Critical Theory
Literary Theory
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Throughout the many 100’s of years of analyzing
literature, critics came up with specific lenses to view
literature through
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This can help you focus your analysis AND make you sound
smarter than you are
Moral and Philosophical
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Literature is a vehicle for the discussion of morals and themes
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Texts should be studied for their important issues and deep
meanings
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Sample Questions: Who is the most moral character? The least? Is the author
trying to criticize a certain moral code?
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Moral and Philosophical approach to
Wuthering Heights:
Formalist
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The autonomy of the literary work is the most important aspect of it
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Eschews historical and biographical information for a CLOSE reading of the text
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Focus on form and
how
of a work rather than its content
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Sample questions: How does the structure of flashbacks, and the order in which information is revealed, affect the plot? Our view of the characters? Why did the author choose to have a first-person narrator instead of a third-person omniscient perspective•
Formalist approach to
Wuthering Heights
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Focus on the framing narrative and multiple, unreliable narrators. You are introduced toRhetorical
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Literature is meant to persuade, a work cannot be separated from its creator
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Focuses on the connection between the author and the creation
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Sample Questions: Is the author trying to persuade the reader of anything? If so, what?
Does the narrator make blanket moral statements? Is the author trying to persuade the
reader that these statements are true or false?
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Rhetorical approach to
Wuthering Heights
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Freudian
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The novel allows insight into the author’s unconscious, and our response to the work
reveals something about our OWN psychology
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Focuses on the levels of consciousness, the structure of the psyche (id, ego,
superego), defense mechanisms, complexes (Oedipus and Elektra), and dream
interpretation
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Sample Questions: How do characters reinvent their identities throughout the novel? Do characters use defense mechanisms to deal with universal truths? What desires drive each character?•
Freudian approach to
Wuthering Heights
:
Archetypal
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Follows the Jungian model, literature utilizes motifs from the collective memory of
cultures
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Images like water, sun, colors
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Character archetypes like earth mother, scapegoat, and femme fatale
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Patterns like the hero’s journey
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Sample Questions: How does the story match the journey archetype? Do the characters fit specific archetypes or contradict them? Does the color imagery seem universal or specific to this text and context?•
Archetypal approach to
Wuthering Heights
:
Feminist
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Concerned with images of women and the feminine in literature
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Focuses on how women are portrayed and differentiated from men
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Seeks to raise awareness about sexual exploitation and alienation
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Sample Questions: How would the story be different if told from a female
perspective? Are women presented as passive or active figures?
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Feminist approach to
Wuthering Heights
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Marxist
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Art is a projection of social history
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Interpretations center around issues of justice and whether a work supports or
challenges typical power relationships
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Art must raise awareness of social and class matters
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Sample Questions: What is the role of class in the novel? Does the novel portray a positive view of the “ruling class”? What is the significance of money or class to different characters?•
Marxist approach to
Wuthering Heights
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Queer Theory
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Builds upon feminist critique, but is more focused on questions of gender, sex, and
the tensions between the two
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They see gender as a social construct and sex as a biological construct
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Focuses on natural and unnatural behavior in regards to sex and gender
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Sample Questions: How does the character’s sex and gender intersect? Are there tensions between the character’s assigned sex and gender? How are the relationships and sexual identities of the character’s portrayed?•
Queer theory approaches to
Wuthering Heights
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Cathy Sr.’s statements that she IS Heathcliff, her stereotypically male behavior (passionate, strong, physical, not nurturing), her death IMMEDIATELY after being introduced toPost-Colonial
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Analyzes, explains and responds to the cultural legacy or colonialism and
imperialism.
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Looks at the human consequences of external control and economic exploitation of a
native people and their lands
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Examines the relationships between social and political power
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Sample Questions: What power structures are examined in the novel? Is there a dominant, outside force that seems to take control? Is there a “native” population in the novel? How is it affected?•
Post-Colonial approach to
Wuthering Heights
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Heathcliff can function as the external controlling factor, introduced into the “native land” ofReader Response
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Focuses on the reader and what they experience when they read the text
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Looks at how readers create meaning and what they bring from their own
lives and experiences to their experience of the text
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Sample Questions: Which character is most sympathetic to you, and why do you think
that is? Do the reader’s feelings toward each character follow the narrator’s feelings
or diverge?
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Reader Response approach to
Wuthering Heights
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May focus on how the reader can sympathize with Heathcliff’s upbringing, even
though Nelly is still terribly biased. May focus on universal human experience:
New Historical
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Looks for connections between literature and the general culture
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Focuses on the current culture as well as the culture it was written in, and the
differences between those times/lenses
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Sample Questions: How do you think a modern reader’s experience of this novel differs from that of a reader in 1925? 1825? 1725? What elements of our culture are a product of the book’sculture and time period?
