Feminist Literary Criticism

4B. The Feminist Approach

Feminist Criticism is concerned with the role, position, and influence of women in a literary text. Asserts that most literature throughout time has been written by men, for men. Examines the way that the female consciousness is depicted by both male and female writers.

4B. The Feminist Approach

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.

Origin

Grew out of the womens movements following WWII.

Two basic forms...

Feminist Criticism - analysis of the depiction of women and their relation to the woman reader by male authors. Gynocriticism - the study of womens writing.

What does Feminist Criticism do?

Concerned with recovering neglected works by women authors i.e. Nikki Giovanni & Zora Neale Hurston Creating a canon of womens writing.

Female Role
Consider the roles and situations of female characters. Make lists of different aspects of the female characters place in the overall story. Include anecdotal scenarios that will back up your point of view.

Female Relationship
Look at the relationship of female characters to each other. Examine any discrepancies that might shed light on the overall role of females in the story.

Woman vs. Man

Review the role of female characters in relation to their male counterparts. Literary criticism has its famous set of contrasts (i.e. man vs. nature, man vs. society) that set up points of inquiry. In this case, your fundamental contrast would be woman vs. man.

The Working Woman

Look at the vocational roles of women in literature. Much of literary criticism can be applied to the workplace. Studying the work that each character does provides a great starting point for analyzing the whole of the work.

The Female Worldview

Consider the attitudes of characters and how their world-views contribute to the eventual outcomes in the story. The goals of characters may not cause outcomes. Evaluate how powerful each character becomes.

Some questions to consider...

How are the lives of men and women portrayed in the work? Do the men and women in the work accept or reject these roles? Is the form and content of the work influenced by the authors gender?

Questions cont...
How are attitudes explicit or implicit concerning heterosexual or homosexual relationships? Are these relationships sources of conflict?Do they provide resolutions to conflicts? Does the work challenge or affirm traditional ideas about men and women and same-sex relationships?

Strengths of this theory:

For centuries, women in literature, the roles of both men and women and how they were represented were not a focus of literary criticism. This theory finally examines how women and men are represented and deals with the importance of women in literature.

Weaknesses of this theory:

If this theory is the only one applied to a text, it can be rather limiting. It only examines one element of the text.

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