Crítica Práctica

UNIT 1
Archetypal theory
Focuses on the recurring myths in the text. Mythological criticism, search for recurrent
universal patterns. You have to look for the plot, the characters type and
characterization, the common symbols. Example: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson
(Cliches in the story and the type of characters that appear)

Formalism
Focuses on understanding a text from its formal dimension (structure, for instance)
giving less importance to outside elements ( ex. historial dimension)

Exercises in style by Raymond Queneau, The Hive by Camilo José Cela

New historicism/Cultural Studies

It incorporates discourses (feminist, cultural, Marxist)
How history is shaped by people who live it? Subjectivity is important. How was the
event of the story interpreted? How is the interpreter?
This theory appears as a response of the formalist theory (which was very objective)

(Studying the culture that a book shows, understand the text by its contents)

Feminist Criticism
The way in which literature deals with the oppression of women in different situations
(economic, social, etc) and the role women have in a work
To learn about women writers. How are women represented in literature?
Virginia Woolf “A Room of one’s own”.

Masculinity studies
Approach that studies man behaviour, gender expression and role (archetypical or not).
Also, the evolution of masculinity as a social construct throughout time and space.
vg: Peter Pan, Of Mice and Men, Oscar WIlde's characters, Don Quijote and the
opposition of Darcy and Wickham in Pride and Prejudice

Queer theory
Approach that analyzes gender roles, the use of pronouns and the behaviour of people -
and the diverse variations that can exist and are out of the norm. It focuses on character
behaviour, gender expression and relationships between people. It also takes into
account other elements such as the aesthetic of the scenery.
ex: Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Psychoanalytic theory
Dreams, sexuality, traumas, the psychological perspective from each character.
Freud theory - Freudianism
It is very retrospective because it takes a look into the past. What the character has lived
and passed that has affected his mind and way of acting.

Marxism
It takes into account the historical context and its influence. Particularly the fight and
struggle of classes. How do they interact? Which system? (Capitalism, communism…)
how do they control and dominate? How do they maintain the power?
Example: Hunger games, 1984

Structuralism
Connected to archetypal criticism, how language is constructed based on some
structures. They usually point to the anthropological perspective (American, women,
men) they would say that a text is created between the units , analyzing how they enter
into conflict and how it is resolved. An anthropological understanding of how the world
works. How the structures are interrelated

Deconstructionism
Based on the work of Derrida, creates an individual questioning of the traditional
assumptions and prejudices. Objects have meaning because they have been defined as
through language. Binaries in which one object has been given a sort of privilege. Also,
current feminism.
vg. Fahrenheit 451

Postcolonial theory
Studies the colonial context, critical observations of former colonies, how they relate
and interact with the rest of the world and what happens when two cultures clash, one
becomes superior and assumes dominance over the other. It is situated after the
imperialist era, movements of independence, it deals with imperialistic power,
slavement and racial themes, colonization and power relationships.
ex: Borders, The white black (Roxanne Gay)

Post Humanist theory

In the 20th century, there comes a point when we have many technological
advancements that we start to think that the human is the heart and center of
everything. Questioning this system for their artificiality, reminds us that we are only
part of a bigger environmental system, what the human is after all? Our identities are
presented by technology online, boundaries between species.
Ecocriticism
Concerns about both literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of
view. Literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and
examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. It investigates such
things as the underlying ecological values, what, precisely, is meant by the word nature,
and whether the examination of "place" should be a distinctive category, much like
class, gender or race. Ecocritics examine human perception of wilderness, and how it
has changed throughout history and whether or not current environmental issues are
accurately represented or even mentioned in popular culture and modern literature.
¿Shall our environmental surroundings and our vision of nature turn into a new
category of literature analysis? ¿What role does nature have in a work?

Animal studies
Focuses on examining the non human others figures. Relation between people and non-
humans others (animals), looking at beings or selfs and being able to have interests,
they are not symbols. It asks questions like How and how many animals are
represented? Do they have ancientism? What sorts of non-human others do we have in
the text? What does the absence of animals tell us? How do they represent their
behaviors? What symbolism do they represent? Do they have a subjectivity, are they
only a symbol? Critical animal studies perspective ( Of mice and men - John Steinback).

Critical race theory

Is a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism
across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars
attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural
perceptions of race and how they can represent themselves to counter prejudice.

Reader-response theory
Considers readers' reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text.
However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A critic
deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminist lens, or even
a structuralist lens.

Adaptation Theory
Adapting literary sources, like poems, into another genre like film, comic books, songs,
paintings. Recreatre and reflect one text in another text(another medium).

Translation theory
Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of
the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and localization. As
an interdiscipline, Translation Studies borrows much from the various fields of study
that support translation. These include comparative literature, computer science,
history, linguistics, philology, philosophy, semiotics, and terminology.
New musicology
Looking at how music works in text, not only from a formal perspective but also from a
social one.
ex: presence of blues in novels about black people in the 20th century, piano in Twilight

Ageing criticism
Effect of the time passing and growing up and becoming elderly and how time affects
humanity and behaviour, the concerns ageing comes with.

Disability studies
Types of disabilities that characters might have, people who are missing an arm or are
mentally affected by a disease or a disability. (Of mice and men, forest)
el camino by Delibes

Affect Theory
Emotions and mental states, how your subjectivity or the author subjectivity navigate
these different feelings and affects. There is a lot of retrospection to the past, related to
trauma studies and psychoanalysis. How are we feeling?

Trauma studies
Study of hard intense emotions that affect a person to the point of modifying their
actions at some point. not only individual trauma but also collective trauma (racism,
sexism, nazism, lgtbphobia).

THE CANON, THE THEORY OF WARS AND IDENTITY

The relevance of the canon in critical thinking and in indemnity politics.

Descriptive vs Prescriptive nature of the canon

When we talk about canon we refer to how certain texts of a culture are constructed.
(Spanish canonical, Cervantes el Quijote, Lorca, la barraca?, etc)
How the identities trends develop and change. And how canon became prescriptive,
something to teach and to learn about. Representative texts, ambassadors of a culture.

Harold BLOOM’s The Western Canon: the books and school of Ages (1994)
-Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Austen, Kafka, Neruda, Tolstoy, Dickens, Woolf, etc.

The Western Canon 1994- texts should be valued on account of its aesthetic
- Aesthetic VS social/political/moral purpose of texts
- Author active value of texts
- Concept of strangeness

General considerations associated to any sort of canon: The three A’s of canon
formation, the way to question a canon(EXAM)
● Authority: has the right to establish the canon? Who has a say in what works are
included? Creative force behind the canon or it is self-created?
 ● Authorship: the authorship influence the canon or are works isolated aesthetic
pieces? Does the author's background influence the impact and cultural
relevance of the piece?
● Authenticity: what makes a work of art “true”(VS “false”)?

Cannot reach truth, canonical, if not facing the influence of Dante, Shakespeare…
have had on you--- anxiety but greatness. Texts following a social and
educational agenda. Works can be good or bad regardless who the author is. In
the canon, white men mostly, he is reflecting who has been influential.

("Western culture" might be too broad to be actually representative, there could

be a canon for each community or category of people (women, black people,
lgbt+))

CAUSES - cultural revolution: civil rights

movement, feminist movement, black lives matter movement = reafirming one’s
cultural heritage and gender/rol

School of Resentment - insult/reaction to all those critics who favour opinions that have
to do with identity - “the ones that want to destroy the canon” - Bloom is against them

Literature and politics:

- The right wing and the left wing of literary criticism and literary research
- New fields of research: woman studies, African American studies, gay and
lesbian studies (queer theory) Native American studies…
- Destruction of the canon or formation of new sub-canons? (Debate: if the new
perspectives of criticism destroy the original canon or if they create new
different sub canons)

UNIT 2- Contextual approaches

OF MICE AND MEN (novella and a play-novelette)

John Steinbeck

-1962 Nobel prize - Simple characters, plot and symbolism

-Upbringing in California ranches and farm settings
-Wrote 16 novels and 5 collections of short stories
-Studies English literature at Stanford University- does not graduate
-Hardships during the Depression, self-made-man enterprise
-Friendship with biologist Ed Riketts that influences some of his work with an
ecocritical perspective.
-Married 3 times
-Tortilla Flat (1935) launched his career
-The Grapes of wrath relations him with the right wing- communist
-The Winter of Our Discontent (Title comes from Richard III Shakespeare)

WWII correspondent for the NY Herald

-Participates in a number of film scripts (with names such as Hitchcock and Kazan) and
many of his works are adapted for the screen

-Wrote on numerous topics, but his most celebrated works deal with American society
(especially working-class and especially in California)

-Allegedly leftist views, though some biographical details (possible involvement with
the CIA during the Cold War, position on Vietnam, etc.) suggest a more complex
position.

-Leftist displays: member of League of American Writers (communist inclinations),

support of workers' strikes in California, support of Soviet invasion of Finland,
friendship with Lincoln Jeffers, support to Arthur Miller during McCarthyism, enmity
with J. Edgar Hoover, etc.

The death of King Arthur (by Thomas Malory), a book that is very important for
Steinbeck.

Context of Mice and men

-1930 America in the Depression and the dust Bowl (a drought) with dust storms
-Relief Recovery Reform - the three R of the New Deal
-Automation of agricultural force through machine power (labor force to handle
machinery) technology starts to replace workers, they are paid less because of that
(migration of workers from the dust states and from Mexico)
-Farming industries begin to relate family farms, demand for cheap labor force
-Agricultural wages at minimum —> strikes, rows (huelgas)

1)ARCHETYPICAL THEORY
MYTHOPOEIA: - works that help humans to understand the world
Refers to those literary works "tending to create or re-create certain narratives
which human beings take to be crucial to their understanding of their world".

MITHO--- study of the work from that perspective

"[Myth in the Aristotelian sense of 'emplotment'] signifies both fable (in the sense of an
imaginary story) and plot (in the sense of a well constructed story).”

"Myth is fundamental, the dramatic representation of our deepest instinctual life, of a

primary awareness of man in the universe, capable of many configurations, upon which
all particular opinions and attitudes depend." .

"Myth is to be defined as a complex of stories - some no doubt fact, and some fantasy -
which, for various reasons, human beings regard as demonstrations of the inner
meaning of the universe and of human life"

Mythography is "the interpretation of myth”; it requires the scholar to read "which

paradigms are of interest, and how to interpret them."

Archetypal Theory may also be referred to as mythography / myth criticism.

Close to the fields of religion and anthropology (and recurrent in interpretations
relating to the study of the psyche).
Assumption that there are a series of universal myths, rituals, patterns, motifs and
archetypes that appear in art culture, art, and literature.
The reproduction of such universal features endow literature with a sense of
timelessness, and history with a sense of it being cyclical.

Mice and men from the archetypal theory (biblical myths, medieval Arthur, and
Cain & Abel)
Inferring theory and key words:

The characterization of the woman (temptress) is referring to Eva from the Bible- desire
to return to Eden
Binarism in good and bad - Lennie good person doing bad acts- blurry lines
-sense and representation of what constitutes good and misery

Ritual in an analytical category that helps us deal with the chaos of human experience
and put into a coherent framework. There is no right or wrong (understand the world in
which we live) to understand their life, Lennie and George think about a better future
with their dream life (it is their ritual) in the story it is repeated a lot of times. e.g.
bonds them, helps them cope, escapism…

The ritual of the story is their hope of the future (having their own farm with rabbits)
represents hope and heaven
Myth give order in that chaos of human experience

Motif: an element that is recurrent in the narrative and whose symbolic significance is
strengthened by that recurrence. Their appearance helps to structure and order the
narrative, creating recognizable patterns for the reader (in Mice and men would be
animals, mice, hands, death, rabbits)

ARCHETYPE: In reference to characters, they indicate symbolic prototypes that are

recurrent in myths and which face prototypical actions that are to be ritualistically
confronted. It assumes that all cultures share a basic symbolic system in which
archetypal figures are systematized. Reference to characters

Comparison between mice and men and Arthurian legends -Sir Thomas Malory

 Influence of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1495) in Steinbeck

- No room for the femenine, Domitian of men, when a lady comes bad things
happen
- Brotherhood, loyalty, male bong in and concern for the less privileged
- The Dream as the final step in the quest
- "the fundamental parallels - the knightly loyalty, the pursuit of the vision, the creation of
a bond (shared briefly by Candy and Brooks) and its destruction by an at least
potentially adulterous relationship - are there”
- Grail as symbol of the paradise lost (the future farm with rabbits) their farm is
their task, motifs of the rabbits as a safe place, ultimate search for the Garden of
Eden.
- destruction of the dream by an at least potentially adulterous relationship
(Lennie with the woman and the pet) (sexuality in the way Lennie want to pet
soft things)
- Lancelot is George, and Galahad is candy or slim, like father figures that show
George lessons like that he is the one who has to shot Lennie.
- Lennie Milton—-> related to John Milton (author of paradise lost, the fall of man
and the search of paradise)
- A lot of biblical references
- Conclusion: it is not important how much you ritual , the paradise does not exist ,
there ir no grail , with the death of Lennie, their dreams are crashed with reality,
loss of hope, not continue having that dream of paradise

Paradox of the Grail implied sacrifice through the symbol of blood:

 1. Guinevere = Curley's wife- loss of Lancelot's virginal purity: loss of destiny to
find the Grail: Eve
2. The man who overcomes the temptress is the hero = relationship between Jesus
and Mary Magdalene = Galahad's liberation of the Castle of Maidens
3. Candy = guiding wisdom? Father-like figure whose flaw is overcome by the son
(= Lancelot & Galahad Galahad is the only one to whom the secrets of the Grail
are revealed; he is also the one to undertake, alone, the last part of the
quest).They "force" him and persuade him to follow them to kill Lennie.

George = purity, honor, brotherhood, loyalty, virtue of the Knights of Camelot à yet final,
ironic twist on the predestination of Galahad
The closest they come to the Grail is when the triumvirate of masculine-based loyalty is
established: George – Lennie – Candy- the strong and the weak, the young and the old,
the reasoning and the passionate come together.

3 comparisons: biblical reference Cain and Abel...Genesis

Brotherhood, George keeper of Lennie, errants and image of the whole family travelling
together. Lack of compassion for those in the same situation, odd of those who are
travelling together. THOSE LONERS ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF CAIN.

Brotherly company, curse of Cain can be reversed, and brothers can take care of each
other. Curse of Cain repeats itself again, despite good intentions, all affection, care for
each other, curse is more powerful and it leads you to repeat the same sacrifice, a
brother killing the other.(NOT JEALOUS)

2) MARXISM
Notion that whoever owns the means of production in a society controls society itself
Forces of production shape a society in owning the means of production, one dictates
what society is.

Society is decided in two groups : bourgeoisie and proletariat ( owners and workers)
In capitalist society there would always be a struggle between classes.
capital you might produce translates your value, you become something can be
expendable, replaceable.

Inferring theory:

Privilege of the son of the boss, he does not need to work to maintain his privilege, he is
not going to lose his job or social position like the others

Lennie and George are workers and need to work hard to achieve “the American dream”
that the capitalist system has made them believe without questioning it. from rags to
riches. from individualists stand to adversity.

They are proletariat and they have so normalize that type of system that they already
know before arriving what type of job they are going to do and that they are going to be
exploited working hard and many hours but they have that normalized they do not
discuss it, as if it is their obligation to do that because of their social status

Key words
• Proletariat = lower/working classes that under capitalism must sell their labor to
earn a living, thus becoming alienated.

• Ideology = the ideas, values and feelings by which men experience their societies and
cultures at various times

• Base and superstructure

• Capitalism = socio-economic system based on private ownership of the means of

production and the exploitation of labor force.

• Historical materialism = based on idea that material condition and productive

capacity of a society determine human consciousness and relations

• Private property = ownership of means of production (* not to confuse with personal

property)

 Infrastructure=base: the economic structure of society based on capitalist

forces and relations of production
 Superstructure: certain forms of law and politics, a certain kind of state
determined by the infrastructure, whose essential function is to legitimate the
power of the social class which owns the means of economic production (It also
consists of certain forms of social consciousness: ideology)
Machines are now taking people’s job, now they are more exploited and they have to
work very hard (Industrial revolution, workers are alienated because their contribution
to the final product is minimal) Marxism ideas of workers and machines

Presentation of the American Dream, want to go up the social ladder, stop being the
workers and be the owners of their own farm, go beyond their social position. If you
own the means of production, you have the control, they want a property that will
produce.

The belief of them being different, the exception. The bourgeoisie has made them
believe in the dream. They are not the same as the others, they are going to achieve the
dream, they think they are special, the architects of the dream (but really the dream has
been manufactured by the bourgeoisie to the proletariat to keep the system running).

They maintain their power by giving the proletariat hope and illusion that they can
change their status by working hard. (They are struggling between their own class, not
against the ones above them) they compete with those who are in the same situation as
they, not with the system. The object of the capitalist system is to make it go forward by
means of selling them the idea of the American Dream. (Make them believe in their
individuality)

Idea of men born good and becoming corrupted by society (Russoe) is present in
mice and men. A lot romanticist principles in the book ( Lennie acting like a child, in
nature there is innocence, romanticism intuition in Lennie, natural setting as a safe
place= the bush for Lennie) When they realized what Lennie has done, they give up on
the dream, abandon of the innocence and good nature of Lennie)

There are two people that don't believe in the dream, Curley’s wife and Crooks.

Marxist understanding of IDEOLOGY

- Should not be conceived as a set of doctrines
- It signifies the way men live out their roles in class society
- It signifies the values, ideas and images which tie men to their social functions.
Prevent them from a true knowledge of society as a whole (they struggle not
with the system)
- It shows a man making sense of his experience in ways that prohibit a true
understanding of his society, ways that are consequently false= American Dream

(Georg Lukàcs: form and content, support realism and typicality of character)
(Pierre Macherey, focus in what it does not say, significant silences of a text, reveal the
limits of ideology of the author)

3) FEMINISM AND GENDER STUDIES

Focus on the role of the femenine figures and the things related to femininity.
Seek of achieving the same rights, equality in the working field, etc.
Concerns:

● rewriting of literary history so as to include the contributions of women

● tracing of a female literary tradition
● theories of sexuality and sexual difference (drawing on Psychoanalysis, Marxism,
and the social sciences)
● representations of women in male literature (à stereotypes: angels, goddesses,
whores, obedient wives, dutiful mothers)
● the role of gender in both literary creation and literary criticism (as studied in
“gynocriticism”)
● connections between gender and various aspects of literary form, such as genre
and meter
● Exploration of the connection between experience and language à Is there a
specifically female experience that has been communicated by women writers?
● How do women confront the task of being historically coerced into using a
language dominated by male concepts and values?

Different historical overview of feminist waves

-playboy (freedom of showing their bodies)

-Virginia woolf

FIRST WAVE (the waves are only to structure the different ideas that have been in
the movement, giving history and form)

 1790s? Early 1800s? 1850s? – early 20th century. Most historians agree that it
began in 19th century England (Victorian Era). It spreaded across Europe (more
in some countries than in others).

(influence of the French Revolution & the Enlightenment-- Wollestonecraft’s A

Vindication) They want to revindivicate that women are reasonable beings, capable of
reasoning, old idea of woman being emotional by nature, she tries to break this
stereotype.

 Term coined by Martha Lear in 1968 in the New York Times

 Connections to anti-slavery & anti-vivisection (experimentation with other non-
human beings--animals) movements

Focus: women's suffrage, improvement of women’s rights in employment, education of

women, pursuit of women's property rights, rights to execute a will(testamento), promotion of
the training and employment of women. --- led by white middle class women

SECOND WAVE 1960s-1980s

•1960s-1980s starts from the US to the rest of the western world
•Causes: the aftermath of the end of World War II. What are they and how do they affect
gender politics? (After-war labour) Women start to occupy the working field (public
spaces) since men are going to war, they keep their work even after war. (There is also a
reaction to woman laboration, and appears a movement to send woman home again)

•Effects of the feminist ‘sex wars’ in the gradual disappearance of the movement.
(Feminists in the second wave make no distinction between racial women/low class
women and rich white women. All women are considered equally oppressed.)

•Influence of the Civil Rights Movement and the Left (what effect do these movements
have in literature?) (Martin Luther King, etc.)

•Influence of French Feminism Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex: They realise that
women had always been surrounded by men (and considered “the other”) so they
weren’t able to organize themselves and talk about their oppression. This changes
during the second wave and they start organizing. “consciousness-raising groups”,
where they share their experience as women and from that they are able to create
theories about that.

(1949/1952) and Julia Kristeva’s l'écriture feminine (Semeiotikè, 1969)·

Focuses on:

● workplace
● sexuality
● family
● reproductive rights
● private life issues: marital rape, domestic violence, divorce laws
● distinction between sex & gender
● rearticulating pop culture
● Motto: “The personal is political”. They argue that whatever happens within the
personal sphere (focusing on women’s) has political implications.

THE BITCH MANIFESTO

➔ They reappropriate the term “bitch” and use it as an empowerment.

➔ Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963)
➔ Leading feminists: Gloria Steinem, Ellen Willis, Anne Koedt, Robin Morgan, Jo
freeman (Joreen), Shulamith Firestone, Jane Alpert, Kate Millet, Ti-Grace
Atkinson, etc.
➔ Militancy, consciousness raising, stunts (something to grab the public attention,
drama), marches, workshops.

➔ RADICAL FEMINISM (1967-1975) VS CULTURAL FEMINISM (1975-1980s)

- Some radical feminist groups: groups Redstockings, The Feminists, The Furies,
New York Radical Feminists, Feminist Economic Network (FEN), Bread and
 Roses, Cell 16, WITCH. Radical feminists defend that women are the same that
men. (more concern of all woman being the same, short hair, etc)
- Cultural feminist focus on sisterhood, the body, motherhood, sisterhood
(embrace natutre as mothers, beings closer to nature and create an arssenal
around that) Cultural feminists defend that women are different from men but
they embrace that difference as a way of empowerment.

THIRD WAVE
1. 1990s-2000s
2. The neo-liberalism in the movement (seen in the previous waves with figures as
Margaret Thatcher) dies.
3. Changes in perspective as to the term ‘feminism’
4. Reactions against 2nd wave “failures”
5. Term “Third Wave” coined by Rebecca Walker (daughter of the African-
American writer Alice Walker- The Color Purple), to emphasize the non-
whiteness and queerness of the movement
6. Various feminist outlooks are accepted: ecofeminists, animal rights feminists,
academic feminists, liberals, black feminists, Asian-American feminists, gay
feminists, post-structuralist feminists, etc. ·

Focuses on:

● INTERSECTION of identities
● queer theory & gender politics
● gender role expectations & stereotypes
● common goals such as equal pay and penalization of rape, but different groups
have different perspectives on the implications of political changes and
individualistic identities
● other problems: single motherhood, glass ceiling, maternity-leave policies, etc.
● reclaiming of derogatory terms (bitch, whore, spinster, cunt, slut). It started in
the second wave and continued in the third one.
● Motto: “The local is global”

FOURTH WAVE (?)( Is there such a thing as fourth-wave feminism?)

● 2010-today
● Emphasis on technology in communications and sciences
● Online identities & “call-out culture”
● Re-questioning of the term ‘feminist’ for its exclusionary implications. What is
the definition of femininity? What is the definition of gender? Is sex work
empowering? What is empowering and what is not?
● Me Too and Time´s Up Movements against sexuual harassment and enabling.
Online community.
Of Mice and Men: questions from the feminist studies approach
Land portrait as femenine undertone- mother nature, beyond bucolic- men dig his
hands into and exploit it, steal from her, industrialize and make it manly.

Lennie feels safe in this land, closer to his femenine side. characters are not entirely
manly or femenine. Lennie´s gender moves in those lines, femenine side(childish terms
always associated with femenine because of the immaturity to take care of himself )-
relationship w/ George is kind of marital and genderdized (George controls Lennie and
tries to keep him in his place).

Curley had to watch and take care of his wife, control where she was etc, the same as
George does with Lennie. (Marital attitude) Lennie is dominated by George, George is
the one who makes decisions.

Lennie, appropriates that masculinity, destroying that hand of that little guy (Curley)
has been taking care of, for his wife, symbol of castration. He destroys Curley’s
masculinity by breaking it. So he has to lie and say that it was caught in a machine.

Instability of gender, Lennie has femenine attitudes, but likes touching sexually women.

Candy is more emotional, he is sad and doesnt want to kill his dog, They all go to a hoe
house, but left the weak ones in the farm ( Lennie, and Candy, the black man, the old
man- too childish,too soft and sensitive, too old, too black-) hands falic symbols?

Criticism around the author, in terms of misoginia…

KEYWORDS

Hierarchical binarism: dichotomy that conceptualizes the world as a duality in which

the components are of unequal value. Within a feminist/gender based form of criticism,
such inequality stems from the central position that traditional, normative masculinity
occupies culturally and politically: masculine/feminine; heterosexual/homosexual;
rational/emotional; strong/weak; independent/dependent; public sphere/private
sphere; mind/body; economy/domesticity; etc.

Performativity (in gender-related terms): based on Judith Butler's theories, it is the

belief that gender, as a cultural construct, is articulated through one's own repetitive
performance of gender-related expectations.

Butler bases much of her argument on how the nonverbal body is put to performative
use for such purposes, the importance of discourse and its multiple nuances should not
be undermined.
 As a 'stylized' repetition of acts and gestures, gender identities persist through
the mimesis of gender conventions, which entrap the subject within a series of
behavioral norms that society makes him/her live up to.

Otherness: although very much present in other forms of criticism related to identity
politics, otherness remains a central concept in discussions revolving around gender.
Whether the 'other' takes the form of that other sex, an unconventional type of
masculinity on account of character sensitiveness, or on account of disability, race, etc.,
the mere reflection of its existence connotes the extent to which patriarchal standards
operate in hyper-masculinized settings.

Agency (in gender-related terms): refers to the extent to which a character may be a
subject (as opposed to an object-type). Agency within one's gender implies having the
emotional and financial independence to perform or exercise such gender, to be active
(versus passive) when it comes to establishing social relations, and to consciously
manage the resources that are concomitant to one's gender.

Stereotype(in gender-related terms): as in the case of the previous terms,

stereotypes are quite defined when it comes to discussions based on gender, A
stereotype is a cultural construct that provides an image to a type of gender¿?

-Mother Nature is considered like a womb (utero)

-There are much more overt visuals of the construction of the characters, more
descriptive of what she looks like.

-American dream for her- Hollywood actress- monitoring people's hopes and
desires. (But they only want to take sexual advantage of women, if they go with
him they would be súper stars)

-Female loneliness,

-Curley's wife also suffered from alienation because she lost her dreams too she
wanted to be a Hollywood movie star. While seducing Lennie she confesses
about the man who wanted to realize her dream. As a result, when the man did
not fulfill his promise, she married Curley. Ironically speaking, her sexuality was
regarded as the reason for her tragic death under the hands of the giant Lennie.

-Steinbeck reinforces the idea that Curley's wife represents the women who have
no access to power; they used to use their sexuality in order to satisfy their
desire and needs from men. Curley's wife was like a prostitute who leads men
away from their own right path.

-Women are raised to be pretty and seduce men- seduce and get a husband- if
not, fallen woman.

-Antagonism of the mother figure.

4)PSYCHOANALYSIS
ROLE OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC LITERARY CRITIC

Analysis of:
 1. Authorial motivation and motives
2. Readers' motivations and motives and how they affect interpretation
3. Characters' motivations and motives
4. Connecting authorial motivation to biographical details (particularly those of a
developmental or traumatic nature, such as during childhood) Going back to the
past and analysis of traumas
5. Examination of how language reveals the unconscious of author, narrator and
characters
6. Textual elements and aspects in accordance to psychoanalytic theory (especially
symbols and linguistic intricacies)
7. The stereotypes of gender roles and the relationships between characters that
are determined by gender conventions
8. Understanding how the creative process functions at a conscious and
unconscious level

Lennie fetish behavior towards petting. All characters as a full sexual character
(Lennie). His obsession with rabbits and soft things is a way of making his sexuality
acceptable. Being regarded as a deviant type of manhood. Unconsciously he channels
(retransmite) his sexuality. Sometimes he loses control, pets too much and kills rabbits.

Aunt Clara, the other person in Lennie's childhood. He is terrified of punishment. George
does not see him as a sexual character. He is not taken to the whore house, like a child.

George is the man of the couple. Control and monitoring what Lennie does. (George
does notice when Lennie looks towards the woman's legs, and he prohibits him to look
and talk to her) it is like a father, the one who is threatened with castration, and
prohibits sexual pleasure. George is always threatening him with taking the rabbits ( his
centre of pleasure) when Lennie fights with Curley, he does not even have the idea of
getting him back, but when George says the order, he does it. (And Curley being
castrated because of his broken hand) Lennie is scared and gets out of control because
of his fear of castration (rabbits taken away from him by George) George manipulates
unconsciously the best scenario to Lennie for being sacrificed.

Keywords of Freudianism

•Psyche: the totality of the human mind (that is, the conscious, the preconscious and
the unconscious).

•Conscious: the thoughts, feelings and emotions that the subject is aware of in an
active manner.

•Preconscious: the sort of available memory that has not been accessed by the
conscious. Yet because they are thoughts that, although seemingly unconscious, are not
exactly repressed either, a way may be found through which to access them through the
conscious, precisely because they are latent.
•Unconscious: the combination of repressed feelings, urges, thoughts, desires, impulses
and instincts that are regarded as painful and/or shameful.

SUBSTRUCTURE OF THE PSYCHE:

•The id: it is the passionate, irrational, unknown and unconscious part of the psyche,
where the libido and the principle of pleasure inhabit.

•The ego: it is the predominantly rational, orderly and logical part, mostly occupied by
the conscious, where the principle of reality inhabits.

•The superego: it is the projected combination of the ego and the assimilation of
cultural/parental impositions and taboos. It is therefore where conscience resides, a
force that is socially-driven and moralizing, particularly when it comes to sexuality and
aggression.

•Pleasure principle (Id): force that demands immediate or instant gratification

•Reality principle (Ego): force that demands assessment and checking of external
reality.

•Libido (id): sexual instinct/drive and impulse.

•Eros (Id): life force and willingness to live.

Oedipus Complex: the seeking of the child's first love-object (that is, the mother),
unconsciously regarded as one and the same with the child's body. Consequently, the
child develops sexual impulses towards the mother and aggressive ones towards the
father, who he attempts to replace. (Freud focused much more overtly on boys than he
did on girls, about whom his research changed throughout his career).

Free association method: psychoanalytic procedure whereupon the patient abandons

himself to a process of free association between thoughts, images, symbols, etc. Thus the
course of the treatment is led by the patient, not the doctor, who notes everything that
the patient verbalizes. Because the repressed feelings will never be consciously
expressed, they are made manifest through allusions, metaphors and substitutive
associations. The analyst (and in this case the psychoanalytic literary critic) must
interpret and arrange the symbols in order to try to make sense of the unconscious and
how it operates through associations. Conversion: a symptom arises from the damming-
up of emotional impulses.

•Death drive / Thanatos (Id): impulse towards self-obliteration, self-destruction and

death.

•Coping mechanisms: the strategic, conscious endeavours through which to deal with
anxieties and negative impulses.
•Defense mechanisms (Ego): they are the unconscious strategies that pacify the
anxiety caused by impulses, causing distortion and manipulation of reality.

DREAM-WORK: THE PROCESS WHEREUPON LATENT THOUGHTS ARE TRANSFORMED

INTO THE MANIFEST CONTENT OF THE DREAM. IT INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING
SEQUENCES:

•Condensation: concentration of the preconscious material of the dream. Displacement

of the psychical forces of the dream.

•Dramatization: the dream is recorded into visual images.

Lennie forgets everything but the thing related to the rabbits. This is important. George
always says that he forgets everything. The sense of forgetfulness. George as a father.
Lennie has a moment of hallucination when he gesticulates and makes the voices of
Aunt Clara punish him for what he has done. She does it like George does, parasitical? It
can be a defense mechanism, his subconscious is unable to imaginate George being bad
with him, so he imagines Aunt Clara. Makes someone else the antagonist. The rejection
of punishment and castration, but unconsciously knows that is fair to you to be
punished, you feel blame. “Giant Rabbit” Whatever it is being repressed is big,
masculinity, sexuality, etc.

To him it is not conscious of what he has done bad. Only cares about losing the rabbits.
See George as someone good to him, the nurturing person. Fear of being detached from
George. Fear of loneliness. When George appears, he is very soft, not angry, very caring
about him.

From a Freudian perspective dreams and hallucinations are important to look at.

5)CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Keywords
Race: biologically speaking, it refers to a series of physical and genetic traits that group
people into a certain type. Culturally speaking, it classifies groups of people whose
language, history and traditions define them. In racist ideology, race is employed as a
cultural construct.

White supremacy: racist, ideological premises that claims that white people are
superior (usually intellectually) to other races and ethnicities – a belief that is
materialized through the dynamics of different public institutions in which white people
are the dominant group in terms of number and higher positions.

Institutionalized racism: forms of racism deeply ingrained in the civil, social and
political structures of a nation or culture, or practiced at more informal social groupings
and levels. It involves discriminatory action against certain ethnic or racial groups,
either openly or through more implicit manners. Statistics evince the existence of
institutionalized racism when presenting evidence with very different levels and results
for different races concerning socio political and legal aspects such as wealth,
educational opportunities, employment, type of employment, criminal justice, common
law, housing, political power and empowerment, and medical and health care.

Scientific racism: allegedly empirical research of a pseudo anthropological and

craniometric nature that proves that some races are superior to others and therefore
aims to justify and perpetuate racial discrimination. Today it is no longer credible for
the scientific community.

Racial stereotypes and myths: cultural caricatures, distortions, exaggerations,

deformations and misrepresentations of racial and ethnic groups. Within a racist
discourse, these stereotypes and myths seep deep within the established ideology,
furthering the justification of types of racial domination which in practice lead to
imperialism, colonialism and white supremacy.

Post-truth: cultural and socio-political phenomenon whereupon facts and evidence are
deemed as secondary matters to emotional, demagogic and populist appeal.

Racial segregation: actual spatial and material separation of different groups of people
on the basis of racial difference in order to avoid any sort of miscegenation and to
sustain racially supremacist ideologies and policies. It is marked by the color line, the
hierarchical division of races at both a physical and a psychological level.

Color-blindness: post-Civil Rights Movement sociological phenomenon whereupon a

given society, culture or group deliberately and intentionally ignores racial difference
and aims at a race-neutral color. As such, racial difference is usually overlooked as the
object of discussion, with the intention of promoting racial equality at all levels.

Veil: W.E.B. DuBois’s most lasting symbol in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The veil is a
psychological and emotional boundary that impedes white people from perceiving
African Americans as fully humans, and it also prevents blacks from seeing themselves
as they are, and not through the racist lens of white supremacy. DuBois suggests that
black individuals are not conscious of the existence of the veil – and its influence upon
their lives – until after childhood, when the subject becomes conscious of the impact of
segregation.

ON THE CHARACTER OF CROOKS

How segregation does to an individual and works. Crooks as the symptomatic of a sick
America. He is a symbol of racial discrimination in America. White supremacy,
Institutional racism (Forms of racism deeply integrated in the civil, social and political
structures of a nation or culture). Discriminatory action against certain racial groups.
We focus our analysis in Racial stereotypes and myths.

Crook's loneliness is not the same as the rest of the characters.

He has more things in his room than the white characters, he knows he is permanently
there, realist. It is not going to climb the ladder. Not believing in the American Dream, he
is going to stay there. He reads in his free time, and has his place very clean. He has his
only space very clean, with dignity, manifest by the space that is only his. He feels
threatened when the rest want to enter his only safe space.

He can see better the situation and the fake myth of the american dream because he is
an outsider. Also he seeks freedom of speech, no one ever cares about what he says or
wants to speak with him.

But when Lennie and Carley start talking about their overwhelming dream, Crooks also
ends up buying up the dream. He puts his barriers down, and asks to join the plan. But
when this happens, he is interrupted by Curley’s wife.

The otherness and loneliness linked to language, not being listened (either Curley’s wife
or crooks)

Sexuality in her standing on the doorway, draws attention to her hands, claws,
predatorial to this man. She sets the tone and says illuminating things. Rather than
empathise with each other, they use space to control, manipulate. Both anxious to prove
their power to others, being mean and putting others in their places.

Neither Curley’s wife or Crooks sympathize with each other, even though they are both
marginalize

Crooks puts her in her space by saying that that's his place and she needs to get out, she
puts him in his place by reducing him -- Color line squeezing him against the wall. By
reducing himself is trying again to be unperceived.

Stereotyping backness: She complains that nobody is listening to her, but she knows
that people are willing to hear the sexual approach from him, and he knows the
consequences.
Retreats into a discourse of survival, retreated.

6)ECOCRITICISM AND CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES

Keywords:
Ecology: From the Greek oikos (‘house’ or ‘environment’). It refers to the (biological)
study of the interactions amongst organisms and the physical environment.

Domestic vs. wild nature: Domesticity, as is easily inferred, refers to an activity that
involves customizing for human benefit and exploitation. Nature may be domesticated
through many different forms: ranches, farms, gardens, urbanization, parks,
conservation spaces, reservations, etc. The wilderness, on the other hand, represents
the pristine side of nature in which humans do not intervene in a drastic way, and thus
organically functions in accordance to its own tendency towards biodiversity and bio-
equilibrium.

Biocentrism: Ethical standpoint that defies anthropocentrism by politically and

morally defending the ecological drive towards biodiversity and subsistence.

Darwinism: Theory on biological evolution according to which organisms emerge and

are developed through natural selection (the survival of the fittest) with the prime
object of the biological subsistence of the species.

Pioneer species: Species and organisms that colonize new terrains, ultimately
redefining the ecosystem and biodiversity of such terrain.

Speciesism: The cultural process whereupon certain species are given more moral
worth than others on the grounds of anthropocentric and androcentric bias (usually
based on reason). It is the natural successor of racism and sexism.

Sentience: biological and cognitive capacity beyond the mere physical stimulus-
response instinctual process. It involves the capacity to suffer and to have a subjective
experience that (usually) involves a level of self-consciousness.

Anthropomorphism: When human emotions and traits are attributed to an animal (or
even an inanimate) species.

Animal standpoint: Perception of reality and of immediate circumstances through the

senses and subjectivity of a particular nonhuman other, a factor which will be highly
mediated by the specific senses of that species in particular.

Of Mice and Men: Animal studies approach

George chooses, for example, to ignore both his and Lennie’s forebodings about the
ranch. He chooses to go into town, leaving Lennie unsupervised even though he knows
that Lennie is not a responsible adult. Urged on by Slim’s approval of the action, he
finally chooses to pull the trigger that kills his friend even though he is most hesitant and
reluctant to do so.
Tragic and comic modes

Ø Tragedy: Man narcissistically feels worthy of his conflict, thus presenting the
possibility of a more perfected form of his species.

Ø Comedy: invested in the continuation of life and has little to do with morality.
Durability and persistence within a trivial world are what matters.

Comedy demonstrates that man is durable even though he may be weak, stupid, and
undignified. As the tragic hero suffers or dies for his ideals, the comic hero survives
without them. At the end of his tale he manages to marry his girl, evade his enemies, slip
by the oppressive authorities, avoid drastic punishment, and to stay alive. His victories
are all small, but he lives in a world where only small victories are possible. His career
demonstrates that weakness is a common condition of mankind that must be lived with,
not one worth dying for. Comedy is careless of morality, goodness, truth, beauty,
heroism, and all such abstract values men say they live by. Its only concern is to affirm
man’s capacity for survival and to celebrate the continuity of life itself, despite all
moralities. Comedy is a celebration, a ritual renewal of biological welfare as it persists in
spite of any reasons there may be for feeling metaphysical despair.