CRITICAL APPROACHES IN LITERATURE

Described below are nine common critical approaches to the literature. Quotations are
from X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia’s Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and
Drama, Sixth Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pages 1790-1818.

1. Formalist Criticism: This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human

knowledge that needs to be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for
understanding the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the
formalist critic are the elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are
found within the text. A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such
elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.
 How is the work’s structure unified?
 How do various elements of the work reinforce its meaning?
 What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images, etc.) can you find?
What is the effect of these patterns or motifs?
 How does repetition reinforce the theme(s)?
 What is the effect of the plot, and what parts specifically produce that effect?
 What figures of speech are used? (metaphors, similes, etc.)
 Note the writer’s use of paradox, irony, symbol, plot, characterization, and style
of narration. What effects are produced? Do any of these relate to one another or
to the theme?
 Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of the story?
 What tone and mood are created at various parts of the work?
 How does the author create tone and mood? What relationship is there between
tone and mood and the effect of the story?
 How do the various elements interact to create a unified whole?

2. Philosophical Approach: This approach focuses on themes, view of the world,

moral statements,
author’s philosophy, etc.
 What view of life does the story present? Which character best articulates this
viewpoint?
 According to this work’s view of life, what is mankind’s relationship to God? To
the universe?
 What moral statement, if any, does this story make? Is it explicit or implicit?
 What is the author’s attitude toward his world? Toward fate? Toward God?
 What is the author’s conception of good and evil?
 What does the work say about the nature of good or evil?
 What does the work say about human nature?

3. Biographical Criticism: This approach “begins with the simple but central insight
that literature is written by actual people and that understanding an author’s life can help
readers more thoroughly comprehend the work.” Hence, it often affords a practical
method by which readers can better understand a text. However, a biographical critic
must be careful not to take the biographical facts of a writer’s life too far in criticizing the
works of that writer: the biographical critic “focuses on explicating the literary work by
using the insight provided by knowledge of the author’s life.... [B]iographical data should
amplify the meaning of the text, not drown it out with irrelevant material.”
 What aspects of the author’s personal life are relevant to this story?
 Which of the author’s stated beliefs are reflected in the work?
 Does the writer challenge or support the values of her contemporaries?
 What seem to be the author’s major concerns? Do they reflect any of the writer’s
personal experiences?
 Do any of the events in the story correspond to events experienced by the
author?
 Do any of the characters in the story correspond to real people?

4. Historical Criticism: This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by

investigating the social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it—a context that
necessarily includes the artist’s biography and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is
to understand the effect of a literary work upon its original readers.
 How does it reflect the time in which it was written?
 How accurately does the story depict the time in which it is set?
 What literary or historical influences helped to shape the form and content of the
work?
 How does the story reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the time in which it was
written or set? (Consider beliefs and attitudes related to race, religion, politics,
gender, society, philosophy, etc.)
 What other literary works may have influenced the writer?
 What historical events or movements might have influenced this writer?
 How would characters and events in this story have been viewed by the writer’s
contemporaries?
 Does the story reveal or contradict the prevailing values of the time in which it
was written?
 Does it provide an opposing view of the period’s prevailing values?
 How important is it the historical context (the work’s and the reader’s) to
interpreting the work?

5. Gender Criticism: This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the

creation and reception of literary works.” Originally an offshoot of feminist movements,
gender criticism today includes a number of approaches, including the so-called
“masculinist” approach recently advocated by poet Robert Bly. The bulk of gender
criticism, however, is feminist and takes as a central precept that the patriarchal
attitudes that have dominated western thought have resulted, consciously or
unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined ‘male-produced’ assumptions.” Feminist
criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by analyzing and combatting such attitudes
—by questioning, for example, why none of the characters in Shakespeare’s
play Othello ever challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery.
Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing how sexual identity influences the
reader of a text” and “examin[ing] how the images of men and women in imaginative
literature reflect or reject the social forces that have historically kept the sexes from
achieving total equality.”
 To what extent does the representation of gender in the work reflect the place and
time in which the work was written?
 How are the relationships between gender presented in the work? What roles do
men and women assume and perform and with what consequences?
 Does the author present the work from within a predominantly male or female
sensibility? Why might this have been done, and with what effects?
 How do the facts of the author’s life relate to the presentation of men and women in
the work? To their relative degrees of power?
 How do other works by the author correspond to this one in their depiction of the
power relationships between men and women?
 What role does gender or sexuality play in this work?
 Specifically, observe how sexual stereotypes might be reinforced or undermined.
Try to see how the work reflects or distorts the place of women (men) in society.
 Look at the effects of power drawn from gender within the plot or form.

5.a. Feminist Criticism: This approach examines images of women and concepts of
the feminine in myth and literature; uses the psychological, archetypal, and sociological
approaches; often focuses on female characters who have been neglected in previous
criticism. Feminist critics attempt to correct or supplement what they regard as a
predominantly male-dominated critical perspective.

 How are women’s lives portrayed in the work?

 Is the form and content of the work influenced by the writer’s gender?
 How do male and female characters relate to one another? Are these
relationships sources of conflict? Are these conflicts resolved?
 Does the work challenge or affirm traditional views of women?
 How do the images of women in the story reflect patriarchal social forces that
have impeded women’s efforts to achieve full equality with men?
 What marital expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do these
expectations have?
 What behavioral expectations are imposed on the characters? What effect do
these expectations have?
 If a female character were male, how would the story be different (and vice
versa)?
 How does the marital status of a character affect her decisions or happiness?

6. Psychological Criticism: This approach reflects the effect that modern psychology

has had upon both literature and literary criticism. Fundamental figures in psychological
criticism include Sigmund Freud, whose “psychoanalytic theories changed our notions
of human behavior by exploring new or controversial areas like wish-fulfillment,
sexuality, the unconscious, and repression” as well as expanding our understanding of
how “language and symbols operate by demonstrating their ability to reflect
unconscious fears or desires”; and Carl Jung, whose theories about the unconscious
are also a key foundation of Mythological Criticism. Psychological criticism has a
number of approaches, but in general, it usually employs one (or more) of three
approaches:
1. An investigation of “the creative process of the artist: what is the nature of
literary genius and how does it relate to normal mental functions?”
2. The psychological study of a particular artist, usually noting how an
author’s biographical circumstances affect or influence their motivations
and/or behavior.
3. The analysis of fictional characters using the language and methods of
psychology.
 What forces are motivating the characters?
 Which behaviors of the characters are conscious ones?
 Which are unconscious?
 What conscious or unconscious conflicts exist between the characters?
 Given their backgrounds, how plausible is the characters’ behavior?
 Are the theories of Freud or other psychologists applicable to this work? To what
degree?
 Do any of the characters correspond to the parts of the tripartite self? (Id, ego,
superego)
 What roles do psychological disorders and dreams play in this story?
 Are the characters recognizable psychological types?
 How might a psychological approach account for different responses in female
and male readers?
 How does the work reflect the writer’s personal psychology?
 What do the characters’ emotions and behaviors reveal about their psychological
states?
 How does the work reflect the unconscious dimensions of the writer’s mind?
 How does the reader’s own psychology affect his response to the work?

7. Sociological Criticism: This approach “examines literature in the cultural, economic

and political context in which it is written or received,” exploring the relationships
between the artist and society. Sometimes it examines the artist’s society to better
understand the author’s literary works; other times, it may examine the representation of
such societal elements within the literature itself. One influential type of sociological
criticism is Marxist criticism, which focuses on the economic and political elements of
art, often emphasizing the ideological content of literature; because Marxist criticism
often argues that all art is political, either challenging or endorsing (by silence) the
status quo, it is frequently evaluative and judgmental, a tendency that “can lead to
reductive judgment, as when Soviet critics rated Jack London better than William
Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, because he illustrated
the principles of class struggle more clearly.” Nonetheless, Marxist criticism “can
illuminate political and economic dimensions of literature other approaches overlook.”
 What is the relationship between the characters and their society?
 Does the story address societal issues, such as race, gender, and class?
 How do social forces shape the power relationships between groups or classes
of people in the story? Who has the power, and who doesn’t? Why?
 How does the story reflect the Great American Dream?
  How does the story reflect urban, rural, or suburban values?
 What does the work say about economic or social power? Who has it and who
doesn’t? Any Marxist leanings evident?
 Does the story address issues of economic exploitation? What role does money
play?
 How do economic conditions determine the direction of the characters’ lives?
 Does the work challenge or affirm the social order it depicts?
 Can the protagonist’s struggle be seen as symbolic of a larger class struggle?
 How does the microcosm (small world) of the story reflect the macrocosm (large
world) of the society in which it was composed?
 Do any of the characters correspond to types of government, such as a
dictatorship, democracy, communism, socialism, fascism, etc.? What attitudes
toward these political structures/systems are expressed in the work?

8. Archetypal / Mythological Criticism: This approach emphasizes “the recurrent

universal patterns underlying most literary works.” Combining the insights from
anthropology, psychology, history, and comparative religion, mythological criticism
“explores the artist’s common humanity by tracing how the individual imagination uses
myths and symbols common to different cultures and epochs.” One key concept in
mythlogical criticism is the archetype, “a symbol, character, situation, or image that
evokes a deep universal response,” which entered literary criticism from Swiss
psychologist Carl Jung. According to Jung, all individuals share a “‘collective
unconscious,’ a set of primal memories common to the human race, existing below
each person’s conscious mind”—often deriving from primordial phenomena such as the
sun, moon, fire, night, and blood, archetypes according to Jung “trigger the collective
unconscious.” Another critic, Northrop Frye, defined archetypes in a more limited way
as “a symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be
recognizable as an element of one’s literary experience as a whole.” Regardless of the
definition of archetype they use, mythological critics tend to view literary works in the
broader context of works sharing a similar pattern.

 How does this story resemble other stories in plot, character, setting, or
symbolism?
 What universal experiences are depicted?
 Are patterns suggested? Are seasons used to suggest a pattern or cycle?
 Does the protagonist undergo any kind of transformation, such as movement
from innocence to experience, that seems archetypal?
 Are the names significant?
 Is there a Christ-like figure in the work?
 Does the writer allude to biblical or mythological literature? For what purpose?
 What aspects of the work create deep universal responses to it?
 How does the work reflect the hopes, fears, and expectations of entire cultures
(for example, the ancient Greeks)?
 How do myths attempt to explain the unexplainable: origin of man? Purpose and
destiny of human beings?
 What common human concerns are revealed in the story?
  How do stories from one culture correspond to those of another? (For example,
creation myths, flood myths, etc.)
 How does the story reflect the experiences of death and rebirth?
 What archetypal events occur in the story? (Quest? Initiation? Scapegoating?
Descents into the underworld? Ascents into heaven?)
 What archetypal images occur? (Water, rising sun, setting sun, symbolic colors)
 What archetypal characters appear in the story? (Mother Earth? Femme Fatal?
Wise old man? Wanderer?)
 What archetypal settings appear? (Garden? Desert?)
 How and why are these archetypes embodied in the work?

9. Reader-Response Criticism: This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that

“literature” exists not as an artifact upon a printed page but as a transaction between the
physical text and the mind of a reader. It attempts “to describe what happens in the
reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and reflects that reading, like writing, is a
creative process. According to reader-response critics, literary texts do not “contain” a
meaning; meanings derive only from the act of individual readings. Hence, two different
readers may derive completely different interpretations of the same literary text;
likewise, a reader who re-reads a work years later may find the work shockingly
different. Reader-response criticism, then, emphasizes how “religious, cultural, and
social values affect readings; it also overlaps with gender criticism in exploring how men
and women read the same text with different assumptions.” Though this approach
rejects the notion that a single “correct” reading exists for a literary work, it does not
consider all readings permissible: “Each text creates limits to its possible
interpretations.”

Guide for Fiction

 Explain a character's problem and then offer your character advice on how to
solve his/her problem.  
 Explain how a character is acting and why you think the character is acting that
way. 
 From what you've read so far, make predictions about what will happen next and
explain what in the text makes you think it will happen.  
 Pick one character and explain why you would/would not like to have him/her as
a friend.  
 Describe and explain why you would/would not like to have lived in the time or
place of the story.  
 What real-life people or events are you reminded of by characters or events in
the story?  Explain why. 
 Write about what would happen if you brought one of your characters to school
or home for a day.  
 Pick a scene in which you disagreed how a character handled a situation/person
and rewrite it in the way you think it should have happened.  
 What quality of which character strikes you as a good characteristic to develop
within yourself over the years?  Why?  How does the character demonstrate this
quality?
  Who tells the story?  Is this the best person to tell it?  Why?  
 How would the story be different if told through another character's eyes?  
 Why do you think the author wrote this story?  
 If you were the author, would you have ended the story in a different way? 
Why?  How so?  
 How does the character's actions affect other people in the story?  
 How does the author provide information or details to make the story seem
realistic?  
 How does the author help you feel that you are really there (in both realistic
stories and fantasy)? 
 Do you have any unanswered questions about the story?  Explain.  
 Copy an interesting/confusing/important/enjoyable passage and explain why you
chose it. 
 From what you've read so far, make predictions about what will happen next and
explain what in the text makes you think it will happen.

10. Deconstructionist Criticism: This approach “rejects the traditional assumption that

language can accurately represent reality.” Deconstructionist critics regard language as
a fundamentally unstable medium—the words “tree” or “dog,” for instance, undoubtedly
conjure up different mental images for different people—and therefore, because
literature is made up of words, literature possesses no fixed, single meaning. According
to critic Paul de Man, deconstructionists insist on “the impossibility of making the actual
expression coincide with what has to be expressed, of making the actual signs [i.e.,
words] coincide with what is signified.” As a result, deconstructionist critics tend to
emphasize not what is being said but how language is used in a text. The methods of
this approach tend to resemble those of formalist criticism, but whereas formalists’
primary goal is to locate unity within a text, “how the diverse elements of a text cohere
into meaning,” deconstructionists try to show how the text “deconstructs,” “how it can be
broken down ... into mutually irreconcilable positions.” Other goals of deconstructionists
include (1) challenging the notion of authors’ “ownership” of texts they create (and their
ability to control the meaning of their texts) and (2) focusing on how language is used to
achieve power, as when they try to understand how a some interpretations of a literary
work come to be regarded as “truth.”

Guide
 Look for what assumptions the writer makes that already bias the interpretation
of the meanings the text discusses.
 Look for the tension between the spirit and the letter of the text.
 Make it clear how the text comes to life through the reader's interpretation and
through the manipulations of the author.
 Find the limits of meaning built into the text, the point at which it becomes alien.
 Consider the individual elements of the text. Consider how the text uses different
kinds of words, nouns, verbs, adverbs etc.
 Look for puns and words with double meaning. Reread any sentence with a
double meaning and try to keep both meanings simultaneously.
 o Does this word have any other definitions besides the standard, assumed
definition? For example, the word "start" can mean "to begin." It can also
mean "to become startled." The sentence "He started when he heard the
gun" might mean that the man began an action at the gunshot (such as
beginning a race). However, it might also mean that the man became
startled and scared at the gunshot. Try to keep both meanings of "start" in
your head while you read.
o Is this word etymologically related to other words in the text? For example,
the words "inspiration" and "conspiracy" are both related to the Latin root
word "spirae," meaning breath. Does this history help you find additional
meaning in these words?
o Does the word sound like another word or phrase that is entirely unrelated
to it? For example, the word "Russian" is not etymologically related to
"rush in" in any way. However, because these words sound a lot alike, a
reader might connect them in surprising ways, leading to additional
significance in a text.
o Is this word used in a different way elsewhere in the text, and how might
they be related? For example, perhaps the word "art" is used in one
chapter to refer to a painting and "Art" is used in another chapter to refer
to a person. How are "art" and "Art" alike? How are they different?
 Hunt for overlooked explanations or definitions.
o What is unconventional or strange about the text? Are there any traditions
that the text is flouting? These traditions might be literary (such as using
an unconventional structure) or political (such as inhabiting a feminist
perspective).[1]
o How would this text be different if it had been narrated from another
character's perspective? This is an especially good question to ask if the
narrator is a white heterosexual man and there are minor characters who
embody minority identities. What if this text had taken up the perspective
of a woman, a person of color, or someone who is queer? [2]
o What ideology is being supported by the text? Does the text seem to
suppress any other ideologies? For example, perhaps the text anxiously
supports Western imperialism. Is there anything the text leaves out in
order to strengthen its imperialist position?[3]
o What is the text's relationship to seemingly universal truths?
[4]
 Deconstruction resists the idea that there is one single Truth to explain
life and language. Does the text resist these false truths as well? For
example, one generally accepted truth is that "people should follow their
consciences." Perhaps a text is arguing that people's consciences are
flawed and that morality should be sought elsewhere.
o What hierarchies exist in the text? Who has the power? Is there any way
that the text overturns hierarchies? Could you overturn hierarchies through
your reading?[5]
o What words could the author have chosen but did not choose? Are there
any gaps or fissures in the text that you can discern? [6]
 Embrace ambiguity, playfulness, and contradictions. Expect to find jokes, playful
puns, disturbing ideas, and paradoxes when deconstructing a text.
 Examine the text in another order. Consider disrupting a linear reading of a text
by skimming through it backwards, jumping around from chapter to chapter, and
reading certain phrases and sentences in isolation.