marginalize women.
• Feminist criticism seeks to elevate women to their rightful place in society as contributors to and important elements of literary works and society writ large.
• Queer Literary Criticism


  Analyze and contest heteronormative structures and relations of meaning. It emerged from a combination of post-structuralist deconstruction of essentialist understandings of gendered and sexual identities and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex political activism.
• The Awakening was originally titled A Solitary Soul, the novel depicts a young mother's struggle to achieve sexual and personal emancipation in the oppressive environment of the postbellum American South.
• When it was first published, it was widely condemned for its portrayal of sexuality and marital infidelity.
• This work was roundly condemned in its time because of its sexual frankness and its portrayal of an interracial marriage and went out of print for more than 50 years. When it was rediscovered in the 1950s, critics marveled at the beauty of its writing and its modern sensibility.
• Edna Pontellier: '"I suppose this is what you would call unwomanly; but I have got into a habit of expressing myself. It doesn't matter to me, and you may think me unwomanly if you like."'
• Characters


  • Edna Pontellier
  • Mademoiselle Reisz
  • Adèle Ratignolle
  • Robert Lebrun
  • Alcée Arobin
  • Léonce Pontellier
• Marxism

  A social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx, which examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favor of communism.
• Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and socialist revolutionary.
• Karl Marx's Early Life and Education

  • Born in 1818 in Trier, Prussia
  • Both parents were Jewish, but his father converted to Lutheranism
  • Studied law and philosophy at the University of Berlin
  • Joined a group known as the Young Hegelians
• Marxism

  A social, political, and economic theory originated by Karl Marx, which focuses on the struggle between capitalists and the working class
• Marx wrote that the power relationships between capitalists and workers were inherently exploitative and would inevitably create class conflict