Literary Criticism

Review "Critical Approaches" (pages 1369-1376) in your text before you do this quiz; otherwise, the quiz won't be as useful to you. You're practicing working with the various critical approaches and recognizing the approaches as they are applied to specific literary works. Don't worry if you haven't read the work mentioned; look carefully at the language used to analyze or discuss the work.

  1. In analyzing "Marriage is a Private Affair," you examine the clash of modern and traditional practices. In particular, you focus on the practice of arranged marriages, a tradition still practiced in many countries, discussing how we in America currently view this practice.
    Deconstruction
    Feminist Criticism
    New Historical Criticism
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism
    Marxist Criticism

  2. In analyzing "Everyday Use," you critize the story, saying that the author has created a binary, with homegrown wisdom on top and education on the bottom. You decide to turn this binary around, putting education on top. You argue that the mother and Maggie could have learned more about their culture through education, enhancing their appreciation and understanding of their cultural heritage.
    Feminist Criticism
    Deconstruction
    Reader-Reader Criticism
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism

  3. In analyzing "Winter Count 1973: Geese, They Flew Over in a Storm," you relate the main character's love of stories to your grandfather's love of stories, recognizing how the sharing of stories does make life more enjoyable. As a reader, you also pinpoint some gaps in the story, speculating on some of the stories behind the winter counts.
    Reader-Response Criticism
    Deconstruction
    Marxism
    New Historicism
    Formalist Critisism/New Criticism

  4. In analyzing "Prisoner on the Hell Planet," you take a more traditional approach and discuss the setting, conflict, characters, tone, theme, and other elements of the story. You assert that "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" is not a legitimate form of literature because it fails to meet our expectations of what a short story should be.
    Deconstruction
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    Feminist Criticism
    Reader-Response Criticism
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism

  5. In analyzing "A House on Mango Street," you examine the narrator's passage from innocence to experience, noting that this is a pattern that many stories share, that is part of our collective unconscious.
    Deconstruction
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    New Historical Criticism
    Feminist Criticism
    Marxist Criticism

  6. In analyzing "A Rose for Emily," you examine Emily's relationship with her father, noting that Emily seems to have an Oedipus complex. You argue that her id seems to have gotten the better of her superego, resulting in the murder of Homer.
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism
    New Historical Criticism
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    Deconstruction
    Reader-Response Criticism

  7. In analyzing "Bartleby the Scrivener," you focus on how the narrator treats his employees, noting that many of the conditions of their employment are inhumane. You assert that it is no surprise that Bartleby rebels, given these oppressive conditions, and that the author was being critical of these types of working conditions.
    Marxist Criticism
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism
    Deconstruction
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    New Historical Criticism

  8. In analyzing "How to Talk to a Hunter," you discuss the stereotypical views of women, men, and relationships expressed by the characters, focusing on the advice of both the female and male friends in particular. You assert that the author is highly critical of these stereotypes.
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    Reader-Response Criticism
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism
    Feminist Criticism
    Marxist Criticism

  9. In analyzing several of Faulkner's works, you focus on the author's Southern background and how his own feelings about his family having owned slaves greatly influenced his portrayl of slavery and Southern attitudes toward slavery in many of his stories and novels, including "A Rose for Emily."
    Reader-Response Criticism
    Deconstruction
    New Historical Criticism
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism
    Psychoanalytic Criticism

  10. In discussing "A Loaf of Bread," you focus on symbols, characters, and theme and how these various elements help to create a unity in the work. You don't discuss the author, the reader, or any considerations outside the text itself.
    Formalist Criticism/New Criticism
    Deconstruction
    Marxist Criticism
    Psychoanalytic Criticism
    Reader-Response Criticism

Note: No quantitative quiz or exam can take the place of thinking and writing critically about literature, of course.