Pathetic Fallacy

A phrase invented by John Ruskin in 1856 to signify any representation of inanimate natural objects that ascribes to them human capabilities, sensations, and emotions.

The attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature.

“Pathetic fallacy” is now used mainly as a neutral name for a procedure in which human traits are
ascribed to natural objects in a way that is less formal and more indirect than in the figure called personification.

Abrams, M., Harpham, G. (2012) A Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston: Wadsworth

Binary Oppositions

Claude Levi Strauss

All cultures, according to Structuralism, are organized around binary oppositions: animal/human, good/bad, rich/poor, man/woman. His theory of binary opposition suggests that all narratives progress due to conflict caused by a series of opposing forces. (He believed that the way we understand certain concepts depend not so much on their meaning but on the opposite word.)

· Good vs Evil
· Rational vs irrational
· Protagonist vs Antagonist

Power Relations - Foucault

Power is a “network of relations, constantly in tension, in activity, rather than a privilege that one might possess; one should take as its model a perpetual battle… this power is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the ‘privilege’ of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions – an effect that is manifested and sometimes extended by the position of those who are dominated.” (p. 26)

Foucault analysed how power shapes our behaviour.
efinition: the ability to make someone do something, very often without that someone noticing it.
Characteristics:

• Invisible 
• Omnipresent 
• Constant state of flax, always flowing. Nobody has power all the time. 
• Power is not hierarchical. It doesn’t come top down or bottom up, also can come from the sides. 
• It is not negative, it can help people grow. 

It can be made manifest through:

• Building, we can’t move in the way we want. 
• Discourse: the things I say 
• The Gaze: the way people look at teach other 

Power can only be effectively exerted if people accept the legitimate right of someone to exert power.

Foucault, M. (1995) [1977]. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon.

Feminist Criticism

Feminist critics

• are Concerned with the role, position, and influence of women in a literary text.
• assert that most “literature” throughout time has been written by men, for men.
• examine the way that the female consciousness is depicted by both male and female writers.

4 Basic Principles of Feminist Criticism 

1. Western civilization is patriarchal.
2. The concepts of gender are mainly cultural ideas created by patriarchal societies.
3. Patriarchal ideals pervade “literature.”
4. Most “literature” through time has been gender-biased.

Elaine Showalter's Theory
• Feminine Stage: involves “imitation of the prevailing modes of the dominant tradition” and “internalization of its standards.”
• Feminist Stage: involves “protest against these standards and values and advocacy of minority rights....”
• Female Stage: this is the “phase of self-discovery, a turning inwards freed from some of the dependency of opposition, a search for identity.”

References:

Cuddon, J. (2013) A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Fifth Edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell

Patriarchal Society

What is a Patriarchal System?

A patriarchal social system can be defined as a system where men are in authority over women in all aspects of society. In the past, men were often the established gender of authority and exhibited control in all situations.

The etymology of the word patriarchy allows us to understand the meaning of the term. The term patriarchy comes from the Latin words pater, which means “father”, and archein, “to rule”. Also, patriarchy derives from the Greek terms patriarches (“chief or head of family”) and patria (“family, clan”) Therefore, it refers to male political power within society and the father’s authority within his family.

Malpas and Wake (2006) claim that:
Patriarchy is a term used – especially but not exclusively in feminist theory – to analyse male dominance as a conventional or institutionalized form. Literally the ‘rule of the father’, patriarchy historically describes systems in which the male has absolute legal and economic control over the family. The patriarch is the male head of a tribe, religion or church hierarchy. (...)

Patriarchy was stablished as a system, defeating the ‘mother right’ and controlling women’s sexuality in order to establish paternity and protect private property. (Malpas and Wake, 2006: 237)
Characteristics of a Patriarchal System
(male dominance, male centeredness, obsession with control, male identification)

Firslty, a patriarchal society is male dominated, which does not mean that all women are powerless, but the most powerful roles in most sectors of society are held by men,whereas the least powerful roles are held by women.
Secondly, it is organized with men at the center, while women occupy the margins. This is so because of the assumption that women need men's supervision, protection, or control because they are fragile or vulnerable.
This takes us to the thrid characteristic, which is the obsession with control. Men living in a patriarchal system or society must be in control at all times. They have a desire to control all social and family situations and must make all decisions regarding finances and education.
Finally, it is important to mention those aspects of society and personal attributes that are highly valued and which are generally associated with men, while devalued attributes and social activities are associated with women. Men are concerned with identification that includes qualities of control, strength, forcefulness, rationality, strong work ethic, and competitiveness.

Reference:

Malpas, S. and Wake, P. (eds.) (2006) The Routledge Companion To Critical Theory. London: Routledge

Marxist Criticism

According to Marx, people’s lives are determined by their economic circumstances. Material circumstances and historical situations, among other aspects, form a society. He believed that the owners of the means of production can manipulate politics, government, education, arts and all other aspects of a culture.

A key figure is the first major Marxist critic Georg Lukács who developed the critical theory of ‘reflection’, seeing literary works as reflections of a kind of system that was gradually unfolding.

In his view, the novel, for instance (and he had much to say about this genre), revealed or ought to reveal underlying patterns in the social order and provide a sense of the wholeness of existence with all its inherent contradictions, tensions and conflicts.

Some of the most common questions that a reader should keep in mind when reading a text from a Marxist perspective are the following

• Are both the classes depicted with equal care and attention? Is the working class ignored or devalued in any way?
• Is there any exploitation or manipulation of workers by their owners?
• Does the dominant class in the text, consciously or unconsciously, repress and manipulate the working class?
• What does the setting tell you about the distribution of wealth and power in the society?
• Is the text a product of the culture from which it has originated?
• Does it support or condemn capitalism?
• What were the economic conditions during the publication of a text and how was it received in the society at that time?

Jane Austen lived in a society which was ruled by strict codes of conduct and where class and social standing held immense importance. Austen belonged to the class that the historian David Spring calls “pseudo-gentry”as her father was a clergyman. Pseudo-gentry were the upper-professional families living in the country who had connections with the wealthier landed-gentry families oin the area. Their economic situation, however, was below the families of the landed-gentry.

Austen’s novels revolve around the life and events of the upper classes of the society. She wrote about the people and the class that she was familiar with and readers wanted to read abour. The characters of her novels belong to the classes that she was in close contact with i.e. the clergy, minor landed-gentry and upper landed-gentry.

Cuddon, J. (2013) A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Fifth Edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell

DOPPELGANGER

A recurrent motif in Gothic fiction, the doppelganger or double has
both symbolic and psychoanalytical implications. In the case of the former,
the duplication or division of a character may serve to emphasize
polemically the moral dilemmas or social disparities around which a didactic
or cautionary narrative may revolve—for example, the fate of one
who resists temptation, as opposed to one who succumbs to it; or, the
lifestyle enjoyed by a character born into privilege, set against the parallel
experience of another raised in poverty. In psychoanalysis, the motif may
emblematize the polarity of the unrestrained id against its ego and superego
counterparts. Thus, the doppelganger may become, variously, a figure
that enacts taboo desires, a seeker of arcane knowledge, or one who
pursues the drive of thanatos rather than that of eros. In both symbolic
and psychoanalytical incarnations (though these demarcations are, inevitably,
capable of definition as much by the critic as the author), the double
may be formed by duplication (where two entities effectively parallel
each other’s actions) or division (where a character is split, physically or
psychologically, into two alternating personalities). Situations such as
disguise, cross dressing, or mistaken identity may also produce contextual
implications that are analogous to doubling.

Hughes, W. (2012) Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature

Gender and Sex

It is necessary to make a distinction between the concepts of sex and gender. Sometimes, these terms are used interchangeably, but in fact, their meanings are different.

Anthony Synnott stated that “the body is not only a biological phenomenon, it is also a social creation of immense complexity.” (Synnott,1993:1). This phrase helps to clarify the difference between the two terms in question.

On the one hand, sex refers to biological differences such as chromosomes hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs.

On the other hand, gender is a social construction of the characteristics and behaviours associated with males or females. The idea of what is to be a man or a woman is culturally determined, it differs from society to society and changes over time. For example, women are generally associated with the domestic sphere, i.e. cooking, cleaning the house and taking care of the children while men are associated with the public sphere, i.e. working and supporting the family economically.


Reference:

Synnott, A. (1993) The Body Social. London: Routledge

Power Relations - Foucault

Power is a “network of relations, constantly in tension, in activity, rather than a privilege that one might possess; one should take as its model a perpetual battle… this power is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the ‘privilege’ of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions – an effect that is manifested and sometimes extended by the position of those who are dominated.” (p. 26)

Foucault analysed how power shapes our behaviour.
efinition: the ability to make someone do something, very often without that someone noticing it.
Characteristics:

• Invisible 
• Omnipresent 
• Constant state of flax, always flowing. Nobody has power all the time. 
• Power is not hierarchical. It doesn’t come top down or bottom up, also can come from the sides. 
• It is not negative, it can help people grow. 

It can be made manifest through:

• Building, we can’t move in the way we want. 
• Discourse: the things I say 
• The Gaze: the way people look at teach other 

Power can only be effectively exerted if people accept the legitimate right of someone to exert power.

Foucault, M. (1995) [1977]. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon.

Literary Theories

Binary Oppositions

Claude Levi Strauss

All cultures, according to Structuralism, are organized around binary oppositions: animal/human, good/bad, rich/poor, man/woman. His theory of binary opposition suggests that all narratives progress due to conflict caused by a series of opposing forces. (He believed that the way we understand certain concepts depend not so much on their meaning but on the opposite word.)

· Good vs Evil
· Rational vs irrational
· Protagonist vs Antagonist

Patriarchal Society

What is a Patriarchal System?

A patriarchal social system can be defined as a system where men are in authority over women in all aspects of society. In the past, men were often the established gender of authority and exhibited control in all situations.

The etymology of the word patriarchy allows us to understand the meaning of the term. The term patriarchy comes from the Latin words pater, which means “father”, and archein, “to rule”. Also, patriarchy derives from the Greek terms patriarches (“chief or head of family”) and patria (“family, clan”) Therefore, it refers to male political power within society and the father’s authority within his family.

Malpas and Wake (2006) claim that:

Patriarchy is a term used – especially but not exclusively in feminist theory – to analyse male dominance as a conventional or institutionalized form. Literally the ‘rule of the father’, patriarchy historically describes systems in which the male has absolute legal and economic control over the family. The patriarch is the male head of a tribe, religion or church hierarchy. (...)

Patriarchy was stablished as a system, defeating the ‘mother right’ and controlling women’s sexuality in order to establish paternity and protect private property. (Malpas and Wake, 2006: 237)

Characteristics of a Patriarchal System 

(male dominance, male centeredness, obsession with control, male identification)

Firslty, a patriarchal society is male dominated, which does not mean that all women are powerless, but the most powerful roles in most sectors of society are held by men,whereas the least powerful roles are held by women. 

Secondly, it is organized with men at the center, while women occupy the margins. This is so because of the assumption that women need men's supervision, protection, or control because they are fragile or vulnerable. 

This takes us to the thrid characteristic, which is the obsession with control. Men living in a patriarchal system or society must be in control at all times. They have a desire to control all social and family situations and must make all decisions regarding finances and education.

Finally, it is important to mention those aspects of society and personal attributes that are highly valued and which are generally associated with men, while devalued attributes and social activities are associated with women. Men are concerned with identification that includes qualities of control, strength, forcefulness, rationality, strong work ethic, and competitiveness.

Reference:

Malpas, S. and Wake, P. (eds.) (2006) The Routledge Companion To Critical Theory. London: Routledge

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: Literary analysis

The following word document contains guiding questions to analyse Oscar Wilde's the Picture of Dorian Gray through different fields of study. Choose one field of study and one question to develop and write your name next to it so that nobody takes it! Then, go to the wall and type your ideas.
Afterwards, go to a different wall to expand on your partner's ideas. (Do this on at least 2 walls)

Link to the word document

1.  The Preface: The purpose of Art
2. Reinterpreting The Picture ofDorian Gray through Psychoanalytic Criticism.
3.  Reinterpreting The Picture ofDorian Gray through Gender Studies.
4. Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through the Gothic tradition.
5. Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Postcolonial Studies.

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: Literary analysis

1) The Preface: The purpose of Art

The first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. However, it was not well received by Victorian society, who criticized it as scandalous and immoral. Wilde, disappointed by his novel’s failure, decided to revise it and publish a second edition in 1891. One of the changes he included was the addition of a preface. Read and analyse “The Preface” in The Picture of Dorian Gray and answer the following questions justifying your answers with quotes from the text:

a) What is the purpose of the Preface?
b) What does it tell us about Wilde’s beliefs in Aestheticism?
c) What does it tell us about the nineteenth century Victorian society?
d) What does Oscar Wilde caution us against?
e) Do you think that The Picture of Dorian Gray is a form of “useless art” or does it serve a purpose?


2) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Psychoanalytic Criticism

The reinterpretation of The Picture of Dorian Gray in the light of Psychoanalytic Criticism gives us a valuable insight into the novel. Freud highlights three parts of the Unconscious, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is what influences our desires, our libido, the force that drives us to seek pleasure; the Ego deals with reality, it strives to balance the Id and the Superego and, last but not least, the Superego is the area of the Unconscious which houses judgment (of ourselves and others).

Besides, Jaques Lacan developed the idea of the "mirror stage", stating that infants of about 6 months old recognize themselves in a mirror or other symbolic element which induces apperception (turning of oneself into an object that can be viewed by the child from outside).  By the early 1950s, thi idea evolved from infancy into adulthood, as representing a permanent structure of subjectivity, or as the paradigm of "Imaginary order".

Taking the theory into account, discuss:

a) Are there specific characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray who represent the three areas of the Unconscious? Which ones? Justify providing quotes from the text.
b) Which area of the Unconscious dominates Dorian Gray’s life? How? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
c) What does Dorian Gray’s picture represent? What does it remind Dorian of? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
d) Which event marks the beginning of Dorian’s downfall? Does he manage to suppress his Superego by performing this act? Justify providing quotes from the text.
e) Is Dorian able to find a balance between finding pleasure and doing the right thing? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.

f) How can you relate the "mirror stage" with Dorian's own relationhip with the portrait?


3) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Gender Studies

Gender Studies explore issues of sexuality, power and marginalized populations (women, as well as others, such as homosexuals, bisexuals, etc.). Let us examine the manner in which gender and sexuality are represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray:

a) How is the institution of marriage portrayed in The Picture of Dorian Gray? Provide quotes.
b) Do women play a significant role in the novel? What is Lord Henry’s view on women? Provide quotes.
c) Are there any homoerotic bonds between men in the novel? Which one(s)?
d) Does Dorian Gray have a happy sexual life all along the novel? Provide quotes to justify your answer.
e) Can we associate Dorian Gray to the mythological character of Narcissus, always longing to possess the person he sees reflected in the water? How? Provide examples from the text.
f) In chapter two, pages 25, 26 (Penguin Popular Classics) Lord Henry claims:

"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream -- I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal -- to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."

Explain this quote considering Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic values, his own sexual preferences and the context of Victorian England.


4) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through the Gothic tradition.

The Picture of Dorian Gray can be analysed as a nineteenth century Gothic novel, as we can find many of the elements that characterize this genre. For example, we can find the presence of:

• The scary atmosphere (setting and characters that contribute to XIX century gothic)
• The Crossing of the Threshold
• The bargain with the devil
• The Supernatural
• The Uncanny
• The feeling of entrapment
• Haunting
• The Doppelgänger motif
• The sudden break-out of violence
• “Sinister” science
• Magical objects
• Abjection

Provide examples of these elements along the novel, quoting from the text whenever it is appropriate.

5) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Postcolonial Studies

Postcolonial studies examines the global impact of the European colonialism, from its begginings in the fifteenth century up to the present. The book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was published originally in 1891, a time when Queen Victoria was still the leading monarch in Britain and a time when people were still extremely patriotic. Besides, Britain was  the leading empire in the world, owning 25% of the landmass of the world.

Even though Wilde was a colonial author, colonial hints may be collected in his novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray expands on the idea of  negative and destructive consequences that are brought about after the influence from/on people, which can be defined in terms of the colonizer and the colonized.

a) To what an extend do Lord Henry's colonialist actions and behaviour represent the powerful force of the western civilization?
b) Is Dorian Gray the symbol and representation of the colonized, with its final annihilation?
c) Can Dorian represent the colonizer later on in the novel, leading to the colonization and destruction of other characters?
d) To what an extend do Dorian's actions and behaviour correspond to his devotion to hedonism, beauty and search for pleasure? How can colonial discourse account for this answer?
e) Pay special attention to Lord Henry's (colonial)discourse. Can you find instances of eurocentrism in the text?

Provide examples, quoting from the text whenever it is appropriate.

Narratology