LITERATURA EN EL AULA:

Handout 1. Introduction to the teaching of literature

(1) Read and discuss the following definitions of ‘literature’. Which one best describes your idea of
what literature is?    Discuss with your partners.   

A. Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions. (Iris
Murdoch, The Listener, 1978.)   

B. Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. (Ezra
Pound, How to Ready Part II.)

C. The Formalists' technical focus led them to treat literature as a special use of language which
achieves its distinctness by deviating from and distorting 'practical' language. Practical language is
used for acts of communication, while literary language has no practical function at all and simply
makes us see differently. (Selden, 1989, pp. 9-10.)

D. . . . one can think of literature less as some inherent quality or set of qualities displayed by
certain kinds of writing all the way from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, than as a number of ways in
which people relate themselves to writing. It would not be easy to isolate, from all that has
variously been called 'literature', some constant set of inherent features . . . Any bit of writing may
be read 'non-pragmatically', if that is what reading a text as literature means, just as any writing
may be read 'poetically'. If I pore over the railway timetable not to discover a train connection but
to stimulate in myself general reflections on the speed and complexity of modern existence, then I
might be said to be reading it as literature.1 (Eagleton, 1983, p. 9.)

E. Literature is the question minus the answer. (Roland Barthes, New York Times, 1978.)

F. In the allocation of the label 'great literature' to a literary work we cannot be making a
judgement which is objective or factual, however much we like to think that we are. A value
judgement is constituted by the social and historical conditions which determine our particular
ideology. The teachers and professors who have the power to decide which books make up an
English Literature syllabus reflect in their choices, and in the knowledge of the literature which
they purvey, a fundamental structure of beliefs and interests which reflect the particular culture or
section of society into which they were born and in which they grew up. (Brumfit and Carter, 1986,
p. 17.)

G. Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever, makes justice in the world. That's why it is almost always on
the side of the underdog. (Grace Paley, Ms, 1974.)

(2) Each one of the quotations in activity (1) has certain implications for the approach we adopt
when teaching literature in the language classroom. These implications are outlined in the seven
paragraphs below. Match each paragraph with the relevant quotation in (1).

1. One of our main aims in the classroom should be to teach our students to read literature using
the appropriate literary strategies. This involves them not in reading for some practical purpose,
for example to obtain information, but rather in analysing a text in terms of what it might mean
symbolically or philosophically. Students may have already acquired this kind of literary
competence in their own language, in which case we simply need to help them to transfer these
skills. If not, we need to find ways of engendering the necessary competence.

2. Our main task in the classroom is to pinpoint how far literary language deviates from ordinary
language. This obviously poses a problem for students - to what extent will they be confused or
misled by studying deviant rather than normal language, and how far is this a useful activity for
them?

3. Literary texts have a powerful function in raising moral and ethical concerns in the classroom.
The tasks and activities we devise to exploit these texts should encourage our students to explore
these concerns and connect them with the struggle for a better society.

4. The texts traditionally prescribed for classroom use may generally be accorded high status, but
often seem remote from, and irrelevant to, the interests and concerns of our students. In fact,
being made to read texts so alien to their own experience and background may only increase
students' sense of frustration, inferiority and even powerlessness. We therefore need to select
texts for classroom use which may not be part of the traditional literary canon, but which reflect
the lives and interests of our students.

5. Our main aim when using literature with our students is to help them unravel the many
meanings in a text. Students often need guidance when exploring these multiple levels of meaning
in a literary text - we need to devise materials and tasks which help them to do this.

6. Literature provides wonderful source material for eliciting strong emotional responses from our
students. Using literature in the classroom is a fruitful way of involving the learner as a whole
person, and provides excellent opportunities for the learners to express their personal opinions,
reactions and feelings.

7. We should not expect to reach any definitive interpretation of a literary text with our students.
Rather we should use the text as the basis for generating discussion, controversy and critical
thinking in the classroom.

(3) In what follows you will find three different approaches to the teaching of literature and the
methodological principles underlying each approach. Discuss the approaches with your classmates.
Which approach (or combination of approaches) would be suitable for a literature classroom in
secondary or A-level education? And for a university course in literature?     

1. A language-based approach Studying the language of the literary text will help to integrate the
language and literature syllabuses more closely. Detailed analysis of the language of the literary
text will help students to make meaningful interpretations or informed evaluations of it. At the
same time, students will increase their general awareness and understanding of English. Students
are encouraged to draw on their knowledge of familiar grammatical, lexical or discoursal categories
to make aesthetic judgements of the text.

2. Literature as content approach This is the most traditional approach, frequently used in tertiary
education. Literature itself is the content of the course, which concentrates on areas such as the
history and characteristics of literary movements; the social, political and historical background to
a text; literary genres and rhetorical devices, etc. Students acquire English by focusing on course
content, particularly through reading set texts and literary criticism relating to them. The mother
tongue of the students may be used to discuss the texts, or students may be asked to translate
texts from one language into the other.   

3. Literature for personal enrichment Literature is a useful tool for encouraging students to draw
on their own personal experiences, feelings and opinions. It helps students to become more
actively involved both intellectually and emotionally in learning English, and hence aids acquisition.
Excellent stimulus for groupwork. Material is chosen on the basis of whether it is appropriate to
students' interests and will stimulate a high level of personal involvement. Material is often
organised thematically, and may be placed alongside non-literary materials which deal with a
similar theme.

C2 D1 G3 B5 F4 A6 E7

(4) Here is a list of the advantages and disadvantages of using each of the approaches mentioned
above. They have all been jumbled together. Decide which advantage and which disadvantage
belong with each of the different approaches. Can you think of other advantages or disadvantages
for each approach?

Advantages

1. Students are helped to develop a response to literature through examining the linguistic
evidence in the text. Students are provided with analytic tools with which to reach their own
interpretations. They are encouraged to draw on their knowledge of English, so this approach may
provide useful exposure to, or revision of, grammar and vocabulary in interesting new contexts. It
is a way of justifying the inclusion of literature in the language syllabus since it fulfils students'
main aim - to improve their knowledge of the language.

2. Involves learner as whole person, and so is potentially highly motivating. Demystifies literature
by placing it alongside non-literary texts.

3. Genuinely educational approach in that understanding of texts is enhanced by situating them

within their literary and historical contexts. Students are exposed to a wide range of authentic
materials.

Disadvantages

1. It may demand a personal response from students without providing sufficient guidance in
coping with the linguistic intricacies of the text. Some texts may be so remote from the students'
own experience that they are unable to respond meaningfully to them. Alternatively, some groups
of students may dislike having to discuss personal feelings or reactions.
2. If applied too rigidly, so that analysis of the text is undertaken in purely linguistic terms with little
chance for personal interpretation, this approach could become very mechanical and
demotivating. Also, it may not pay sufficient attention to the text's historical, social or political
background which often provides students with the valuable cultural knowledge to interpret what
they read.

3. This approach may be most appropriate to a fairly select group of 'literary-minded' students.
Material may be very difficult linguistically, and therefore demotivating for the average student.
The approach may rely too heavily on the teacher to paraphrase, clarify and explain, resulting in
very little student participation. A large part of the lesson may be carried out in the students'
mother tongue, with students dependent on ready-made interpretations from the teacher.

Approaches to the teaching of Literature. (Lazar)

-Language-based approach

-Literature-as-content approach

-Literature for personal enrichment.

Match the advantages and disadvantages to the 3 approaches.

Adv:

1. 1

2. 3

3.2

Disadvantage:

1.2

2.3

2.1

Thomas Hardy: (1840-1928)

Pre- reading: “Are you Digging on my Grave?”

Focus: death, topic.

Warm up: Are you afraid of death? Do you usually think of death? Which 3 things would you like to
do before your death?

Reading:

-Language.
 -Translate the following words as used in the poem: Rue, mound, gin

Rue: regret and a type of plant, the plant as a symbol of sadness. Mound: elevation of soil, place
where people were buried (grave). Gin: type of trap used to catch animals.

-Looks for an elaborate expression in the text meaning “death”. When she heard
you had passed the Gate that shuts on all flesh soon or late.

-Comprehension:

-Who are the speakers in the poem? The dead woman and the person who is
digging on her grave.

-In stanzas 1,2,3, the main speaker wrongly identifies who is digging in his/her
grave. Who does the speaker refer to in each stanza? My loved one (who is marrying someone
else), dearest kin (relatives, family), my enemy.

The dog is the one digging in the grave.

-Explain the plot twist in the last stanza. The dog is not digging because of his
fidelity to his owner but because he is hiding a bone in case he gets hungry.

Message of the poem: life goes on. People carry on with their lives and no one will remember you.

“The Withered Arm”:

Research task 1: Wessex

- Is it a real place? Yes. Kingdom of Wessex.

- What is the connection between Wessex and Thomas Hardy’s work? Wessex was a
fictional kingdom in Hardy’s work. It is based in parts of the south and southeast
England.

Research task 2: Thomas Hardy’s burial.

- Where was Hardy buried? And his heart? Ashes in Westminster Abbey (in the Poet’s
Corner). Heart in Stinsford parish Church.

- According to a popular story, what happened to his heart before the burial? His cat
was eating his heart.

“The Withered Arm” belongs to a collection of short stories: “Wessex Tales”

Lodge leaves his property to a reformatory to make up for the fact that he did not care for his son.

Rhoda’s son is executed for arson.

Rhoda is older that Gertrude.

Rhoda is a milkmaid.

Davies is a hangman.

Mr Lodge is a farmer.
Mr Trendle is a conjuror

Gertrude is a farmer’s wife.

The boy is Rhoda’s son.

Characters:

Comparison between the two main female characters:

Rhoda:

-Physical features: not very beautiful, rough looking, not elegant, dark hair and eyes, tall
and thin. Fading, deteriorated. Thirty years old.

-Personality traits: jealous, insecure, superstitious, mysterious, obsessive, proud.

Gertrude:

-Physical features: light hair, pretty, nice mouth and white teeth, healthy skin tone, short.
Young.

-Personality traits: innocent, good heart, weak,

Elaborate a character diagram:

Farmer Lodge Rhoda

                        husband

    father                          FA mother

The boy                                                  Gertrude

Gertrude and Rhode were friends.

Farmer Lodge:

Married to Gertrude and is the boy’s father.

We have a contrast. Access to the other characters feelings: externally and internally. Lodge’s
feelings only presented externally.

He is cleanly shaven. Few characteristics of his physical appearance.

His actions allow the reader to know the character. He donates part of his income to a reformatory
of boys. Lodge loses interest in Gertrude as she decades physically.

Structure and plot: Rhoda. ç

1. A Lorn Milkmaid. She’s an outsider in the dairy. Lower class – description of the dwelling

2. The young wife. Main conflict revealed: Lodge is the boy’s father (abandonment, neglect) Rhoda
feels jealousy towards Gertrude. Sexual rivalry between Rhoda and Gertrude.

3. A Vision. Rhoda’s dream (Gothic element) – her feelings filter through her subsconcious
4. A suggestion. Rhoda learns about Gertrude’s arm – Rhoda feels guilty

5. Conjugor Tiendle. Rhoda and Gertrude develop a relationship between rivalry and friendship

Rhoda and the boy leave town – Disappears from the narration

6. A second attempt. Gertrude goes to Castle Bridge.

7. A ride. Somebody has been executed.

8. A water-ride Hermit.

9. A rencounter. The man executed is Rhoda and Lodge’s son.

Rhoda reappears with Lodge after the boy’s execution

She rejects Lodge’s annuity for her after the Farmer’s death

Character and plot: Gertrude.

She becomes superstitious and upset with her condition. She wanted someone to be hanged.
Parallelism between moral and physical decay.

Gender perspectives:

Rhoda and Gertrude are victims of Lodge and patriarchism. Both are at the mercy of male’s wishes.
Rhoda wants to be special, different. Scares of being a witch. Feminist? Women overcoming
problems.

Literary language:

“Not far from the border of Edgon Heath, whose dark countenance was visible in the distance”
Personification.

“Here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a bone protruding through the skin”
Simile

“[Gertrude’s dress] whewed and whistled so loud when it rubbed against the pews” Aliteration and
onomatopoeia.

“A curious creeping feeling that the condemned wretch’s destiny was becoming interwoven with
her own” (When Gertrude arrives at Casterbridge) Foreshadowing.

“It was a long walk; thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only early
afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over over the slopes of the heath – not improbably the
same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex King Ina” (When Rhoda and Gertrude
walk to visit Conjuror Trendle). Animalization. Pathetic fallacy.

What is literature? Form / content.

Two strands within English criticism:

 - “Text-led” criticism. Practical. Focus: text.

- “Ideas-led” criticism. Focus: everything external to the text.

Liberal humanism: term used in the 1970s to refer to literary criticism before the “theoretical” turn
(1960s)

Its tenets can be traced back to the Enlightenment.

Main tenets:

- the centre of meaning is the text. (empiricism)

- good literature transcends historical limitations and specificities.

- Literature unveils what is constant in human beings. Human nature is unchanging.

Until the 1960s: Pre-eminence of formalism.

The formalist approach:

-dominated literary criticism.

-taught literary critics to read works.

-text is seen as an organic form.

What the work says is inseparable from how it says:

Key elements to look at: texture, images, symbols, point of view, irony and paradox.

“The Intentional Fallacy”: we shouldn’t use the author’s life to analyse his literary work. Focus on
the text only.

“The affective fallacy”: emotion is no concerned of criticism. Feelings and emotions are irrelevant.
Scientific approach to literature.

From liberal humanism to the death of the author: (Barthes)

The text does not belong to the author. It belongs to the public.

Analyse the text from a formalist approach:

Do not consider the author, historical context or literary period. analyse the speaker’s voice and
other individuals referred to in the poem.

Analyse contrast between the first and the second stanza.

Wordsworth poem. Romantic poem.

It talks about someone who has passed away. The speaker is talking about the female dead person.
Not necessarily a human body.

Quatrains, two stanzas.

Paradox: contrast between stanzas: she was full of life and in the second one she has no force,
motion…

Theoretical turn (1960):

-all theories which spread in the 1960s are reactions to liberal humanism.

-Marxist Criticism.

-Psychoanalysis.

-Feminism

-Return of history. New historicism.

James Joyce.
Eveline is part of Dubliners. Interior monologue (stream of consciousness), concept of “epiphany”
(moment of relevation)

Dubliners:

1. childhood

2. adolescent

3. maturity

4. public life. “The Dead”

“Eveline”

Eveline’s letters are addressed to Harry (her brother) and her father.

She has made up her mind of moving abroad but external forces force her not to do so.

What does Eveline do with her pay checks? She gives them to her father.

Which statement about Frank is not true? Frank has not confronted Eveline’s father.

What is Harry’s occupation? Church decoration business.

Eveline is at the quay at the end of the story. She is at a crossroad, a personal crisis.

Eveline’s father is violent.

Language in the story:

Free indirect speech. Could she still draw back after all he had done for her?

Characters:

1. Frank: warm-hearted, kind, extrovert, with a zest for life.

2. Eveline: sensitive, conscientious person with a strong sense of responsibility.

3. Eveline’s father is violent. Man worn down by alcohol.

Eveline:

Reasons for staying:

-Promise she made to her brother -> take care of the family.

- Security. Unmarried woman.

Reasons for leaving:

-Starting a new life. New life and be respected.

-Escape from the violence.

What is the literary theory?

Different empirical perspective you can use to work on a test. They are tools to work on text.

They respond to historical, cultural and philosophical debates.

1) Liberal humanism:

First literary theory. A literary text contains meaning in and by itself. Literature transcend historical
and cultural limitations. Literature unveils what is unchanging in human nature.

Is human nature unchanging? Question of perspective.

Schools of thoughts tried to challenge the presented in earlier centuries.

Death of the author. Roland Barthes.

The real authorship of the text is shared between thee author and the audience. The responsibility
of giving meaning to a text is falling in the audience.

2) Feminism:

A literary text contains meaning in and by itself. Literature transcends historical and cultural
limitations. Literature unveils what is unchanging in human nature.

Social and political movement. Goal: equality between women and men. Aprox 1960s when it rose
as a political and social movement.

In the English tradition. Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, proto feminist.

1866-1928. Campaign for women’s right to vote.

Feminist theory to literature:

Historically divides feminism in waves:

1900-1928: right to vote, access to education, challenging the concept of the angel in the house.

1960-1980: focus on collectivity and sisterhood, anticonceptives.

1990-?: focus on women as an individual. Intersectionality.

Feminism is useless if you make it for white, rich women. Find intersections and struggles of
women of all types.

1960s literary canon: Emily Dickenson. “The perfect woman”. Role model.

Rethink the canon of literature written by women.

Elaine Showalter:

A Literature of their Own. Different phrases of literature written by women.

-Feminine phase. 1840-1880. Imitation. Imitate literature written by men.

-Feminist phase. 1880-1920. Rebellion. Women talk about their experiences.

-Female phase. 1920- ? Experience. Women try to establish their own literary traditions.

Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert.

The Madwoman in the Attic: they explore Victorian texts written by women and how they reinforce
or challenge the Victorian notions of “angel in the house” and “female monster”.

Title inspired by Bertha. Jane Eyre.

“Before women can write, we must kill the angel in the house” Virginia Woolf.

What do feminist critics do?

-Rethink the canon and rediscover texts written by women.

-Re-read classics to find patterns about how women have been portrayed in literature by
men and women.

-Analyse power dynamics in texts.

-Recognize the role of language in making what is social and constructed, the mainstream.

-Challenge the main tenets of essentialism.

Main problem of feminism nowadays: it has secluded many women from the movement: black,
sexual workers, lower class… This is because the women movement tried to establish a good
reputation.

3) Psychoanalysis:

Psychoanalysis is a form of therapy which aims to cure mental disorders by examining the inner
desires and conflicts of the patient. It was originally developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
during the late nineteenth century, and later on many of his disciples (like Carl Jung and Jacques
Lacan) continued, transformed or added to his work. Psychoanalysis is seen as flawed and lacking
real therapeutic value today, but Freud‘s teachings remain well-known and discussed.

The classic method of psychoanalysis consisted on getting the patient to talk freely so repressed
desires and conflicts would surface from the unconscious and be analysed. The idea that our
repressed desires are buried deep inside our minds is best understood through Freud‘s theory of
the personality, also known as the concepts of the Id, the Ego and the Superego.

The Id is the selfish part of ourselves that wishes for instant satisfaction. It will listen to our basic
human instincts and fight to immediately get or do anything that gives us pleasure or gratification.
The Superego is the part of ourselves that wishes to uphold morality, the voice that tells us we
cannot (or should not) do certain things, because they are wrong and will not be tolerated in
society. Human beings are born without a Superego; it only appears through socialization as we
grow up.

The Ego is the rational part of ourselves that is rooted in reality and tries to balance the needs of
the Id and the Superego.

The Ego tries to balance our most basic, selfish desires (Id) and our need to preserve morality over
our own desires and needs (Superego).

Like this, Freud suggests that our basic instincts and desires are buried deep inside our minds,
because as adults we have learned to repress them so we can fit in a civilised society. For this
reason, desires, traumas, obsessions, sexual fixations, etc., that have been repressed for a long
time, try to manifest themselves through Freudian slips, unintended actions and dreams.

Psychoanalysis leans heavily on dream work, a process by which real events and desires are
transformed into dream images in different ways. According to Freud, these dream images
represent what dwells in our unconscious. One of the ways in which our hidden desires and
conflicts turn into dream images is by association, in which the real image is substituted by another
we associate with it. For example, a woman who wishes to leave their parents‘ home and be
independent could dream of luggage, because she associates luggage with moving to her own
place.

Another way is condensation, in which several ideas, events or persons are combined and
represented by a single dream image. For example, a young man who resents living with his strict
father could dream of a key, because a key can represent at the same time: 1) being subjected to
the authority of his father while he lives under his roof, and 2) his desire to escape.

Don‘t you think these dream images work just like symbolism in novels?

People, desires and events appear in dreams in the same way they appear sometimes in literature:
dreams don‘t explain their meaning to us, they just show us a series of images we must decipher if
we wish to fully understand them.

Psychoanalysis interprets dreams in the same way we interpret literature, finding symbols and
underlying themes, and translating them into meaning.

In that sense, applying psychoanalysis to literature can be very attractive because, since everybody
has hidden desires and traumas, every text must have an answer, a secret, hidden between its
lines.

So what do Freudian psychoanalytic critics do?

Separate the ‘overt‘meaning of a text (what the author wanted to say, what is evident in the story)
and the ‘covert‘ meaning of a text (what the author implied without realizing it, what we must
interpret).

Pay close attention to unconscious motives and hidden feelings. These motives and feelings can
come from the characters (“Why is this character so obsessed with death “?) or from the author
(“Why does this author write about abandoned children in so many of his novels“?)

So what do Freudian psychoanalytic critics do?

Apply large-scale psychoanalytic concepts to literary history: for example, they consider the
struggle for uniqueness and identity of every generation of writers is motivated by repressed fears
that they will never be as good as their predecessors.

Study individual psychological drama over social conflict, finding things like sibling rivarly, cases of
Oedipus complex or characters divided between two strong desires inside themselves, to be more
important than social class issues, political struggles, etc.

Let‘s think about the fairytale Cinderella, a story you all know.

Now, try to remember the characters of the stepmother and stepsisters. There are many versions
of Cinderella, but they are usually depicted as petty, cruel women who mock and mistreat the
protagonist relentlessly.

-A psychoanalytic critic would be concerned with the repressed motives behind their
actions.

Why are they so jealous of Cinderella? Is it simply sibling rivalry taken to extremes? Are they
threatened by Cinderella‘s beauty, by her good-natured personality, by her greater claim to her
father‘s money...?

Could this representation of abuse and cruelty by one ‘s own family mean the author harbours a
hidden trauma or repressed fear?

-On the other hand, a feminist critic would focus on how these female characters are
depicted.

Why are stepmothers always cruel and sadistic in fairy tales? Why are cruel women so often
presented as ugly in this type of narrative? Why are women always pitched against each other like
they are eternally competing for the attention of a man (in this case, the prince)?

4) Postcolonial thought:

Colonialism is an extension of a nations rule over territory beyond its borders. A process by which a
population is subjected to the political domination of another population.

Colonialism involved economic, socio-cultural, political and psychological oppression. Colonialism

had a military side (i.e. it often involved military aggression) but it also had a civilizational side (i.e
it involved the conquest and occupation of minds, selves and cultures) – basically colonized people
were convinced / persuaded to think that they were inferior to European culture. In basic terms,
colonizers (generally Europeans) Imposed their own values onto those colonized so that they were
internalized.

In light of the aforementioned, postcolonial thought usually relies on two categories:

Colonizers / Colonised

Postcolonialism is a school of thought that analyses, deconstructs and responds to the legacy of
colonialism.

It focuses on the oppression of those ruled under colonialism

It provides a counter-narrative to European colonial narratives

Postcolonialism provides a set of theoretical and critical strategies used to examine the culture,
literature, politics and history of former colonies. Some of the purposes of postcolonial thought
are:

 To analyse and interrogate the effects of empire

 To raise issues such as racism and exploitation

 To assess the position of the colonial or post-colonial subject

 To provide a counter-narrative to the long tradition of European or Western imperial

narratives

Why postcolonial literatures?

In the case of Britain, the British Empire involved disparate nations such as Canada, Australia, India,
Nigeria, South Africa…Each nation was ruled under different systems of economic and political
domination and hence they had distinct developments in the aftermath of decolonisation. This is
why we should be talking about postcolonial literatures as a way to acknowledge the
heterogeneity of postcolonial experiences.

When did colonialism start and when did it (arguably) end?

15th century – 20th century (Decolonisation)

Colonialism can be said to start at the end of the 15th century with the first European explorations.
Arguably, it can be said to have finished in the second half of the 20th century with the
disintegration of European empires, a process that is called ‘Decolonisation’    - (in the case of
Britain, the ‘official’ end of the British Empire is marked by the cession of Hong Kong back to China
in 1997!)

In practice, colonialism is alive and kicking. Colonialism survives today in new forms (for example,
in the European control of resources in ‘Third World’ countries, in the appropriation of cheap
labour in those countries to feed Western capitalism, etc)

Postcolonial thought and literature

We can distinguish 3 broad critical practices within the field of postcolonial literature:
 1. Analyse literary texts produced in countries which were formerly colonies.

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (Nigeria)

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children (India)

J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace (South Africa)

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (Dominica)

2. Analyse literary texts by authors who have migrated (themselves or their ancestors)
from these former colonies

Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith (British writers with Jamaican ancestry)

Bernardine Evaristo (British writer with Nigerian ancestry)

Rohinton Mistry (Canadian writer with Indian ancestry)

3. Analyse past literary works (written before decolonization) in which the discourse of
colonialism is explicitly present or in the background

William Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

It is interesting that these works were read simply as ‘a play about magic and romance’ and ‘an
adventure novel’, respectively, before the irruption of postcolonial theory in the 1980s (despite the
obvious colonial connotations in both works)

Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Virginia Woolf:
Born in London (1882) to a privileged Victorian family. Her father, sir Leslie Stephen, was a reputed
writer and historian. Woolf was educated at home – her parents held a well-stocked Victorian
library. Her mother died at the age of 49 (Virginia was 13). 9 years later, her father died. The deaths
of her parents led Woolf to serious nervous breakdowns. She suffered from depression and bipolar
disorder. After her parents’ death, she moved from Kensington to Bloomsbury.

Woolf is representative of modernist fiction – rejection of Victorian realism and traditional modes
of narration, use of non-linear approaches to narration, use of stream of consciousness, use of
multiple points of view. She was a remarkable member of the so-called Bloomsbury Group – a
Bohemian group of intellectuals and artists that flourished in the 1920s. Other important members
were Clive Bell, E.M Forster, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (Virginia’s husband), Vanessa Bell
(Virginia’s sister). Prolific writer: She wrote novels, shorts stories, literary criticism, essays, letters
and diaries.

Virginia and feminism: The Victorian archetype of the ‘Angel in the House’ encapsulates the roles
traditionally assigned to women. The catchphrase comes from a Victorian poem of the same title
written by the male Victorian poet Coventry Patmore in 1854. The ‘Angel in the House’ always
stands in the way between female artists and their creativity, so female artists must necessarily kill
the Angel in the House to emerge as artists.

A Room of One’s Own (1929)

Considered one of the key text in feminist thought and highly influential in feminist theorists

It links the production of literature to everyday life: the main argument running thoughtout the
essay is that there is a strong link between women’s creativity and a series of socio-economic
structures that hindered female writers from emerging as artists. Accordingly, fewer women have
entered what we consider today the ‘canon’.

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (A Room of One’s
Own) – i.e economic independence and privacy are crucial for a woman to develop her creativity

According to Woolf, female writers must write against the roles and categories that patriarcal
society has assigned to them.

Context for the production of A Room of One’s Own

A Room of One’s Own is based upon a series of lectures called “Women and Fiction” that Woolf
delivered in 1928 at a college in Cambridge, England. Three Guineas (1938) was another essay
which further developed her feminist ideas, also incorporating her thoughts about Fascism and the
Second World War.

Woolf was active in the women’s suffrage movement. She was aged 36 when British women over
30 got the vote in 1918. The age was reduced to 21 in 1928.

Woolf belonged to the privileged class. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, valued education and
encouraged his children’s talents. Virginia became a novelist; her sister Vanessa became a painter.
Woolf’s class and the fact that her father supported her literary gift inform the purposes of A Room
of One’s Own.

Self-study comprehension questions

1. Who is Judith Shakespeare? Imaginary sister of William Shakespeare.

2. What was Judith’s parents’ attitude towards her education? How did it differ from their
attitude towards William Shakespeare’s education? They did not want her to study. She
had to stay home and do the house chores. Shakespeare was sent to grammar school.

3. Analyse the degree of involvement of Judith’s parents in her life. How did it differ from
their involvement in William Shakespeare’s life? Give examples. They wanted her to get
married.

4. What was Judith “careful to hide” or “set fire” to? Why? The pages she wrote.

5. Compare and contrast Judith’s attempt to get in the theatre with that of her brother’s. the
laughed at her attempt.

6. Why does Judith commit suicide?

Style – argumentative writing and rhetorical strategies

Virginia Woolf’s long essay A Room of One’s Own is, to a long extent, an argumentative text that
tries to persuade the reader of a main idea: that certain socio-economic structures have
traditionally prevented creative women from becoming artists. In the excerpt provided, Woolf’s
main rhetorical strategy is to create the character of Judith Shakespeare, a hypothetical sister to
William Shakespeare – probably named after Shakespeare’s actual daughter - and try to imagine
how her life would have been in the Renaissance era. However, Woolf uses throghout the fragment
other rethorical or stylistic devices:

-Irony

-Rhetorical questions

-Parallel structures

You are surely familiar with the terms ‘irony’ and ‘rethorical question’. What about ‘parallel
structures’?

Parallel structures: Use of two consecutive sentences or clauses with a similar word order, pattern
or syntactical structure. This device is used in order to highlight the significance of a comparison.

E.g. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a
lifetime

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Born in Salem (Massachusetts). Two ancestors of his paternal lineage lived in Puritan New England
(17th century) and one of them participated in the infamous Salem witch trial.

Hawthorne lived under the conviction that he was tainted with the crimes and sins of his ancestors

Puritan New England and the aforementioned details of his biography are crucial to interpret
‘Young Goodman Brown’ at least on one level. His most famous work is The Scarlet Letter, set in
Puritan New England (just like ‘Young Goodman Brown’)

Hawthorne belongs to a subset of Romanticism which literary historians have term ‘Dark
Romanticism’ – Herman Melville or Edgar Allan Poe have also been included under this category

‘Dark Romanticism’ typically includes Gothic elements, supernaturalism, ghosts, demonic or

Satanic elements, horror, etc.

Within ‘Dark Romanticism’, even good characters are typically drawn to evilness and destruction.
Human beings are seen are essentially weak and at the mercy of the psychological effects of sin
and guilt

“Young Goodman Brown”

From a textual point of view, the story includes archaisms which contribute to evoke the 17 th
century setting. Some examples:
 -Goodman – Mr

-Goody (Hypocorism for ‘Goodwife’) - Mrs

-Thou – You (subject pronoun)

-Thee – You (object pronoun)

-Wot’st – Know

-Twixt – Between

-Prithee - Please

This is story is especially rich in terms of allusions and symbolism. This allows for reading the work
in several levels

-From a historical and biographical viewpoint

-From an allegorical point of view

-From a psychoanalytic point of view

Historical and biographical point of view:

Hawthorne does not mention explicitly the year in which the story takes place but a few elements
and allusions in the story allows the reader to place the story in time:

The allusion to the ‘Salem Village’ at the beginning of the story and the religiousness exhibited by
the characters immediately brings to mind Puritan New England (17 th c.)

Other elements in the story reinforce this:

-Brown’s grandfather prosecuted Quakers

-Reference to “Devilish Indian” or ‘Indian Village’

-Reference to ‘King William’ – Probably William III

Hawthorne’s biography is also very useful to interpret this story. Pay attention to the following
slides…

‘The Custom-House’ is a preface to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, written by himself. The preface
is named after his job as a surveyor at the Custom-House in Salem, his hometown.

Hawthorne describes in the first person the biographical aspects underlying his work, specifically
his Puritan ancestors. Let’s have a look at a couple of fragments

‘Young Goodman Brown’ as an allegory

An allegory is basically a narration (either in prose or verse) in which the characters, settings or
other elements have two levels of signification – the literal or primary level, which corresponds to
the actual events in the plot (superficial) and a deeper secondary level (symbolic) in which the
elements of the primary level match or correlate with other elements not explicitly narrated.
In the case of ‘Young Goodman Brown’, just have a look at the names of the main two characters:
Goodman Brown and Faith. A brief analysis of the symbolical meaning of names is enough to see
how the story works as an allegory:

Goodman – Good man. The main character can be said to represent Humanity, particularly good
human beings. This ties in with the Romantic period. Romantics believed that human beings were
essentially and innately good. Brown’s character progression can be said to illustrate loss of
innocence.

Faith – It is pretty evident that Brown’s wife represents religious faith. Note that Brown yells “My
Faith is gone!” when he sees the pink ribbon falling from the sky (an indication that his wife is
attending the witches’ sabbath). He’s not only referring to his wife, but to his own religious faith.

Including Faith in the equation, Brown’s journey from the village to the forest represents his fall
from ‘faith’ to ‘evilness’

STUDY QUESTIONS:

''1. Where is Brown heading at sunset at the beginning of the story? What do we learn specifically
about his errand at this point?''

Brown leaves his home at sunset because it is easy to hide and to do evil things at night. Leaving at
sunset is proof that he is doing something that he shouldn’t be doing. Then, he goes into a gloomy
forest. The forest is dark, it is where the devil resides.

Due to the Puritan's ideals, the forest and the wilderness, that are things that they could not
control, are associated with the devil as civilization has good connotations. So any person that
wanted to go into a forest and to do so during the night, would be related to bad connotations as,
for example, witchcraft.

''2. Which garment is associated to the character of Faith? How do you interpret that element (and
its colour) from a symbolical point of view?''

The pink ribbons she has. They symbolise purity and innocence. They are mentioned twice before
Young Goodman Brown heads to the forest, and there, he finds the ribbons again. She lost them,
and that can represent her loss of innocence and purity, she had fallen into devilish actions.
However, by the end of the story, Faith is wearing the pink ribbons again, which represents how
she is innocent again, or it supports the idea that maybe it was all a dream and those events
actually never took place.

- The ribbons represent purity, it is also a symbol of modesty and innocence, while the color pink is
associated with innocence and joy. when the ribbons are named at the beginning of the story, they
fill the character with youth and happiness, however, when he is in the forest and the pink ribbon
is waved from the sky he believes it happens because Faith has fallen into the hands of the devil,
so she lost her innocence and purity. When the episode of the protagonist in the forest has
finished and he returns, his wife continues to use the pink ribbons again, probably hinting that
none of this has happened.
''3.Who does Brown first encounter in the forest? Provide a brief description of this figure. Can you
identify the biblical allusions in the references to the ‘old tree’ and the ‘staff’ (walking stick)?
(These questions add up to your understanding of the story as allegory)''

He first encounters a man that was about fifty years old. This man resembles to him and looked as
if it was in the same rank of life. The staff is a biblical symbol of the devil because of the serpent in
it. The serpents are identified with the devil.   

''4. How do you interpret the fact that Brown ‘resembles’ that figure?

I believe that this figure is a representation of Brown's deepest desires. It is like if all his repressed
feelings had escaped and taking this evil figure. Brown represents the ideal puritan values and this
figure represents all the things he has wished to do but has never been able. When Brown does
not want to continue the journey the figure tempts him because he is the evil side. Furthermore,
that figures is like a corrupted mirror that shows the worst of us that is why Goody Close
recognizes him when she sees him in the forest. She is a good woman but she also has deep
repressed desires. In short, this figure represents the evil and the repressed present in all human
beings.

''5. Who are Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin? What is their relation to Brown?''

Goody Cloyse was Brown’s catechist when he was young as well as “his moral and spiritual
adviser” in present (right before he realises she is a witch), and Deacon Gookin was a church
official. Thus, the two of them represent the Christian church and values, and up to then they had
been Brown’s role models for being a good Christian.

''6. What sort of people is attending the Satanic Coven in the forest?''

Every person of the community is into the forest during the night to attend the Satanic Coven. They
are supposed to be good religious people, ordinary good neighbors and important people of the
community but they are there. The only non-convert people are Faith and Goodman.

''7. How do the events in the forest alter Brown’s behaviour?''

By the end of the story, he is not sure if he felt asleep in the forest and had a dream of a witch-
meeting of if everything witnessed was true. However, he cannot avoid feeling sad and strange
after that night’s visions. He avoids the minister, the Old Deacon Gookin and even his wife. From
that moment on, he became a sad, meditative and desperate man until his death.

- from my point of view, it was not only the events that occurred in the forest that altered the
behaviour of the protagonist. To these events we must add the conscience of the character himself
to leave his wife to do a bad act. After these events, when the protagonist returns to Salem village
he thinks that every person he sees is evil, even his own wife. It is not known if these events in the
forest are real, but the protagonist was never the same as he was before.

Alice Walker.
African American writer and activist. Prolific writer (seven novels, short stories, poems, essays)
When she was 8, due to the accidental firing of a gun, she lost the sight of an eye and had a facial
disfigurement in her teens. This led her to become shy and introvert – the character of Maggie in
‘Everday Use’ can be very well read in biographical terms

She was an active participant in the American Civil Rights Movement (1950-1970s)

Her work focuses particularly on the conditions of African American women.

Her best-known novel is The Color Purple (1983) She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this work

In this novel, Walker explores the suffering of black women both under racism and black
patriarchy. The novel was adapted to film by Steven Spielberg.

Alice Walker and Womanism:

In addition to her creative writing, Walker’s most remarkable contribution both to activism and
cultural theory is her coinage of the word womanism. She used the term in her book In Search of
Our Mother’s Garden: Womanist Poetry (1983). Walker created the term to address two problems
she identified in feminism: 1) the contributions made by black feminists were ignored or
overlooked in the feminist movement; and 2) the feminist movement largely benefited white
middle class women and failed to address the problems experienced by black women.

Therefore, for Walker, a ‘womanist’ is basically ‘a black feminist’ or ‘a feminist of color’. She
memorably defined the term ‘womanist’ as follows: “Womanist is to feminist as purple to
lavender”

This means that she did not intend to pit ‘womanism’ against ‘feminism’! She ackowledges the
intersections between feminism and womanism and she recognizes that black women have
benefited from feminist thought, but at the same she points out the necessity of creating a parcel
of thought where black women can reflect on their identities as black and female and articulate
their fight against patriarchy and racism.

“Everyday Use”

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Published in 1973 (it belongs to Walker’s early writing career) and one of the most anthologized
works within Walker’s short fiction

The story features 4 black characters: Mama (we should guess her name is Johnson) – she’s the 1st
person narrator -, her daughters Maggie (the youngest) and Dee, and Dee’s male companion – the
narrator calls him ‘Hakim-a-barber’

Setting: Walker does not explicitly state the setting, but it must be somewhere in the American
South – references to the rural landscape, to farmers and to the hot weather suggest this

Time: The exact time is not mentioned either but some details in the plot suggest the story takes
place between the 1960s and 1970s:

-Dee has replaced her family name with an African name – Wangero. She also uses African
greetings (‘Wa-su-zo-Tean-o’)
 -Dee’s male companion has adoted an Arabic name – the narrator calls him Hakim-a-
Barber – and he uses an Islamic greeting ‘Asalamalakin’ (As-salamu alaykum)

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

The 1960s and 1970s in the US witnessed the rise and consolidation of the Civil Rights Movement
in which African Americans fought for political representation and the end of social discrimination.
Many black Americans sought to retrieve their African roots and reassert their cultural identities by
adopting African names, hairstyles, clothes, languages, etc.    An off-shoot within this ‘Black Pride’
movement was the Black Muslim Movement. This movement combined black nationalism with
religion. Its adherents – among which we should highlight Malcom X or Muhammad Ali – defended
Islam as the true religion of black people and as a key instrument to fight white supremacy.    As
can be inferred, these decades became a hotbed for riots and social unrest. Different black
communities and individuals responded with different approaches and attitudes – some of them
more felicitous or successful than others - to defend and reclaim their ethnicity and make sense of
their cultural identity.    This is illustrated at the end of Walker’s “Everyday Use” with Mama’s and
Dee’s opposing views to the quilts.

CHARACTERS

One of the most remarkable aspects of the story is characterization. Walker succeeds at creating
believable and clear-cut character profiles – particularly in her portrayal of the two sisters, Maggie
and Dee. In the case of Mama, the most interesting aspect about her character is her progression.
Despite the shortness of the tale, we can perceive an evolution in her psychological arc. In order to
work on characterization.

ADDITIONAL COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

1. What is Maggie’s relation with her sister Dee? Explain by giving evidence from the text

2.Why has Dee changed her name to Wangero? What’s Mama’s view about it?

3. Explain the significance of the following line: “In 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they
do now”

4. Do you think Mama and Maggie enjoy their rural life? Find evidence in the text

5. Which event represents the climax of the story? Would you consider that event/climax an
epiphany?