Critical Approaches

1
Critical Approaches

• A Primer on Literary Theory

2
Freudian Psychoanalysis

• Explores and analyzes literature in terms of
  mental processes
• Psychoanalysis is a long and complex process in
  which the patient and psychoanalyst meet in
  one-on-one sessions to explore and discuss the
  root causes of the patients problems.
• This is what you would do for your character

3
Freudian Psychoanalysis

• Four Things to Look For
• Freudian slips reveal unconscious thoughts
• Puns and jokes lend expression to unconscious
  sexual and aggressive impulses
• Neurotic and even psychotic symptoms reveal
  unconscious compulsions
• Dream communicate unconscious desires

4
Feminist Criticism

• With each wave, feminism has (despite the
  assumptions of its detractors) resisted not so
  much men as patriarchy, the system of relations
  that presumes the authority of men.

5
Feminist Criticism

• Three Approaches That Guide What to Look For
• First Wave How does patriarchal society repress
  women?
• Second Wave How do women attempt to rise up
  from this repression?
• Third Wave How do we reconcile the two?

6
Marxism

• A type of criticism in which literary works are
  viewed as the product of work and whose
  practitioners emphasize the role of class and
  ideology

7
Marxism

• What to look for?
• Who has the power?
• How is power transferred?
• How is there a ruling class and a working class?
• How does this system perpetuate power for the
  ruling class?