Part A: Learning the different literary lenses will help further my ability to thoroughly analyze the literature I read. As seen with the examples used throughout the seminar presentations sometimes a certain critical theory can be used more successful for certain pieces of text. Having the knowledge of the many different ways there is to analyze a text I can choose one that will be more accurate. Also, in many cases you can use a bunch of different lenses to analyze one text, but being able to see the different views can help build a more detailed understanding. Although I was somewhat aware of certain lenses such as marxist or feminist theory a lot of the theories were completely new to me and something I hadn’t even considered. Now knowing how much the biography of the author or even the way the way the environment is portrayed will help me find more connections making is easier to comprehend the concepts the text is using
Part B: Favourite 5 Literary Lenses #1 Biographical – I found biographical to be a particularly interesting theory which may have actually been one of my favourites. It looks a lot more at how the authors class, age, history, and how the events (even traumatic events) have affected their life and therefore affected and can be reflected in their writing. Looking at how the author’s life may have biased or influenced their writing was not something I had thought of before. I am definitely thankful for learning this new way of analyzing a text.
#2 Marxist – Marxist theory I found to be something that is very commonly shown in many different books whether they’re historical, non-fiction, or just a typical novel there is always a power struggle between the lower/working class (proletarian) vs. the middle/higher class (bourgeois) citizens although it can be represented in many different kinds of ways just as long as there is a certain dominant character who is oppressing a character who is seen as weaker.
#3 Readers Response – I also really enjoyed the concept of reader’s response and how how there is no meaning to the text without the reader creating their own meaning. Almost opposite of the biographical lense which talks about how the author’s history created meaning the reader response theory was very unique because it talks about how the personal experiences and even personality traits of a reader causes their interpretation of the meaning to be different than other readers.
#4 Historical / New Historicism – As I was part of this seminar did get to learn a decent amount about it. The thing I found the most interesting was more of the new historicism concept and how the author’s ethnicity and etc during the time period may have a bias upon the text. An important part about these two theories is remembering that although they overlap they are different and historical criticism is interesting in a different way as it talks more of how you need to understand what was going on socially and historically during the time period the piece of writing is from or is being written about to fully understand it.
#5 Queer Theory – The thing I really liked about queer theory was that although it was similar to the feminism theory it was a completely concept which I had not learned before. I think it’s important to understand the character’s personality traits or even physical traits and why they may be purposely be being described in a feminine manner or masculine. Once you’re thinking about these things it helps you understand why the author may have made these character that way and what it might symbolize for the character.
Part C: Using the literary lens biographical criticism with the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest By Ken Kesey it can help further your understanding of the story. As described on the very first page of the book Ken Kesey studied at the University or Oregano and later Stanford. Knowing his educational background can help make sense of how the book was written; clearly he was an intelligent guy. A very important part of his biography is the fact that he was part of a government study which tested LSD, mescaline, and other drugs. Throughout the book the main character almost seems to me hallucination these visions of artificial intelligence and machinery in the walls which may have stemmed from the author’s knowledge of drug use himself.
Another important part of his history is that he worked as a night attendant in a psychiatric ward which clearly influenced his view on psych wards and his knowledge of how work they work on the inside. You can also take into consideration that as the point of view Chief he is seeming to be sitting on the sidelines watching that maybe that was how Ken had felt while he was working there. Part D: One of the cool things I’ve found with all the different literary lenses is that although they are all different critical a lot of the time they can overlap and help add on to each other to help make a more varied and broad understanding and analysis.