Literary Criticism

 MOVIE

THE FILMS OF JOHN CASSAVETES: 

PRAGMATISM, MODERNISM, AND THE MOVIES

 MOVIE

FISHING A BORDERLESS SEA

Brian J. Payne

Territorialism / Possessions (objects of desire) are metaphors for who we are or how we wish to be perceived—aspects of the “self.”. It may be tangible or intangible (my car or my idea, e.g.)
They occupy mental space: cognitive, affective, and conative.
These spaces strongly resemble territories—with rights of ownership, markers, boundaries, rules of “in” and “out,” defensive strategies, etc.

The Summary:

Over the centuries, processing and distribution of products from land and sea has stimulated the growth of a global economy. In the broad sweep of world history, it may be hard to imagine a place for the meager little herring baitfish. Yet, as Brian Payne adeptly recounts, the baitfish trade was hotly contested in the Anglo-American world throughout the nineteenth century. Politicians called for wars, navies were dispatched with guns at the ready, vessels were seized at sea, and violence erupted at sea.
Yet, the battle over baitfish was not simply a diplomatic or political affair. Fishermen from hundreds of villages along the coastline of Atlantic Canada and New England played essential roles in the construction of legal authority that granted or denied access to these profitable bait fisheries.

LITERARY GENRE: NOVEL

According to Marxists, and to other scholars in fact, literature reflects those social institutions out of which it emerges and is itself a social institution with a particular ideological function. Literature reflects class struggle and materialism: think how often the quest for wealth traditionally defines characters. So Marxists generally view literature "not as works created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but as 'products' of the economic and ideological determinants specific to that era" (Abrams 149). Literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of class relations, however piercing or shallow that analysis may be.

The Plot Summary:

The story begins with a description of the Dursleys, an utterly normal family in England, who are left with baby Harry Potter on their doorsteps. Aunt Petunia's sister Lily married James Potter and became a powerful couple in the wizard's world. They were killed by the evil Voldemort, leaving Harry with a large scar on his forehead and legacy as the only wizard to escape Voldemort alive. Head wizard Albus Dumbledore decides to have Harry grow up with the Dursleys until he is ready to attend Hogwarts, the premiere magic school in England. At age 11, Harry is whisked away to Hogwarts by the giant gamekeeper, Hagrid, to find himself lost amongst a new world of magic and power.

Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, where he retrieves some of his inheritance from Gringotts, the wizard bank, and purchases his books, wand, and robes from the Leaky Cauldron and Ollivanders. On the train to Hogwarts at platform Nine and Three Quarters, Harry meets his new friend Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Everyone is amazed to meet the famous Harry Potter. On the train Harry also meets Draco Malfoy, a boy with whom he develops a distrust and hatred. At Hogwarts, the children meet Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell, all professors and wizards. At the opening banquet, the Sorting Hat decides in which house the children live, sorting Hermione, Neville, Ron, and Harry into Gryffindor, and Draco Malfoy into Slytherin, the house run by Snape and known to have schooled Voldemort in years past.

Hermione busies herself with studies, Ron with chess, and Harry with learning about his family and powers. He becomes an expert at flying and is allowed to play Quidditch for Gryffindor's team. Draco Malfoy continually tries to get the Gryffindor kids in trouble, by setting them up and dragging them away from their beds at the wrong time. One day, Ron and Harry come across a large troll and rescue Hermione from death. From then on, the threesome spies on Snape and Quirrell and seek to discover the secrets at Hogwarts. They realize that the Sorceror's Stone is hidden by a three-headed dog at Hogwarts and is the secret to eternal life created by Nicholas Flamel. They believe Snape is the culprit behind the evil and try to stop him from destroying Harry and Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, Hagrid keeps an eye on Harry and looks out for him. They visit Hagrid and meet his new pet dragon, Norbert. Norbert causes problems for everyone, as dragons are illegal animals. The three send the dragon away to Romania under Harry's Invisibility Cloak and are discovered out of bed doing so. They are branded and punished with detention and stricken of fifty points each. As detention the kids must help clean up the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. They find a unicorn slaughtered, with its blood scattered across the ground, and are frightened by an evil spirit. The good centaur Firenze flies Harry away from danger in the forest as soon as he discovers who Harry is.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover that Voldemort tricked Hagrid into revealing the method by which to get past the three-headed dog and to the Sorcerer's Stone. They rush past the dog, and through the chambers to stop Voldemort from killing Harry. Ron gets everyone past the life sized Wizard's Chess board, while Hermione breaks the riddle that allows Harry to proceed to the ultimate chamber under ground. He sees the Mirror of Erised, the same mirror that shows the hopes and dreams of the person who looks inside. He finds Quirrell in the chamber without his stutter. He admits to hosting Voldemort and trying to destroy Harry in the forest. When his turban is removed, Harry sees a double face on top of Quirrell's head - it is Voldemort, and he wants to use Harry to get the Stone and then kill him. Harry discovers the Stone in his pocket and tries to kill Voldemort/Quirrel until he blacks out.

Harry awakens in the infirmary to Dumbledore congratulating him. He saved the Stone, Hogwarts, and his own life. Because of his bravery and that of Hermione, Ron, and Neville, Gryffindor wins the House Cup for the year. Harry must go back to the Dursleys for the summer, but looks forward to all the magic he will practice and learn in the future.

THE INTERPRETATION:

Marxist literary criticism is based upon the political and economic theories of the German philosopher Karl Marx. His theory is formulated specifically to analyze how society functions in a state of upheaval and constant change. Harry Potter's world, the Muggle (non-magical) world, but especially his magical world illustrates the properties of a Marxist society.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a group known as the Ministry of Magic governs the magical world. It is reiterated time after time in the novel that the rules set down by this governing body must be adhered at all times or the punishment shall be severe, for example imprisonment in the Wizard's prison of Azkaban where the mind is virtually erased. Or a much worse sentence could be handed down that being death. This ministry uses the veil of intimidation to coerce the witches and wizards into following their rules much like Karl Marx wanted his followers to do.

LITERARY GENRE: SHORT STORY

Deconstruction criticism posits an undecidability of meaning for all texts. The text has intertwined and contradictory discourses, gaps, and incoherencies, since language itself is unstable and arbitrary. The critic doesn't undermine the text; the text already dismantles itself. Its rhetoric subverts or undermines its ostensible meaning.

Deconstructive critics focus on the text like the formalists, but direct attention to the opposite of the New Critical "unities." Instead, they view the "decentering" of texts and point out incompatabilities, rhetorical grain-against-grain contradictions, undecidability within texts. There is often a playfulness to deconstruction, but it can be daunting to read too.

The Plot Summary:

The story features Stuart, his wife Claire and their son Dean. They live together, as a married couple, we don’t know where they live, but it seems like a small town of some sort.

LITERARY GENRE: NOVEL

Humanist Literary Criticism is a philosophy for the here and now. Humanists regard human values as making sense only in the context of human life rather than in the promise of a supposed life after death. Humanism is, in sum, a philosophy for those in love with life. Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options. Instead of finding solace in prefabricated answers to the great questions of life, Humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery that this entails

The Plot Summary:

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

THE INTERPRETATION:

Alessandra's story, though central, is only one part of this multi-faceted and complex historical novel. Dunant paints a fascinating array of women onto her dark canvas, each representing the various fates of early Renaissance women: Alessandra's lovely (if simple) sister Plautilla is interested only in marrying rich and presiding over a household; the brave Erila, Alessandra's North African servant has such a frank understanding of the limitations of her sex that she often escapes them; and Signora Cecchi, Alessandra's beautiful but weary mother tries to encourage yet temper the passions of her wayward daughter.

Literary Genre: POETRY

Romanticism Literary Theory is most closely associated with the writings of William Wordsworth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads(1800) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1817). Modern critics disagree on whether the work of Wordsworth and Coleridge constituted a major break with the criticism of their predecessors or if it should more properly be characterized as a continuation of the aesthetic theories of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German and English writers.

LITERARY GENRE: SONNET

The Sonnet:

THE INTERPRETATION:

The Sonnet XXXVII suits for the New Historicism Theory because as the interlude occurs, the poet takes stock and reflects on what the youth has given him. Though he himself is old and useless, the abundance of the youth's qualities feeds into his soul. This transforms him and removes his lameness and his failures. The youth has everything that is desirable, and the great store of his qualities diffuses its glory around. The poet is contented, for he sees that his beloved has all that is best, all that he could wish for him, and he basks in this reflected glory, his decrepit status now entirely forgotten.

LITERARY GENRE: PLAY

Post-colonialism Theory is the extension of one's rule. It examines the effects of imperialistic views in postcolonial societies. Post-colonial theory also deals with the reading and writing of literature in previously or currently colonized countries, or literatures written in colonizing countries, which deals with colonization or colonized people.

LITERARY GENRE: NOVEL

Feminism Literary Theory is an international peer reviewed journal that provides a forum for critical analysis and constructive debate within feminism. Feminist Theory is also genuinely interdisciplinary and reflects the diversity of feminism, incorporating perspectives from across the broad spectrum of the humanities and social sciences and the full range of feminist political and theoretical stances.

The Plot Summary:

Lover's prose is distinctly postmodern, eschewing conventional narrative for experimental narrative techniques. Incontrast to some lesbian novels of the time, such as Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle (also, incidentally, published by Daughters), which used a prototypical bildungsroman technique with a lesbian placed squarely at the center, Lover reflects complex notions of radical lesbian philosophy, community, family structure, and eroticism by using highly inventive, often fantastical storytelling techniques. In Harris's introduction to the 1993 edition, she writes, "Lover should be absorbed as if it were a theatrical performance. There's tap dancing and singing, disguise, sleights of hand, mirror illusions, quick-change acts, and drag." Amanda C. Gable has argued that Lover "can be considered an exemplary novel within discussions of both postmodern fiction and lesbian (or queer) theory," and calls for "Harris to be added to the group of writers such as Wittig, Anzaldúa, Lorde, and Winterson, who are discussed within the context of a postmodern lesbian narrative."

THE INTERPRETATION:

MOVIE

Structuralism Theory relates literary texts to a larger structure, which may be a particular genre, a range of intertextual connections, a model of a universal narrative structure, or a system of recurrent patterns or motifs. Structuralism argues that there must be a structure in every text, which explains why it is easier for experienced readers than for non-experienced readers to interpret a text. Hence, everything that is written seems to be governed by specific rules, or a "grammar of literature", that one learns in educational institutions and that are to be unmasked.

Structuralistic literary criticism argues that the "literary banter of a text" can lie only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in which that structure is expressed.
The film follows the rogue Lancelot's romance with Lady Guinevere of Leonesse, who is to marry King Arthur of Camelot, while the land is threatened by the renegade knight Malagant. The film is noteworthy within Arthurian cinema for its absence of magical elements. It looks for underlying elements in culture and literature that are connected and so that its viewers can develop conclusions about the movie.

MOVIE

The Plot Summary:

Waking Life is about an unnamed young man living an ethereal existence that lacks transitions between everyday events and that eventually progresses toward an existentialism crisis. For most of the film he observes quietly but later participates actively in philosophical discussions involving other characters—ranging from quirky scholars and artists to everyday restaurant-goers and friends—about such issues as metaphysics, free will, social philosophy, and the meaning of life. Other scenes do not even include the protagonist's presence, but rather, show an isolated person or couple speaking about such topics from a disembodied perspective. Along the way, the film touches also upon existentialism, situationist politics, posthumanity, the film theory of Andre Bazin, and lucid dreaming, and makes references to various celebrated intellectual and literary figures by name.


Gradually, the protagonist begins to realize that he is living out a perpetual dream, broken up only by occasional false awakenings. So far he is mostly a passive onlooker, though this changes during a chat with a passing woman who suddenly approaches him. After she eccentrically greets and shares her creative ideas with him, he reminds himself of his recent realization and of the fact that she must, therefore, be a figment of his own dreaming imagination. Afterwards, he starts to converse more openly with other dream characters as well; however, he ultimately begins to despair about being utterly trapped in this unending, irresolvable dream-state.


The protagonist's final talk is with a character who looks somewhat similar to the protagonist himself and whom he briefly encountered previously, earlier on in the film. This last conversation reveals this other character's understanding that reality may be only a single instant that the individual interprets falsely as time (and, thus, life); that living is simply the individual's constant negation of God's invitation to become one with the universe; that dreams offer a glimpse into the infinite nature of reality; and that in order to be free from the illusion called life, the individual need only to accept God's invitation—though he does not explicitly explain how this is achieved.


The protagonist is last seen walking into a driveway when he suddenly begins to levitate, paralleling a scene at the start of the film of a floating child in the same driveway. Unlike the child who grabbed firmly onto the handle of a nearby car, however, the protagonist uncertainly reaches toward the same handle but is too swiftly lifted above the vehicle and over the trees. He now rises into the endless blue expanse of the sky until he disappears from view altogether.

THE INTERPRETATION:

LITERARY GENRE: SHORT STORY

Psychoanalytic Literary Theory  refers to the definition and dynamics of personality development which underlie and guide psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy. First laid out by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work . Psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence as a critical force in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse after the 1960s. Freud ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies in order to turn his focus to the study of the mind and the related psychological attributes making up the mind, something not many psychologists were willing to do. His study then included recognizing childhood events that could potentially lead to the mental functioning of adults. He examined the genetic and then the developmental aspects that made the psychoanalytic theory become what it was.
Much of Hemingway's writing is characterized by themes of pride, the struggle to maintain masculinity and durability in the face of natural, cultural, or artistic obstacles. In "The Undefeated," the protagonist is Manuel Garcia, a veteran bullfighter, who basically has to beg Retana, a promoter, for work. Retana finally agrees, giving Manuel a fraction (300 pesetas) of what the younger, more popular bullfighters are making. Manuel then goes to a cafe to wait for his friend, Zurito, a picador (a horseman who uses a lance to help the bullfighter). Zurito tells them they're both too old. He pleads with Zurito to "pic" for him, and Zurito only concedes after Manuel agrees that if he does not perform well, he will quit for good. Fighting with Hernandez, another up-and-coming bullfighter, they engage in a long battle with a bull.

Readers get perspectives mostly from Manuel, but also from the audience, a bull-fight critic, Zurito, and even the bull itself. It takes Manuel five tries to stab the bull. In the end, Manuel kills the bull, but is gored and rushed to to the doctor. While Manuel lies on the operating table, Zurito raises a pair of scissors to cut off Manuel's coleta (pigtail), a veritable castration which would symbolically end Manuel's bullfighting career.

LITERARY GENRE: NOVEL

Autobiographical Criticism is primarily treated as men's life writing.

The Plot Summary:

Stein inhabits the persona and speech patterns of Toklas throughout the book. The perceptions of other characters and the recounting of events, however, belong to both Stein and Toklas. For continuity, the narrator of the book will be referred to as Toklas.


Toklas introduces herself and provides some details about her life, mentioning, importantly, that her life changed after the San Francisco earthquake, and she met Gertrude Stein. Saying that she has only met three geniuses in her life, Toklas writes, "The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Alfred Whitehead."

THE INTERPRETATION:

LITERARY GENRE: POETRY

LITERARY GENRE: POETRY

Roald Dahl has portrayed an interesting conflict between the “meaning of life” and “survival of the fittest”. The poem outlines the story of an intelligent pig that knows every single thing on Earth but astonishingly is unaware about the real meaning of life. The Pig simply has no clue as to why he was placed on the Earth and what is the motive of his life.

The pig has been compared to a normal individual who despite being knowledgeable about everything in the society including mathematics, flying an aeroplane, knowing how an engine works, having almost all the information his massive brain can fill in.

Despite knowing everything about his surroundings, despite having read all the books when it comes to knowing the meaning and significance of life, his knowledge is zero. The lines “What was the reason for his birth? Why was he placed upon this earth?” Reveal the curious nature of the young masses today who has puzzled their life to such an extent that they cannot understand what the simple thing called life is? This is the reality of each and every individual today. They plan everything in their life, every single event is pre-planned; but they fail to understand the essence of life.