Theoretical Approaches to Literature
• The Da Vinci Code: A man is murdered
in a secured area of the Louvre and
arranges his body in an unusual
position, apparently to pass to
authorities the reason for his death and
to expose his murderer’s identity,
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is
called in to help with the strange case.
Literary Theories
• Ways of thinking
about and analyzing
a text to determine
its value, extract a
meaning, create a
unified analysis, and
evaluate its artistic
Text
merit.
Author
Reader
Reader Response Theory
• This places the reader
as the most important
factor in determining
how the text means.
Author
– Each reader is seen as
product of their culture
and education,
Reader
influenced by what they Text
have read and what they
believe
The good old-fashioned liking of a book
falls under this theory’s umbrella
“Old” Historicism
• Look at events in writer’s life to see
personal influences in the work.
• Draw parallels between Brown and
the novel’s main character.
– Brown graduated from Amherst
College and Phillips Exeter Academy,
taught English and then began to
write full-time.
– His father is a Presidential Award
winning math professor, his mother is
a professional sacred musician, and
his wife is an art historian and painter
who collaborates on his research and
accompanies him on his frequent
research trips.
– Langdon is an Ivy League graduate of
wealthy parents who studies the Text
connections between art and science
and who will work closely with a
female partner, Sophie, while on
break from teaching at Harvard.
Author
Reader
Formalism
• The focus is on the work
itself as a cinematic
structure and it aims to
discover the ways in which
the work achieves (or fails
to achieve) unity.
– No part of the work is (or
should be) superfluous.
– Sees other contexts—
cultural/sociological,
biographical, historical
information—as lacking
importance or as secondary
to the question of the film’s
artistic quality.
Author
Text
Reader
Structuralism
• There are two kinds, which are closely related
– One concentrates of the patterns formed by the
cinematic elements in the work and examines these
patterns to find ones which unify the text and throw
certain elements into relief.
– The other sees the cinematic conventions and forms as
constituting a system of codes that contribute to and
convey meaning. The special interest here is on the
organization and function of the elements, on how
meaning is conveyed rather that what meaning is
conveyed, on how the cinematic devices function rather
than how they imitate an external reality. (This branch is
closely related to semiotics.)
Semiotics
• The study of systems of rules and
conventions that enable social and
cultural phenomena, considered as
signs, to have meaning.
– This kind of analysis might compare
chapters, characters, or word usage, both
within a book itself or within the canon of
work produced by a given writer, or from
within the genre the works are written
Modernism
• Modernism dominated the arts and culture of the
first half of the twentieth century. It challenged the
“old” standards concerning how art should be
constructed and what art is, favoring different and
opposing conventions, such as the dissolution of
harmony and melody in music, and the rejection
of traditional realism in favor of experimental
forms in literature and film.
– Modernists view the break with tradition in favor of
experimentation as mournful; they see it as leaving
behind a longed for (and better) past.
Post-Modernism
• Postmodernism is an answer to Modernism,
as it celebrates the freedom of new forms of
expression.
– A discussion of Modernism and Postmodernism
would not be complete without some attention to
culture, specifically high and low or popular
culture. In brief, whereas Modernists privilege
'high' culture such as literature and classical art
and music, Postmodernists refuse to put any art
forms on a pedestal and revel in combining the
everyday aspects of popular culture with what has
been considered “high” art.
Marxism
• Marxists see the base (material means of
production, distribution, and exchange) as the
driving force of society, and the
superstructure (cultural world - ideas, art,
religion, law) as being shaped by the base or
as a reflection of events that take place within
the base. This view of society is economic
determinism.
– Based on this description of art as a influenced by
the economic base of society, general Marxist
literary criticism maintains that a writer's or a
director’s social class and the prevailing ideology
(outlook, values) thereof have major bearing on
what s/he writes.
Deconstruction
• Deconstruction, or Deconstructionsim,
grew out of philosophy and,
consequently, is skeptical concerning
the existence of absolute truth or
reliable knowledge. It sees a certain
anxiety in the reliance on language, and
thus on shots and scenes, etc., as the
path to knowledge.
• Deconstructionists see meaning as fluid
and emphasize the lack of attachment
between the verbal sign and the idea or
concept to which it is supposed to refer.
• This free play of meaning breaks down
the concept of signifier/signified in that
the relationship can be compromised
when everything becomes a signifier (a
sort of chain effect with no beginning or
end) or when there are multiple
elements on either side of the
relationship.
• The idea that words, and by extension
shots, angles, etc., cannot be defined
without viewing them in terms of their
opposites also troubles deconstructionists
because this relational way of acquiring
meaning defies the possibility of ‘pure’ or
‘true’ meaning.
• In the same way that words are influenced
by other words, they are also contaminated
by their own histories. Since language
does not take place within a vacuum , the
very history or connotation of words
influences how they are used in present
• Deconstructionists, then, attempt to
show how meaning breaks down in a
text because of the text; their goal is to
deconstruct the text.
• A deconstruction of The Da Vinci Code
might, then, look at what the text says
truth is and then show, using passages
from the text that the truth isn’t really out
there, finally concluding that the book
cannot be pinned down to any meaning
at all.
Sociological Criticism
• Focuses on the time/place context that
produced the work to help explain the work’s
meaning or relevance. It holds that the
product, the film, cannot be understood
without understanding the world that
produced it.
• One might situate this film in the ‘culture war’
era which pits the 1960s civil rights
movement against the conservative
movement that began in the1980s and picked
up speed nationally amid the ClintonLewinsky scandal and then the contentious
battle for the presidency in 2000.
New Historicism
• Combines “Old Historicism,” the
Sociological Approach, and an
understanding of the industry factors
that control the production and
dissemination of the film.
Feminism
• Look at the roles men and women play
to see whether they are equal or not.
– Are women rewarded for playing traditional
roles?
– Are women punished for playing nontraditional roles?
– Are men conversely rewarded or
punished?
American Eclecticism
• The movie as being important and
speaking to people through their
American values.
• Approaching it through a specific rubric
or perspective, like through a particular
sociological concept.
Overview of U.S. Values
• Fairy tales, romances, and “chick flicks,” have a
great popularity and staying power, as can be
explained when one analyzes the values they
often communicate, perpetuate, and reinforce.
• Sociologists have identified several core values
and beliefs that are communicated by,
perpetuated through, and reinforced within our
culture.
– James Henslin, Southern Illinois University Sociology
Professor, identifies fifteen.
Henslin’s U.S. Values
These values can be either explicit or implicit
Achievement and
Individualism
Activity and work
Efficiency and practicality
Science and
Progress
Material comfort
Humanitarianism
Freedom
Democracy
Equality
Racism and group
Education
Religiosity
Romantic love
The Values within
The Da Vinci Code
These values can be either explicit or implicit
Achievement and
Individualism
Activity and work
Efficiency and practicality
Science and
Progress
Material comfort
Humanitarianism
Freedom
Democracy
Equality
Racism and group
Education
Religiosity
Romantic love
Achievement and Success
• Achievement and success are
defined, at least from the female
point of view, as concerning love
and companionship. That is
stressed for the male, as well, but
for men creating something, doing
something work-related or
reputation-related is also stressed.
Individualism
• The female character is portrayed as
not being like other women, while at
the same time representing the
“modern woman” to the man from the
past. This uniqueness among women
makes her successful at work but,
apparently, not at love.
Activity and Work
• Females do occupy positions in the
workplace in the film but the heroine’s
ultimate choice, after attaining success
at work, is to leave it all behind for love.
The subordinate secretary clearly
values love over the work, too.
• The male character, apparently, never
has to choose between work and the
past.
Efficiency and Practicality
• Even the duke from the past values
this, as the broken toaster scene
illustrates.
Science and Technology
• That science is stressed is obvious,
as it motivates the entire plot. It is
science and math that allows the
young man from the present to visit
the past and start the events in action.
Progress
• The idea of progress is challenged
in the film, as corresponds to the
conservative perspective it
espouses. Life was better in the
duke’s time: less caught up in timewasting technologies, more caring,
more honest, better educated, more
devoted to individual happiness.
Material Comfort
• Female character considers it important,
as she judges her brother on his lack of
success. Worrying about money is a
value the duke is resistant to and
resentful of, even though he shouldn’t be
as it is his livelihood at stake.
Humanitarianism
• The duke is certainly presented as
being concerned for the average
person when he realizes that
modern society is willing to lie
about butter just to sell it to the
masses. He does not feel
comfortable lying to the masses in
that way.
Freedom
• Freedom of choice is clearly an issue
in the film. The duke resents that he
does not have the monetary freedom to
choose a companion wife, and the
heroine does have the freedom to
choose between work and family—and
perhaps will be able to continue to
work in the past.
Democracy
• Democracy is an implied value in the
film, as the duke is feeling entrapped,
to a degree, by his “noble” status and
position. Hence, he has already relocated to America from England.
Equality
• That equality, or at least honesty, is
advocated in the film is evident at the
way honesty in relationships is stressed
through the film. The duke, too, shows
he has not let class prejudice interfere
with his actions when he informs the
heroine that he once courted a librarian.
Racism and Group Superiority
• There is still an example of class
superiority as the duke, held up as the
hero, is clearly of noble status.
Further, he shows that his education
and manners are better than his rival
for the heroine’s affection.
Education
• Education, in terms of academics,
intelligence, and social skills like
manners and treating women
“properly,” are all used as positives in
the film.
Religiosity
• Love is portrayed as an almost spiritual
experience in the film, especially in the
moment the lovers are reunited. The
jumping to and from the past as fated
gives it a larger than real significance.
Love for science on the men’s part is
clearly held up as more spiritual than the
heroine’s love for her work.
Romantic Love
• The whole plot hinges and depends
on the supremacy of this value, of
course, as do romance novels.