Nine Lit Crit Ways of

Looking at
The Great Gatsby
. . .and the rest of the world
Facilitated by a great many quotes from Donald E. Halls Literary
and Cultural Theory
Presented by Dr. Rita D. Jacobs at the MSU Institute for the
Humanities sessions on The Great Gatsby, 4 February 2011
 A New Critical Approach
The task of the New Critic is to
explore precisely how, through
language and form, meanings are
expressed and powerfully impressed
upon readers.
Discussions of
Form and genre
Close textual reading
Narrative style and frame
A Reader-Response Analysis
Reader-response analysis is a rigorous
probing of the response process itself,
and it has a wide variety of possible
analytical focuses.
The meaning of a text is not wholly
intrinsic to the text.
Emphasis is placed on the subjective
nature of reading in that texts never
exist in vacuums.
 Marxist and Materialist
Analysis
This kind of analysis is rooted in
historical research and changing
social contexts for understanding
literary and other cultural texts.
Marxist critics are motivated by a
sense of political and economic
urgency and attempt to reveal how
unwitting participation in class-based
ideologies has concrete effects on the
quality of human life.
 Psychoanalytic Analysis
An examination of the hidden forces, desires
and fears that exert influence over characters in
ways beyond their knowledge and control.
Makes use of the frames of reference we use in
discussing selfhood and identity, e.g. id, ego,
super-ego.
Essential tenets:
--Human activity is not reducible to conscious
intent
--Characters in texts may also have a complex
psychology
--Texts may have a psychological impact on
readers
Structuralism and Semiotics
The signified is the concept to which a word
refers
The signifier is that word, image or
representation that is used to designate the
signified
The sign is the combination of the signifier and
the signified
Example: a box of chocolates on Valentines
Day represents the affection one feels for
another person. The box of chocolates is the
signifier, the affection is that which is signified
and the box of chocolates as affection is
commonly recognized as a complex cultural
sign.
Meaning can be made through a juxtaposition
of opposites or binaries
 Feminist Analysis
The key to all feminist analysis is a
recognition of the different degrees of social
power that are granted to and exercised by
women and men.
Language, institutions and social power
structures have reflected patriarchal interests
throughout much of history; this has had a
profound impact on women yet, at the same
time, women have resisted and subverted
patriarchal oppression in a variety of ways.
Gay/Lesbian/Queer Analysis

All gay/lesbian/queer analysis focuses

on sexuality as a particulary important
component of human identity, social
organization and textual
representation.
All notions of normality sexual, gender
related, and otherwiseare
appropriate subjects for critique and
historical representation.
 Race, Ethnicity and Post-
Colonial Analysis
Categories of race and ethnicity have
been used in ways that have
empowered and oppressed
The differentiation of peoples is
reflected in and reinforced by
language and metaphor
The differentiation of peoples and its
political consequences are reflected
not only in literary and other forms of
representation but also in our very
notion of literature
 The New Historicism and
Pluralistic Cultural Analysis
An examination of the work by analyzing
the interplay between text and context.
There are numerous possible stories and
histories that offer different insights into
the ways peoples lives reflect their time,
place, race, gender, sexuality and
economic situation.
Literary and other cultural texts are
connected in complex ways to the time
periods in which they were created.
No reading of a literary or cultural text is
definitive.