Overview Instead of "literary theory" or its alternative term, "critical theory," I far prefer the idea of a critical lens -- a specific viewpiece through which one can see the world. Just like a red gel placed over a multicolored text makes all the green words "pop," so too does a critical lens cause events, characters, words, conflicts, symbols, and situations to "pop" when they might previously have receded unnoticed into the background. Sometimes our critical lenses emerge as a natural part of our identity and our relationship to the rest of the world; other times, our critical lenses are formed through discussion, conversation, interaction with others who can essentially say, "Hey, look at that!"
In this unit, we will be examining a number of classic critical theories (or critical lenses, if you will): semiotics, social class theory, gender criticism, and colonialist theory. Because it's sometimes hard to wrap one's head around theory and a difficult text, we're going to be focusing especially on some of the most richly unexplored texts out there: children's books. No text -- whether book, story, poem, essay, artwork, movie, television show, or other reflection of the world -- is utterly unbiased. No mirror reflects true. This is also true of children's books -- texts which usually pass "under the radar" of critical examination.
Literary Theory: Beginning Approaches and Questions
Critical theory explores "the relationship between the text, the author, the reader, and the world," and to help students come to conclusions, they should ask the following questions:
What does this text ask of you as a reader?
How does it position you -- that is, are you the intended audience?
What does this text assume about your beliefs, values, and experiences?
Are there aspects of this text that you feel compelled to resist or refuse? Do you feel "pushed out" of the text?
What happens if various elements of the text were switched around (such as race, gender, class, sexuality)?
Think about patterns of dominance and submission here. Who is in power? Who is not? What would happen to the story's message if those patterns were reversed?
Whose side are we supposed to be on in this text?
Who wins in this text? That is, who ends up with a happy ending and a satisfied goal? Why? What means helped that person achieve that goal?
How does the ending relate to the rest of the book?
Does the ending support values that otherwise have been questioned?
Does it undermine values that have not been examined?
What is the "message" of the text?
Who are the people who do not "exist" in this story?
Whose voices are given prominence?
Whose point of view is being privileged here?
How might a reader from a different time, different area, or different culture read this text? What would they find "normal"? Offensive?
Do you feel vindicated or defensive about your own experiences, assumptions, or beliefs when you read this text?
Ideas and questions taken or adapted from Dr. Laura Apol's 1998 work on teaching critical theory.
Basic Question to Ask About ALL TEXTS: To what extent does it QUESTION, UNDERMINE, or SUPPORT the culture's ideas about gender, power, "civilization," or class?
Opening Text: It's All About Perspective
Who Painted the Lion?
"The Painted Lion," by Aesop
This fable is famously alluded to by Chaucer's Wife of Bath in her prologue -- a text she uses to question the validity of antifeminist doctrine as propounded by the Church or medieval English society.
Once upon a time, a lion and a man were disputing which of the two, lions or humans, were the most powerful. The lion offered several reasons -- their long claws, their sharp teeth -- and the man also spoke up for the side of the humans, arguing for their weapons and their strategies. Finally, as the lion and the man were passing a public amphitheater, the man got the idea that he could win the debate once and for all. Pointing to a picture of the Greek hero Hercules strangling the Nemean Lion, the man turned to his companion triumphantly. “See?” he said. “This proves once and for all who is the strongest.” “Oh, really?” replied the lion. “Then tell me -- who painted the picture?”
What is Semiotic Theory? Signs are all around us. Literally, a sign can be defined as "something, anything that carries meaning, " according to writers Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. Those can include cultural practices, products, texts, artworks, movies, objects produced by a culture, bumperstickers, T-shirts, furniture -- essentially anything that carries with it some sort of meaning, including (of course) literal signs.
Some Places to Begin
Literal signs
Billboards
Facial expressions
Haircuts
Clothing
Student Desk
Questions
With what things can this object be associated?
Of what system (s) is it a part?
How is it different from other models, types, or styles of this same thing?
Is it part of a pattern? Are there other things like it?
*Most of the ideas in this part of the unit were developed out of Shannon Falkner's article, "Signs of Life in the High School Classroom" in English Journal 101.2 (2011): 44-49
Student Activity: How Is Your Desk a Sign?
Overview Anthropologists have a difficult task when they encounter an object of the past: What was it for? Who used it? Who didn't use it? Why? What was its value as a practical object or as an object of status (or both)? How is this single object a microcosm of the society that produced it?
The Student Desk
Consider your student desk.
What is it made of? Who made it?
What is it for? Does it perform its job adequately?
Why is this desk built the way it is? What are some other ways in which this desk could have been built?
Does this desk imply or create a particular type of behavior?
What kind of body is this desk intended for? Are there types of bodies that this desk does not accommodate?
What does this object reveal about our cultural ideology, values, beliefs, fears, desires, and so on? In short, what values or ideas is this desk a sign of?
Student Activity: Howard Nemerov, "Money"
Overview In this brief exercise, we will be reading the Howard Nemerov poem "Money," about the American buffalo-head nickel pictured below and ask some of the same questions about the nickel as we did about the desk.
Before Reading Before we read, consider the picture of the American buffalo-head nickel pictured below.
Questions
Consider the picture of the nickel (both sides)
What is it made of? Who made it?
What is it for? Does it perform its job adequately?
What are the images you see?
What is the cultural significance of the Indian? Of the buffalo?
Why are these two figures on the nickel together?
What facial expression do you see on the face of the indigenous man?
What posture or body language do you see on the buffalo?
What does this object reveal about our cultural ideology, values, beliefs, fears, desires, and so on? In short, what values or ideas is this coin a sign of?
What is Class and Money Theory? Some critics believe that human history and institutions, even our ways of thinking, are determined by the organizational patterns of our society -- that is, who's on top? Who's not? Two primary factors shape our schemes of organization: economic power and social-class membership.
First, the class to which we belong determines our degree of economic, political, and social advantage, and thus social classes invariably find themselves in conflict with each other. That is, the one percent will rarely see the world the same way as the 99%, and they will tend to have different goals and values.
Second, our membership in a social class has a profound impact on our beliefs, values, perceptions, and patterns of thinking and feeling. For these reasons, the social-power perspective helps us understand that people from different social classes understand the same circumstances in very different ways. When we see members of different social classes thrown together in the same story, we are likely to think in terms of power and advantage as we attempt to explain what happens and why.
Questions
Class can be defined as the degree of privilege and power one possesses within a society. (Note that this is NOT the same thing as wealth.) How does social class affect our thinking and behavior?
Is conflict between social classes inevitable?
*Definitions taken or adapted from this source: http://www.tcpress.com/pdfs/9780807748923Activities.pdf Activities appear in "Critical Encounters in High School English, 2nd Edition" by Deborah Appleman.
Student Activity: Reading The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister
In a society where there is economic inequity (i.e., haves and have-nots), should the privileged people have a moral, ethical, or social obligation to share their wealth and/or privilege with people who do not have it, or who have substantially less of it?
Is it morally justifiable to exert social pressure on the wealthy to distribute their wealth?
How much of yourself can you give away and still retain your fundamental self?
Postreading Questions
Consider the statement made by the Octopus and the response by Rainbow Fish below:
"This is my advice. Give a glittering scale to each of the other fish. You will no longer be the most beautiful fish in the sea, but you will discover how to be happy.” “I can’t…” the Rainbow Fish started to say, but the octopus had already disappeared into a dark cloud of ink. "Give away my scales? My beautiful shining scales? Never. How could I ever be happy without them?"
According to the Rainbow Fish, what is the relationship between his scales and his identity?
Which value does the Octopus find more worthwhile?
Lit Theory 3: Gender
What is Gender Theory? Because gender is a way of viewing the world, people of different genders see things differently. For example, a feminist critic might see cultural and economic disparities as the products of a patriarchal society, one dominated by men who tend to decide things by various means of competition. In addition, societies often tend to see the male perspective as the default, that is, the one we choose automatically. As a result, women are identified as the “Other,” the deviation or the contrasting type. When we use the gender lens, we examine patterns of thought, behavior, value, and power in interactions between the sexes.
*Definitions taken or adapted from this source: http://www.tcpress.com/pdfs/9780807748923Activities.pdf Activities appear in "Critical Encounters in High School English, 2nd Edition" by Deborah Appleman.
Student Activity: Reading The Giving Tree and Love You Forever
Prereading Questions
Why are women more closely associated with "giving" than "taking"? Is there a reason for them beyond tradition?
How much of yourself can you give away and still retain your identity?
What is the relationship between possessions and happiness?
What message does the text present about femininity? Masculinity?
Reading #2: Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch
Can children ever separate themselves from their parents?
Must children separate (or attempt to separate) themselves from their parents in order to achieve a full adult identity?
Postreading Questions
Do we read this relationship as loving and nurturing, or do we read it as smothering and stalking?
Why is the mother described as "crawling" across the floor?
Whose voice and thoughts do we hear in this book? From whose perspective is this story told?
What is the message about motherhood being offered here? About unconditional love?
What comparisons exist between the maternal figures in Love You Forever and The Giving Tree? Are these essentially negative descriptions of motherhood?
Would we "read" this book in the same way if the genders of the parent and child were reversed?
Lit Theory 4: Postcolonialism
What is Postcolonialist Theory? Postcolonialist Theory Postcolonialsm takes a sharp look at two major factors: power and race (or ethnicity), particularly in the power and identity relations between a colonizing power (in Western literature, that power is usually European or American) and a colonized group. Fundamentally, the conquering group typically depicts itself as "civilized," with the inherent bias toward cities as an indicator of intellectual or moral superiority, and the colonized group as "savages," often associated with impurity, immorality, cannibalism, disease, sociopathy/emotionlessness, incest, or other violations of Western taboos.
General Prereading Questions
How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression? Whose "side" are we invited to be on? Whose perspective dominates this story?
Often, characters in a post-colonial narrative feel torn between two identities -- the conquered and the conqueror. 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? (Tyson 378-379)
Some questions taken or adapted from Purdue OWL, "Literary Theory."
Student Activity: Reading Where the Wild Things Are
Prereading Questions
Are we civilized? How do we define the difference between "civilized" behavior and "savage" behavior?
Are boys naturally more uncivilized than girls?
Are humans "naturally" uncivilized?
Is "parenting" a synonym for "civilizing"?
Do children need discipline in order to function as adults?
Do "savages" have more fun? Are they more liberated and less restrained by oppressive societal rules, or is this just another prejudice or stereotype?
Postreading Questions
Is Max's race important to the story?
Is Max's gender important to the story?
Why is he named Max (and not, for example, Bob)?
Why does the book begin with the threatened erasure between Max and his identity as a "wild thing"? That is, he is depicted as wearing a "wolf suit," but when his mother defines him as a "wild thing," he responds with a (typically) "savage" answer: "I'LL EAT YOU UP."
In what way is the statement "Go to your room!" a sign of class privilege?
What does this punishment aim to accomplish?
Why do we not see Max's mother? In what way would seeing Max's mother change the power dynamic in this book?
How does Max view the Wild Things upon his initial arrival to the island where they live? How is this perspective typical of or similar to other colonialist narratives such as Robinson Crusoe or Heart of Darkness, for example?
Why are the Wild Things given no names or genders?
Is Max's power as a conqueror threatened or strengthened by being regarded as "the most wild thing of all" by the Wild Things?
Considering the illustrations, why has Sendak given Max the kind of crown he has, particularly in the Wild Rumpus scene?
What is the significance of Max sending the Wild Things "off to bed without their supper"?
Why has Max's time with the Wild Things made him more easily "civilizable"? Has Max's liberation come about ironically because he has become an oppressor?
Consider the following statement by J.C. Ball. How does Max's conquest of the Wild Things fit this definition?
As Bob Dixon (74-119) and others have argued, the image of lower-order "others" gratefully embracing their imperial master appears in numerous books read by children, reflecting the colonialist and racist ideologies of their times: Friday with Crusoe, Long Arrow with Doctor Doolittle, for example. As Abdul JanMohamed writes in an African context, the colonizer's projections of racial others as inferior and unable to govern themselves are merely "self-contained" and self-serving "fantasies" (Manichean 3).
*Definitions taken or adapted from this source: http://www.tcpress.com/pdfs/9780807748923Activities.pdf Activities appear in "Critical Encounters in High School English, 2nd Edition" by Deborah Appleman. http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/resources/seminars/activities/handouts/Critical_positions.pdf