Literary Theories
viewing literature through multiple lenses
Reader Response
● Critics turn from the traditional conception of
a work as an achieved structure of meanings
to the responses of readers to the text.
● What had been features of the work itself narrator, plot, characters, style, and structure
- is less important than the connection b/w a
reader’s experience and the text. Here,
meaning is made.
Reader Response EXAMPLE
“Sonny’s Blues”
James Baldwin
The unnamed narrator of the story discovers from a
newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, has been
arrested for selling and using heroin. As he prepares to
teach his algebra class, the narrator remembers Sonny as
a young boy. His students, he realizes, could someday end
up like Sonny, given the obstacles and hardships they face
growing up in Harlem. (Those with siblings might
recall a tension or problem in the relationship.)
Gender/Feminist
● Sees cultural and economic disabilities in a
“patriarchal” society that have hindered or
prevented women from realizing their true
potential.
● Feminists consider works as lacking a
strong, female role model, implicitly
addressed to male readers, or shut out the
female reader as an outsider or solicit her to
identify against herself by assuming male
ways and values.
Gender/Feminist EXAMPLE
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?”
Joyce Carol Oates
Connie is the female victim of the role in society
that she perceives herself playing - the coy,
young lady whose life depends on her looks.
She is consistently compared to her older,
more “perfect” sister.
Social-Class/Marxist
● an economic and cultural theory
developed by Karl Marx
● The evolving history of humanity is
determined by its basic economic
organization.
● Historical changes in production effect
changes in the constitution and relations of
social classes.
● Focuses on power and money
Social-Class/Marxist EXAMPLE
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The upper class (the Capitol) attempts to
maintain its power and influence over the lower
class (working members of each district).
Postcolonial
● A type of cultural criticism, postcolonial
criticism usually involves the analysis of
literary texts produced in countries and
cultures that have come under the control of
European colonial powers at some point in
their history.
● Alternatively, it can refer to the analysis of
texts written about colonized places by
writers hailing from the colonizing culture.
[from Bedford/St. Martin’s virtuaLit: Critical Approaches website]
Postcolonial EXAMPLE
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
details the strife and devastation that occurred
when British colonists began moving inland
from the Nigerian coast
Deconstructionist
**most difficult to understand
● Literature means nothing b/c language
means nothing.
● We cannot say we know the “meaning” of a
story b/c there is no way of knowing.
Deconstructionist EXAMPLE
The Stranger
Albert Camus
Try as we might, readers cannot rationalize the
reasons for Meursault’s actions. In addition, we
do not know whether or not Meursault got his
wish: for his execution to be witnessed by a
“large crowd of spectators.”
Psychological/Psychoanalytic
● expressive of the personality, state of mind,
feelings, and desires of its author
● looks at unconscious mind, dreams, etc.
● can provide many clues for solving symbolic
mysteries
● AKA Freudian (Sigmund Freud) ….
Freudian Psychoanalytic
● Id = primary source of psychic energy.
Source of aggression/desire. If unchecked
leads to self destruction.
● Ego = regulates, rational governing agent.
Largely unconscious, yet would be
considered the conscious mind. Mediates
within and without.
● Superego = moral censor, place of
conscience and pride.
Psychological/Psychoanalytic
EXAMPLE
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
Sources
Definitions and components of each theory
from Critical Encounters in High School
English, 2nd Edition by Deborah Appleman
Story/Novel summaries from sparknotes