Professional Documents
Culture Documents
On the Cornell Notes you picked up, make sure you have the following
written down before we start the lesson:
Your Name
Literary Criticisms-Feminist CT #
How the characters are treated, interact with others and are
portrayed because of their economic status
How the characters are treated, interact with others and are
portrayed because of the subconscious psyche
How the characters are treated, interact with others, and are
portrayed based on race
Big Four
Psychoanalytic Criticism
Feminist Criticism
Marxist Criticism
General terms:
Cisgender
Heteronormative and
heteronormativity
Sapiosexual
Heteroflexible
Contemporary Reactions to Feminism
Contemporary Reactions to Feminism
And then theres this
Feminist /Gender Study Approaches
What is the authors gender?
What types of roles do women have in the text?
Are there generalized attitudes held by the male characters toward female characters?
Is feminine/yonic imagery used? If so, what is the significance of such imagery?
What feminist approach can be takencultural vs. differenceessentialist vs. constructivist?
Do female characters speak as often and/or differently than male characters?
Which phase of Showalters womens literature does the text occur?
Might the female characters be dealing with multiple forms of oppression? What other forms of
oppression might intersect with sexism?
In what ways might a text convey to us the restraints of a heteronormative society?
Considering a texts time period/historical context is there any sort of gender expression that is being
repressed or codified? (Characters who might be something other than cisgender?)
Kate Chopin The Awakening
Chopin worked on The Awakening and
finished the novel in 1898. The next year it
was published. A few critics praised the
novels artistry, but most were very negative,
calling the book morbid, unpleasant,
unhealthy, sordid, poison.
[She revolted] against tradition and authority
with a daring which we can hardly fathom
today. She was something of a pioneer for
writing about the improper treatment of
sexuality, of divorce, and of womans urge for
an equal place in the world.