This document provides an explanation of the core literary criticisms. Although it is only Paper 1 (Shakespeare section) that assesses AO5, I still used critical frameworks in most of my papers to achieve an evaluative response.
Markscheme for A01, Level 5:
Exhibits a critical evaluation of th...
Feminist Critical Theory
T: Othello, TIOBE, Frankenstein, THMT, Romantics, POTD
Feminist criticism looks at representation of gender, and also urges us to consider
the implications of inequality
1) The Male Gaze: The idea that within literature, women are seen in the eyes of
men (typically beautiful or sexual). Women may also see other women
through the male gaze but instead as competition.
2) Garden of Eden (criticism): Female deviance is seen in the Bible as Eve
became tempted by the snake and ate the apple. She gives the apple to
Adam which results in the fall from God’s grace
Psychoanalytic Theory
T: Othello, TIOBE, Frankenstein, THMT, Romantics
Psychoanalytic criticism argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret
unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a
manifestation of the author's own neuroses. Typically analysing a quality that isn’t
there.
Psychoanalytic critics will ask such questions as, "What is Hamlet's problem?" or
"Why can't Brontë seem to portray any positive mother figures?"
1) Dream analysis: Idea that dreams express unconscious desires.
- Manifest analysis: actual content of the dream
- Latent analysis: hidden meanings of the dream, through symbolism
Marxist Theory
T: Othello, TIOBE, Frankenstein, THMT, Romantics
Marxist criticism investigates the ways in which texts portray economic and other
inequalities, and the extent to which the text challenges these and indicates a need
for change
- Eg. evident through shifts in power between the oppressor and the oppressed
Postmodernist Theory
T: Frankenstein, THMT
Postmodernists argue that there can be no single reality experienced by everyone;
rather, different realities exist for different people. This can be seen reflected through
a lack of narrative or truth that the reader of the text can centre the text around.
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