what critical approach did he use essay

• Skylar Hamilton Burris
• Sep 26, 2018
• 11 min read

A Toolbox for Understanding Literature: Seven Critical Approaches

The toolbox of literary criticism offers us a variety of ways to tinker with the text until we have a better understanding. We can use literary criticism to help us resolve a question in the reading, to choose the better of two conflicting readings, or to form judgments about literature. Here are seven critical approaches that will enable you to delve deeply into literature.

(1) The Historical / Biographical Approach

Critics who employ this lens see works as the reflection of an author's life and times (or of the characters' life and times). They believe it is necessary to know about the author and the political, economic, and sociological context of his times in order to truly understand his works.

Advantages: This approach works well for some works--like those of Alexander Pope, John Dryden, and Milton--which are obviously political in nature. One must know Milton was blind, for instance, for "On His Blindness" to have any meaning. One must know something about the Exclusion Bill Crisis to appreciate John Dryden's "Absalom and Achitophel." It also is necessary to take a historical approach in order to place allusions in their proper classical, political, or biblical background.

Disadvantages: New Critics refer to the historical / biographical critic's belief that the meaning of a work may be determined by the author's intention as "the intentional fallacy." They believe that this approach tends to reduce art to the level of biography and make it relative (to the times) rather than universal.

(2) The Moral / Philosophical Approach

Moral / philosophical critics believe that the larger purpose of literature is to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues. Practitioners include Matthew Arnold, who argued works must have "high seriousness," Plato, who insisted literature must exhibit moralism and utilitarianism, and Horace, who felt literature should be "delightful and instructive."

Advantages: This approach is useful for such works as Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man," which presents an obvious moral philosophy. It is also useful when considering the themes of works (for example, man's inhumanity to man in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn). Finally, it does not view literature merely as "art" isolated from all moral implications; rather, it recognizes that literature can affect readers, whether subtly or directly, and that the message of a work— and not just the decorous vehicle for that message— is important.

Disadvantages: Detractors argue that such an approach can be too "judgmental." Some believe literature should be judged primarily (if not solely) on its artistic merits, not its moral or philosophical content.

One example of this approach to literature is my collection Christian Literary Criticism . Read the introduction of that book for a justification of a moral / philosophical critical approach to literature.

(3) Formalism / New Criticism

A formalistic approach to literature, once called New Criticism, involves a close reading of the text. Famous formalistic critics include I.A. Richards, Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, and Allen Tate, to name but a few. Formalists believe that all information essential to the interpretation of a work must be found within the work itself; there is no need to bring in outside information about the history, politics, or society of the time, or about the author's life.

Those who practice formalism claim they do not view works through the lens of feminism, psychology, Marxism, or any other philosophical standpoint. They are also uninterested in the work's effect on the reader. Formalistic critics spend a great deal of time analyzing irony, paradox, imagery, and metaphor. They are also interested in a work's setting, characters, symbols, and point of view.

When reading the literary analysis of a New Critic, you might come across the following terms:

Tension is the integral unity of the work and often involves irony or paradox.

Formalistic critics refer to the belief that the meaning of a work may be determined by the author's intention as the intentional fallacy.

In New Criticism, the belief that the meaning or value of a work may be determined by its effect on the reader is called the affective fallacy.

The external form is the outer trappings of a work. For example, in a poem, the external form would include the rhyme scheme, meter, and stanza form.

The objective correlative, a term originated by T.S. Eliot, refers to a collection of objects, situations, or events that immediately evoke a specific emotion.

A formalistic approach to the short story "Silence of the Llano" by Rudolfo Anaya might force us to see the incestuous relationship that is established at the end of the story as a positive alternative to loneliness. If we were to take into account external things, such as morality, we could not help but be horrified at such a conclusion. But in studying the symbols, setting, and structure of "The Silence of the Llano," we get an opposite picture.

The setting of the llano, its isolation and desolation, make its loneliness the primary evil of the story, in contrast to the town where people can escape the loneliness, where Rafael can find love, and where men can talk. The only way to survive the llano is to make it more like the town— to fill it with love and words and anything to escape the loneliness. "Words" are positively contrasted to "silence," as is "winter" to "spring" and "growth" to "death." The silence of the llano is constantly referred to, and Rafael's parents die in winter. But when Rafael marries, his wife makes a garden to grow in the desolate llano, and he can hear her voice. When Rafael establishes the incestuous relationship at the close of the story, he finally speaks to his daughter, and words break the long silence. He tells her that the "spring is the time for the garden. I will turn the earth for you. The seeds will grow." (182). Growth, spring, and words— the primary symbols which are positively contrasted to death, winter, and silence— are all combined in the close.

This formalistic approach does not allow us to account for most readers' natural (and appropriate) response of disgust to the incestuous relationship or to examine how that affects the ability of the author to communicate his story. Some would argue that an understanding of the text is where criticism should begin, and not where it ends. We should also relate the text to life, ideas, and morality.

Advantages: The advantage of this critical approach is that it can be performed without much research, and it emphasizes the value of literature apart from its context. This type of literary criticism in effect makes literature timeless.

Disadvantages: The text is viewed in isolation. Formalism ignores the context of the work. This means that, among other things, it cannot account for allusions. Some have argued that the formalist approach reduces literature to nothing more than a collection of rhetorical devices.

(4) Psychological Criticism

Psychological critics view works through the lens of psychology. They look either at the psychological motivations of the characters or of the authors themselves, although the former is generally considered a more respectable approach. Practitioners of the psychological approach to literature include Ernest Jones, Otto Rank, and Marie Boaparte.

A specifically Freudian approach to literature often includes pinpointing the influences of a character's id (the instinctual, pleasure seeking part of the mind), superego (the part of the mind that represses the id's impulses) and the ego (the part of the mind that controls but does not repress the id's impulses, releasing them in a healthy way). Freudian critics like to point out the sexual implications of symbols and imagery, since Freud believed that all human behavior is motivated by sexuality.

They tend to see concave images, such as ponds, flowers, cups, and caves as female symbols; whereas objects that are longer than they are wide are usually seen as phallic symbols. Dancing, riding, and flying are associated with sexual pleasure. Water is usually associated with birth, the female principle, the maternal, the womb, and the death wish.

Freudian critics occasionally discern the presence of an Oedipus complex (a boy's unconscious rivalry with his father for the love of his mother) in the male characters of certain works, such as Hamlet. They may also refer to Freud's psychology of child development, which includes the oral stage, the anal stage, and the genital stage.

While Jung is also an influential force in myth (archetypal) criticism, psychological critics are generally concerned with his concept of the process of individuation (the process of discovering what makes one different form everyone else). Jung labeled three parts of the self: the shadow, or the darker, unconscious self (usually the villain in literature); the persona, or a man's social personality (usually the hero); and the anima, or a man's "soul image" (usually the heroine). A neurosis occurs when someone fails to assimilate one of these unconscious components into his conscious and projects it on someone else. The persona must be flexible and be able to balance the components of the psyche.

A psychological approach to John Milton's Samson Agonisties might suggest that the shorning of Samson's locks is symbolic of his castration at the hands of Dalila and that the fighting words he exchanges with Harapha constitute a reassertion of his manhood. Psychological critics might see Samson's bondage as a symbol of his sexual impotency, and his destruction of the Philistine temple and the killing of himself and many others as a final orgasmic event (since death and sex are often closely associated in Freudian psychology). The total absence of Samson's mother in Samson Agonisties would make it difficult to argue anything regarding the Oedipus complex, but Samson refusal to be cared for by his father and his remorse over failing to rule Dalila may be seen as indicative of his own fears regarding his sexuality.

Advantages: A psychological approach can be a useful tool for understanding some works, such as Henry James’s The Turning of the Screw, in which characters obviously have psychological issues. Knowing something about a writer's psychological make-up can give us insight into his work.

Disadvantages: Psychological criticism can turn a work into little more than a psychological case study, neglecting to view it as a piece of art. Critics sometimes attempt to diagnose long dead authors based on their works, which is perhaps not the best evidence of their psychology. Critics tend to see sex in everything, exaggerating this aspect of literature. Finally, some works do not lend themselves readily to this approach.

(5) The Mythological / Archetypal / Symbolic Critical Approach

"Symbolic" approaches may also fall under the category of formalism because they involve a close reading of the text. Myth criticism generally has broader, more universal applications than symbolic criticism, although both assume that certain images have a fairly universal effect on readers. A mythological / archetypal approach to literature assumes that there is a collection of symbols, images, characters, and motifs (i.e. archetypes) that evoke basically the same response in all people.

According to the psychologist Carl Jung, mankind possesses a "collective unconscious" that contains these archetypes and that is common to all of humanity. Myth critics identify these archetypal patterns and discuss how they function in the works. They believe that these archetypes are the source of much of literature's power.

Some examples of archetypes follow:

archetypal women - the Good Mother, the Terrible Mother, and the Soul Mate (such as the Virgin Mary)

water - creation, birth-death-resurrection, purification, redemption, fertility, growth

garden - paradise (Eden), innocence, fertility

desert - spiritual emptiness, death, hopelessness

red - blood, sacrifice, passion, disorder

green - growth, fertility

black - chaos, death, evil

serpent - evil, sensuality, mystery, wisdom, destruction

seven - perfection

hero archetype - The hero is involved in a quest (in which he overcomes obstacles). He experiences initiation (involving a separation, transformation, and return), and finally he serves as a scapegoat, that is, he dies to atone.

Numerous archetypes appear in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Fedallah can be seen as Ahab's shadow, his defiant pagan side wholly unrestrained. The sea is associated both with spiritual mystery (Ahab is ultimately on a spiritual quest to defy God because evil exists) and with death and rebirth (all but Ishmael die at sea, but Ahab's death as if crucified is suggestive of rebirth). Three is symbolic of spiritual awareness; thus we see numerous triads in Moby Dick, including Ahab's three mysterious crew members and the three harpooners.

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner also utilizes archetypes. We might, for example, view Isaac McCaslin's repudiation of the land as an attempt to deny the existence of his archetypal shadow—that dark part of him that maintains some degree of complicity in slavery. When he sees the granddaughter of Jim and can barely tell she is black, his horrified reaction to the miscegenation of the races may be indicative of his shadow's (his deeply racist dark side's) emergence.

Advantages: This type of literary criticisms provides a universal approach to literature and identifies a reason why certain literature may survive the test of time. It works well with works that are highly symbolic.

Disadvantages: Literature may become little more than a vehicle for archetypes, and this approach may ignore the "art" of literature.

(6) The Feminist Approach

Feminist criticism is concerned with the impact of gender on writing and reading. It usually begins with a critique of patriarchal culture. It is concerned with the place of female writers in the cannon. Finally, it seeks to present a feminine theory of or approach to texts. Feminist criticism is political and often revisionist. Feminists often argue that male fears are portrayed through female characters. They may argue that gender determines everything, or, in contrast, that all gender differences are imposed by society, and gender determines nothing.

In A Literature of Their Own, Elaine Showalter argued that literary subcultures all go through three major phases of development:

The Feminine Stage involves "imitation of the prevailing modes of the dominant tradition" and "internalization of its standards."

The Feminist Stage involves "protest against these standards and values and advocacy of minority rights...."

The Female Stage is the "phase of self-discovery, a turning inwards freed from some of the dependency of opposition, a search for identity."

Advantages: Women have been underrepresented in the traditional cannon, and a feminist approach to literature redresses this problem.

Disadvantages: Feminists turn literary criticism into a political battlefield and overlook the merits of works they consider "patriarchal." When arguing for a distinct feminine writing style, they tend to relegate women's literature to a ghetto status; this in turn prevents female literature from being naturally included in the literary cannon. The feminist approach is often too theoretical.

(7) Reader Response Criticism

Reader response criticism has been used by literary critics ranging from I.A. Richards and Louise Rosenblatt to Walter Gibson and Norman Holland. Reader response criticism places strong emphasis on the reader's role in producing the meaning of a literary work. It is in some senses an opposite approach from that of formalism.

Whereas formalists treat meaning as objectively inherent in the text, in reader response criticism, the text has no meaning until it is read by a reader who creates the meaning. Unlike the formalist critical approach, this type of literary criticism insists that works are not universal, that is, that they will not always mean more or less the same thing to readers everywhere. Indeed, according to one practitioner of reader response criticism, Norman Holland, the reader imposes his or her own identity on the work, "to a large extent recreating that text in the reader's image."

In reading the parable of the prodigal son in the New Testament, different readers are likely to have different responses. Someone who has lived a fairly straight and narrow life and who does not feel like he has been rewarded for it is likely to associate with the older brother of the parable and sympathize with his opposition to the celebration over the prodigal son's return. Someone with a more checkered past would probably approach the parable with more sympathy for the younger brother. A parent who had had difficulties with a rebellious child would probably focus on the father, and, depending on his or her experience, might see the father's unconditional acceptance of the prodigal as either good and merciful or as unwise and overindulgent. While the parable might disturb some, it could elicit a feeling of relief from others.

When using reader response criticism as a tool of analysis, you could write about how the author evokes a particular reaction in you as the reader, what aspects of your own identity influence you in creating your interpretation, and how another reader in a different situation might interpret the work differently.

Advantages: Reader response criticism acknowledges that different people view works differently and that interpretations change over time.

Disadvantages: This approach tends to make interpretation highly subjective and consequently does not provide sufficient criteria for judging between two or more different interpretations of the text.

These seven critical approaches to literature can be combined to create a multi-level analysis of a literary work. While imperfect individually, each of these tool can be useful in chipping away at the text until the student of literature arrives at an in-depth understanding.

#newcriticism #historicalcriticism #psychologicalcriticism #Christianliterarycriticism #formalism #feministcriticism #readerresponsecriticism #symbolicapproach #literarycriticism

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literary criticism , the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a term, to any argumentation about literature , whether or not specific works are analyzed. Plato ’s cautions against the risky consequences of poetic inspiration in general in his Republic are thus often taken as the earliest important example of literary criticism .

More strictly construed, the term covers only what has been called “practical criticism,” the interpretation of meaning and the judgment of quality. Criticism in this narrow sense can be distinguished not only from aesthetics (the philosophy of artistic value) but also from other matters that may concern the student of literature: biographical questions, bibliography , historical knowledge, sources and influences, and problems of method. Thus, especially in academic studies, “criticism” is often considered to be separate from “scholarship.” In practice, however, this distinction often proves artificial, and even the most single-minded concentration on a text may be informed by outside knowledge, while many notable works of criticism combine discussion of texts with broad arguments about the nature of literature and the principles of assessing it.

Criticism will here be taken to cover all phases of literary understanding, though the emphasis will be on the evaluation of literary works and of their authors’ places in literary history. For another particular aspect of literary criticism, see textual criticism .

The functions of literary criticism vary widely, ranging from the reviewing of books as they are published to systematic theoretical discussion. Though reviews may sometimes determine whether a given book will be widely sold, many works succeed commercially despite negative reviews, and many classic works, including Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), have acquired appreciative publics long after being unfavourably reviewed and at first neglected. One of criticism’s principal functions is to express the shifts in sensibility that make such revaluations possible. The minimal condition for such a new appraisal is, of course, that the original text survive. The literary critic is sometimes cast in the role of scholarly detective, unearthing, authenticating, and editing unknown manuscripts. Thus, even rarefied scholarly skills may be put to criticism’s most elementary use, the bringing of literary works to a public’s attention.

The variety of criticism’s functions is reflected in the range of publications in which it appears. Criticism in the daily press rarely displays sustained acts of analysis and may sometimes do little more than summarize a publisher’s claims for a book’s interest. Weekly and biweekly magazines serve to introduce new books but are often more discriminating in their judgments, and some of these magazines, such as The (London) Times Literary Supplement and The New York Review of Books , are far from indulgent toward popular works. Sustained criticism can also be found in monthlies and quarterlies with a broad circulation, in “little magazines” for specialized audiences, and in scholarly journals and books.

Because critics often try to be lawgivers, declaring which works deserve respect and presuming to say what they are “really” about, criticism is a perennial target of resentment. Misguided or malicious critics can discourage an author who has been feeling his way toward a new mode that offends received taste. Pedantic critics can obstruct a serious engagement with literature by deflecting attention toward inessential matters. As the French philosopher-critic Jean-Paul Sartre observed, the critic may announce that French thought is a perpetual colloquy between Pascal and Montaigne not in order to make those thinkers more alive but to make thinkers of his own time more dead. Criticism can antagonize authors even when it performs its function well. Authors who regard literature as needing no advocates or investigators are less than grateful when told that their works possess unintended meaning or are imitative or incomplete.

What such authors may tend to forget is that their works, once published, belong to them only in a legal sense. The true owner of their works is the public, which will appropriate them for its own concerns regardless of the critic. The critic’s responsibility is not to the author’s self-esteem but to the public and to his own standards of judgment, which are usually more exacting than the public’s. Justification for his role rests on the premise that literary works are not in fact self-explanatory. A critic is socially useful to the extent that society wants, and receives, a fuller understanding of literature than it could have achieved without him. In filling this appetite, the critic whets it further, helping to create a public that cares about artistic quality. Without sensing the presence of such a public, an author may either prostitute his talent or squander it in sterile acts of defiance. In this sense, the critic is not a parasite but, potentially, someone who is responsible in part for the existence of good writing in his own time and afterward.

Although some critics believe that literature should be discussed in isolation from other matters, criticism usually seems to be openly or covertly involved with social and political debate. Since literature itself is often partisan, is always rooted to some degree in local circumstances, and has a way of calling forth affirmations of ultimate values, it is not surprising that the finest critics have never paid much attention to the alleged boundaries between criticism and other types of discourse. Especially in modern Europe, literary criticism has occupied a central place in debate about cultural and political issues. Sartre’s own What Is Literature? (1947) is typical in its wide-ranging attempt to prescribe the literary intellectual’s ideal relation to the development of his society and to literature as a manifestation of human freedom. Similarly, some prominent American critics, including Alfred Kazin , Lionel Trilling , Kenneth Burke , Philip Rahv , and Irving Howe , began as political radicals in the 1930s and sharpened their concern for literature on the dilemmas and disillusionments of that era. Trilling’s influential The Liberal Imagination (1950) is simultaneously a collection of literary essays and an attempt to reconcile the claims of politics and art.

Such a reconciliation is bound to be tentative and problematic if the critic believes, as Trilling does, that literature possesses an independent value and a deeper faithfulness to reality than is contained in any political formula. In Marxist states, however, literature has usually been considered a means to social ends and, therefore, criticism has been cast in forthrightly partisan terms. Dialectical materialism does not necessarily turn the critic into a mere guardian of party doctrine, but it does forbid him to treat literature as a cause in itself, apart from the working class’s needs as interpreted by the party. Where this utilitarian view prevails, the function of criticism is taken to be continuous with that of the state itself, namely, furtherance of the social revolution. The critic’s main obligation is not to his texts but rather to the masses of people whose consciousness must be advanced in the designated direction. In periods of severe orthodoxy, the practice of literary criticism has not always been distinguishable from that of censorship.

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3.7: Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: A Process Approach

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When you write a critical paper using a psychoanalytic approach, you need to determine the focus you will use. Will you focus on the author? On the characters or the narrator? On the formal construction of the text? Often, a reading will draw from all three levels (as does Waldoff’s interpretation of Keats). Since psychoanalyzing an author requires considerable biographical research, many students opt to focus on character, theme, or text. You should also be guided by the following:

• You must clearly define your psychoanalytic approach to the work—Freudian, Lacanian, Jungian, or some combination. You could explore ideas in a journal entry to help you focus on your critical approach. You should then construct a working thesis that will be your guide. Ask yourself the following: How does my psychoanalytic approach help my reader better understand the work I am interpreting? Is my application of psychoanalytic theory too reductive or forced onto the literary work?
• You then need to reread the text through the psychoanalytic lens, taking notes and jotting down quotations that can be used for support in your paper. At this stage you should be amassing evidence to support your working thesis.
• You should then construct a more concrete working thesis and informal organizational plan that will guide you as you write your draft. Remember, your paper must be organized around a clear focus/thesis.
• You should finally get some feedback on your paper by sharing your draft with your instructor and classmates. Use this feedback for revision.

Peer Reviewing

After you have written a first draft, you should get some feedback from classmates. Use the relevant peer-review guide found in Chapter 10.

16.5 Writing Process: Thinking Critically About Text

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Develop a writing project focused on textual analysis.
• Complete the stages of the writing process, including generating ideas, drafting, reviewing, revising, rewriting, and editing.
• Integrate the writer’s ideas with ideas of others.
• Collaborate in the peer review process.

When analyzing a text, writers usually focus on the content of the text itself and deliberately leave themselves in the background, minimizing personal presence and bias. To write this way, they avoid first-person pronouns and value judgments. In reality, of course, writers do reveal their presence by the choices they make: what they include, what they exclude, and what they emphasize. Although your own subjectivity and situation will likely affect your inferences and judgments, recognizing these potential biases will help you keep the focus on your subject and off yourself.

Summary of Assignment

Write an analytical essay about a short story or another short text of your choice, either fiction or literary nonfiction. If desired, you may choose “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, reprinted above. Consider the author’s form and organization, tone, or stylistic choices, including diction and sensory or figurative language. You might also consider the historical or social context, the theme, the character development, or the relation between setting and plot or characterization. If you are free to choose your own text and topic, consider the following approaches:

• Analyze the literary components mentioned and focus your essay on their significance in the work.
• Like student author Gwyn Garrison, choose one or several components and examine how different authors use them and how they relate to broader contexts.

Convincing textual analysis essays usually include the following information:

• overview of the text, identifying author, title, and genre
• very brief summary
• description of the text’s form and structure
• explanation of the author’s point of view
• summary of the social, historical, or cultural context in which the work was written
• assertion or thesis about what the text means: your main task as an analyst

When writing about a novel or short story, explain how the main elements function:

• narrator (who tells the story)
• plot (what happens in the story)
• one or more characters (who are acting or being acted upon)
• setting (when and where things are happening)
• theme (the meaning of the story)

Keep in mind that the author who writes the story is different from the narrator and invented characters in it. Keep in mind, too, that what happens in the story—the plot—is different from the meaning of the story—the theme. Understanding what happens will help you discover what the text means.

The elements of literary or narrative nonfiction are similar to those of a fictional story except that everything in the text is supposed to have really happened. For this reason, the author and the narrator of the story may be one and the same. Informational nonfiction—essays, reports, and textbook chapters—is also meant to be believed; here, however, ideas and arguments must be strong and well supported to be convincing. When analyzing nonfiction, pay special attention to the author’s thesis or claim and to how it is supported through reasoning and evidence. Also note interesting or unusual tone, style, form, or voice.

Another Lens 1. In writing from a personal or subjective viewpoint, the writer and their beliefs and experiences are necessarily part of your analysis and may need to be expressed and examined. For example, you may write subjectively and compare and contrast your situation with that of the author or a character. You might explain how your personal background causes you to read the text in a particular way that is meaningful to you. If you choose this option, be sure to analyze the text as you would for a more objective analysis before focusing on your personal views.

Another Lens 2. A leading contemporary example of narrative nonfiction writing is Jon Krakauer ’s (b. 1954) Into the Wild , the story of Chris McCandless (1968– c. 1992), a young college graduate who lived at subsistence level in the backwoods of Alaska for 113 days. The text is somewhat similar thematically to Henry David Thoreau ’s (1817–1862) Walden (1854), written more than a century earlier and discussed later in this section. Both are about dropping out of society to create a meaningful life. After reading the excerpt of Into the Wild linked above, you may choose to write a textual analysis of it either on its own or in light of the sample analysis of Thoreau’s writings later in this section. Consider comparing and contrasting McCandless’s situation with Thoreau’s life in Walden and how Krakauer and Thoreau use various literary elements in their writing. Topics for analysis might be setting, character traits, motives, cultural communities, historical context, and attitudes toward life and society.

Quick Launch: Start with Your Thesis

For textual analysis, your thesis should be a clear, concise statement that identifies your analytical stance on which readers will expect you to elaborate.

Develop a working thesis

A working thesis is referred to as such because the thesis is subject to revision. You may have to revisit it later in the writing process, for it is almost impossible to craft a thesis without having analyzed some of the text first. Your thesis, therefore, will come from the element(s) you choose to analyze, such as the following:

• an aspect or several aspects of form and structure and their significance
• social, historical, or cultural context in which the text was written and its significance
• style elements such as diction, imagery, or figurative language and their significance
• aspects of characters, plot, or setting
• overall theme of a single work or more than one work
• comparison or contrast of elements within one or more works
• relation to issues outside the text

To develop a working thesis, use the formula shown in Table 16.1 , basing your answers on one of the bulleted items listed above.

You can also start with an analytical question: For what reason(s) does Chopin use linguistic variety? Your initial answer might yield the thesis above. Or you can ask another analytical question, such as this one: In what ways do the plot and setting of “The Storm” reinforce its theme?

Drafting: Explore Possible Areas of Analysis for Fiction: Approach 1

Analytical essays begin by answering basic questions: What genre is this text—poem, play, story, biography, memoir, essay? What is its title? Who is the author? When was it published?

Identify and Summarize the Text

In addition to the basic questions, analytical essays provide a brief summary of the plot or main idea. Summarize briefly, logically, and objectively to provide a background for what you plan to say about the text. This information may be incorporated into the introduction or may follow it.

Explain the Form and Organization

To analyze the organizational structure of a text, ask: How is it put together? Why does the author start here and end there? Why does the author sequence information in this order? What connects the text from start to finish? For example, by repeating words, ideas, and images, writers call attention to these elements and indicate that they are important to the meaning of the text. No matter what the text, some principle or plan holds it together and gives it structure. Fiction and nonfiction texts that tell stories are often, but not always, organized as a sequence of events in chronological order. Poems may have formal structures or other organizational elements. Other texts may alternate between explanations and examples or between first-person and third-person narrative. You will have to decide which aspects of the text’s form and organization are most important for your analysis.

For example, this student analyzes the point of view of Gwendolyn Brooks ’s poem “ We Real Cool .”.

student sample text Gwendolyn Brooks writes “We Real Cool” (1963) from the point of view of members of a street gang who speak as one voice. The boys have dropped out of school to spend their lives hanging around pool halls—in this case “The Golden Shovel.” These guys speak in slangy lingo, such as “Strike straight,” that reveals their need for a melded identity in their rebellious attitude toward life. The plural speaker in the poem, “We,” celebrates what adults might call adolescent hedonism—but the speaker, feeling powerful in the group identity, makes a conscious choice for a short, intense life over a long, safe, and dull existence. end student sample text

Place the Work in Context

To analyze the context of a text, ask: What circumstances (historical, social, political, biographical) produced this text? How does this text compare or contrast with another by the same author or with a similar work by a different author? No text exists in isolation. Each was created by a particular author in a particular place at a particular time. Describing this context provides readers with important background information and indicates which conditions you think were most influential.

For example, this student analyzes the social context of Gwendolyn Brooks ’s poem “We Real Cool.”

student sample text From society’s viewpoint, the boys are nothing but misfits—refusing to work, leading violent lives, breaking laws, and confronting police. However, these boys live in a society that is dangerous for Black men, who often die at the hands of police even when they are doing the right thing. The boys are hopeless, recognizing no future but death, regardless of their actions, and thus “Die soon.” end student sample text

Explain the Theme of the Text

To analyze the theme of a text, determine the implied theme in fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. One purpose for writing a textual analysis is to point out the theme. Ask yourself: So what? What is this text really about? What do I think the author is trying to say by writing this text? What problems, puzzles, or ideas are most interesting? In what ways do the characters change between the beginning and end of the text? Good ideas for a thesis arise from material in which the meaning is not obviously stated.

For example, this student analyzes one theme of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool.”

student sample text For the “Seven at the Golden Shovel,” companionship is everything. For many teenagers, fitting in or conforming to a group identity is more important than developing an individual identity. Brooks expresses this theme through the poem’s point of view, the plural “We” repeated at the end of each line. end student sample text

Analyze Stylistic Choices

To analyze stylistic choices, examine the details of the text. Ask yourself: Why does the author use this word or phrase instead of a synonym for it? In what ways does this word or phrase relate to other words or phrases? In what ways do the author’s figurative comparisons affect the meaning or tone of the text? In what ways does use of sensory language (imagery) affect the meaning or tone of the text? In what ways does this element represent more than itself? In what ways does the author use sound or rhythm to support meaning?

For example, this student analyzes the diction of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool.”

student sample text Brooks chooses the word cool to open the poem and build the first rhyme. Being cool is the code by which the boys live. However, the word cool also suggests the idiom “to be placed ‘on ice,’” a term that suggests a delay. The boys live in a state of arrested development, anticipating early deaths. In addition, the term to ice someone means “to kill,” another reference to the death imagery at poem’s end. The boys are not suggesting suicide; they expect to be killed by members of society who find them threatening. end student sample text

Support Your Analysis

Analytical interpretations are built around evidence from the text itself. You’ll note the quotations in the examples above. Summarize larger ideas in your own language to conserve space. Paraphrase more specific ideas, also in your own words, and quote directly to feature the author’s diction. See Editing Focus: Paragraphs and Transitions and Writing Process: Integrating Research for more information about summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting directly. If you include outside information for support, comparison, or contrast, document the sources carefully: MLA Documentation and Format .

Use a graphic organizer such as Table 16.2 to gather ideas for drafting.

Drafting: Explore Possible Areas of Analysis for Literary Nonfiction: Approach 2

Although similar to fiction, narrative or literary nonfiction has a basic orientation toward exposition: relating real events in a creative way rather than inventing fictional events and characters. In reading and analyzing expository prose, you also may encounter literary language, narrative structure, characters, setting, theme, and plot development, depending on the type of prose. Therefore, your approach to analyzing nonfiction will call on many of the same strategies you use to analyze fiction. Two basic differences, however, are that literary nonfiction may have less dialogue, depending on the genre, and that the author and narrator may be the same. In other words, no intermediary or artistic filter may exist between the author and the work. The nonfiction author is assumed to be speaking a truth, which may be serious, comic, controversial, or neutral. Fictional characters, on the other hand, are creations of an author’s mind; they think and speak as they were created to do.

Planning the Essay

In writing your essay, you will need to present the same kinds of text evidence as you would when analyzing fiction to give credibility to your claims and to support your thesis. And you’ll need to keep in mind the rhetorical situation—purpose, audience, stance, context, and culture—as well, for it remains the building block of an effective analysis. As in most academic essays, body paragraphs refer to the thesis through topic sentences and move consistently toward supporting it before you finally arrive at a convincing conclusion that has grown out of the analysis. In nonfiction, because you assume you are dealing with a truthful explanation of facts and views, your task should be to give a new view and understanding of something that already may be familiar to readers. In writing your analysis, consider the following plan:

• Begin your analysis of nonfiction with an introductory overview in which you include the work’s genre, title, author, and publication date.
• Identify the literary point of view, if relevant: first person— I or plural we —or third-person— he, she , or they .
• Continue with a brief summary of the work, and place it in context: the work’s social, historical, and cultural background will help readers follow your points about its theme.
• Present your thesis near the end of the introduction. It should be argumentative, in an academic sense, so that you can “prove” your points.
• Support your thesis with well-elaborated body paragraphs, as you do with all thesis-based writing. Include paraphrases, summaries, and quotations from the text (and outside sources, if you do research for the assignment). Body paragraphs support the topic sentences, which in turn support the thesis.
• Conclude by restating your thesis (using different words and an appropriate transition). Add a general statement about the work and its significance or, if applicable, its relation to culture, history, current events, art, or anything else outside it.

Use the applicable suggestions in Table 16.3 in planning your essay :

Literary Nonfiction Model

A frequent theme in literary nonfiction is the examination of alternative ways of living, often solitary and away from society, and finding truth in individualism and self-sufficiency. Although most people live in social groups and willingly accept the identity and security that communities offer, dropping out and going it alone have long been a part of emotional as well as physical life for some.

You have the option to analyze the nonfiction accounts of writers exploring solitary human behavior in American life. If you select Another Lens 2 , you will read an excerpt from the story of Chris McCandless (1968–c. 1992), who chose a brief and uncomfortable solitary existence in Alaska. Or you can read the following section dealing with the works of Henry David Thoreau , the American philosopher and author who dropped out of society temporarily, largely because of his strong opposition to government policies he believed to be morally wrong and because of his refusal to conform to social practices and expectations he found objectionable.

Introduction

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) is best known as a thinker and writer on nature, as reflected in his two famous works, the highly influential Civil Disobedience (1849) and Walden ; or, Life in the Woods (1854). Both works celebrate individual freedoms: the right to protest against what one believes is morally or ethically wrong and the choice to live as one believes. In describing his life over a period of precisely two years, two months, and two days in a 10-by-15-foot cabin he built on Walden Pond, 20 miles northwest of Boston near Concord, Massachusetts, Thoreau wrote:

public domain text I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately [carefully, unhurried], to front [confront] only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. end public domain text

Thoreau’s insistence on standing by his principles and on living a simple life by choice are two abiding themes in his work. Even before the physical move to Walden, Thoreau had refused to pay his poll tax (granting him the right to vote) for a number of years because he strongly objected to the government’s use of his money to support enslavement and the war with Mexico. He went peacefully to jail as a result, until he was bailed out (the next day). In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau advocates for more individual freedom and for individuals to defy unjust laws in nonviolent ways. His writings on “passive resistance” inspired the thoughts and actions of influential figures such as Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948), American religious and civil rights leader Martin Luther King , Jr. (1929–1968), and other leaders of nonviolent liberation movements. In Walden , Thoreau describes and advocates for a simple life in which a person breaks with society when they feel the need to express their individualism, often based on ideas others do not share.

These themes are the focus of analysis in the following excerpts from an essay by student Alex Jones for a first-year composition class.

student sample text The Two Freedoms of Henry David Thoreau by Alex Jones end student sample text

student sample text Henry David Thoreau led millions of people throughout the world to think of individual freedom in new ways. During his lifetime he attempted to live free of unjust governmental restraints as well as conventional social expectations. In his 1849 political essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” he makes his strongest case against governmental interference in the lives of citizens. In his 1854 book Walden; or Life in the Woods , he makes the case for actually living free, as he did in his own life, from social conventions and expectations. end student sample text

annotated text The title clearly identifies Thoreau and sets the expectation that two aspects or definitions of freedom will be discussed in two different works. Alex Jones wants readers to know that millions of people worldwide figure in Thoreau’s legacy. He gives the examples of “unjust governmental restraints” and “conventional social expectations” as the parts of social life Thoreau rejected, thus limiting the scope of the analysis and preparing for the body of the essay. end annotated text

annotated text Jones notes the titles and publication dates of both works and immediately moves ahead to analyze the two works, “Civil Disobedience” first. He will show how this political statement leads to the narrative of Walden , the actual story of a man’s life in temporary exile. end annotated text

student sample text Thoreau opens “Civil Disobedience” with his statement “that government is best which governs not at all.” end student sample text

annotated text The analysis moves immediately to the first work to be discussed and features the memorable quotation regarding a government that does not govern. The statement may seem contradictory, but for Thoreau it is a direct statement in that someone who allows himself to be imprisoned will find freedom by distancing himself from all others to prove his point. end annotated text

student sample text He argues that a government should allow its people to be as free as possible while providing for their needs without interfering in daily life. In other words, in daily life a person attends to the business of eating, sleeping, and earning a living and not dealing in any noticeable way with an entity called “a government.” end student sample text

annotated text Jones repeats “in daily life” to give a rhythm to his own prose and to emphasize the importance to Thoreau of daily activities that are simple and meaningful. The word government is repeated for emphasis as the negative subject of this essay—in literary terms, a powerful and constant antagonist that constrains and disempowers. end annotated text

student sample text Because Thoreau did not want his freedom overshadowed by government regulations, he tried to ignore them. However, the American government of 1845 would not let him. He was arrested and put in the Concord jail for failing to pay his poll tax, a tax he believed unjust because it supported the government’s war with Mexico as well as the immoral institution of slavery. Instead of protesting his arrest, he celebrated it and explained its meaning by writing “Civil Disobedience,” one of the most famous English-language essays ever written. In it, he argues persuasively, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison” (230). Thus, the idea of passive resistance—and accepting unjust arrest to make a point—was formed, a doctrine that advocated protest against the government by nonviolent means: end student sample text

student sample text How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also. (224) end student sample text

annotated text Jones strengthens his own writing by calling the essay one of the most famous works ever written. This is not an ordinary technique in textual analysis, but when done for emphasis, it helps the analysis gain power. Using “instead of protesting” at the start of his sentence is another example of strong contrast and linkage. end annotated text

student sample text For nearly 200 years, Thoreau’s formulation of passive resistance has been a part of the human struggle for freedom. In fact, it changed the world by inspiring the resistance movements led by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. end student sample text

annotated text The total effect is to make Jones’s analytical essay more important for readers, as Thoreau’s writings have indeed changed the world despite being written humbly as the voice of one man’s conscience and isolation in his own freedom. end annotated text

student sample text Thoreau also wanted to be free from the everyday pressures to conform to society’s expectations. end student sample text

annotated text Jones transitions from the first short work to the different and equally famous nonfiction narrative Walden , moving smoothly from one freedom to the next with the transition “also wanted.” This second analysis of freedom is the second part of the essay’s thesis. end annotated text

student sample text He believed in doing and possessing only the essential things in life. To demonstrate his case, in 1845, he moved to the outskirts of Concord, Massachusetts, and lived by himself for just over two years in a cabin he built at Walden Pond. Thoreau wrote Walden to explain the value of living simply, far removed from the unnecessary complexity of society: “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand” (66). At Walden, he lived as much as possible by this statement, building his own house and furniture, growing his own food, bartering for simple necessities, and attending to his own business rather than seeking employment from others. end student sample text

annotated text Jones uses textual evidence to support his claim. He summarizes Thoreau’s activities at Walden and quotes Thoreau as evidence to reinforce the freedom of mind that simple living allows. end annotated text

student sample text Living at Walden Pond gave Thoreau the chance to formulate many of his ideas about living an unencumbered, economical life. At Walden, he lived simply to “front only the essential facts of life” (66) and to center his thoughts on “living” instead of on unnecessary details of mere livelihood. He developed survival skills that freed him from the constraints of city dwellers whose lives depended upon a web of material things and services provided by others. He preferred to “take rank hold on life and spend my day more as animals do” (117). end student sample text

annotated text Jones uses the poetic language of high rhetoric directly from Thoreau. The body of the essay gives specific evidence of how Thoreau ate, built, read, and provided for his needs, cutting away all but the essential man in the two settings of his life. end annotated text

student sample text While living at Walden Pond, Thoreau was free to occupy his time in any way that pleased him, which for him meant mostly writing and tending his bean patch. The details of his gardening appear frequently, as he concentrated on it during his time there. He wasn’t troubled by a boss hounding him with deadlines or a wife and children who needed his attention. His neighbors accused him of being selfish and did not understand that he sought most of all “to live deliberately” (66), as he felt all people should learn to do. end student sample text

student sample text Then, as now, most people had more responsibilities than Thoreau had and could not just pack up their belongings and go live in the woods—if they could find free woods to live in. Today, people are intrigued to read about Thoreau’s experiences and are inspired by his thoughts, but few people can actually live or do as he suggests. The idea of life without cell phones or Internet seems inconceivable, even if one grows one’s own food and lives mostly off the grid. end student sample text

annotated text The next-to-last paragraph recognizes what could be a counterclaim: not everyone in contemporary times would view living alone for two years as a pleasure. Rather, they might see it as a different kind of prison, perhaps even a dangerous one. Indeed, such deprivation has less appeal these days, and people who do go off by themselves may be seen to have questionable motives. end annotated text

student sample text The theme of exploring how a man lives in or outside governmental control is clear in the choices he must make to define himself as a free person. Nevertheless, practical or not, Thoreau’s writings about freedom from government and society have inspired countless people to reassess how they live their lives. Though unable to live as Thoreau advocated, readers everywhere remain inspired by his ideals and his belief in the two freedoms. end student sample text

annotated text Jones concludes by emphasizing the strength of Thoreau’s ideas—his two freedoms—and the influence they have had in the world. end annotated text

Review the Essay

After reading Alex Jones’s essay, complete the following sentences to review his work:

• He identifies and summarizes the content by ________.
• He describes the form and structure of Thoreau’s works when ________.
• He places Thoreau and his works in context by ________.
• He clearly states his own theme in reading Thoreau, which is ________.
• He indicates Thoreau’s unusual language at times, such as ________.
• He gives supporting evidence for his points, such as ________.
• He includes a visual to ________.
• He concludes with a balanced and convincing viewpoint by ________.

For Reference: excerpt from Walden by Henry David Thoreau from “Where I Lived and What I Lived For”

public domain text When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defense against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music.… end public domain text

public domain text The only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally when making excursions in the summer, and this is still rolled up in my garret; but the boat, after passing from hand to hand, has gone down the stream of time. With this more substantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward settling in the world. This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the builder. It was suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go outdoors to take the air, for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It was not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat, even in the rainiest weather. The Harivansa [important Sanskrit text] says, “An abode without birds is like a meat without seasoning.” Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them.… end public domain text

public domain text For the first week, whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to hang upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of mountains. end public domain text

public domain text This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hill top nearby, where the wood had been recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the north-west, those true-blue coins from heaven’s own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me. It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you look into it you see that earth is not continent but insular. This is as important as that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the earth beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of interverting water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt was but dry land . end public domain text

public domain text We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done. end public domain text

public domain text I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” end public domain text

public domain text Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes… end public domain text

public domain text Why should we live with such… waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. end public domain text

Peer Review:

After you have completed your first draft, exchange essays with a partner for peer review. Look at the questions you answered to address the essay about Thoreau. Then, to provide helpful feedback, answer these questions about your peer’s draft.

• Does the introduction include the author, title of the work, publication date, historical context, and a brief summary?
• What is your peer’s main claim, or thesis? Is it clearly stated? If not, how might your peer clarify it?
• Is the thesis effectively supported throughout the essay? How does each paragraph support the thesis? What evidence does each contain? Has the writer included direct quotations, paraphrases, and summary as relevant and convincing support? Is there enough information to sustain the writer’s claims? How might the author improve their support? In working on this section, go through each body paragraph separately for these criteria.
• Does the analysis address counterclaims? If not, how might the writer include them?
• Which sentence or sentences restate the thesis? If a restatement is not there, what might the writer include?

Once you have feedback from a peer, consider their suggestions. Read all comments, and think carefully before making changes.

• Use your discretion . Sometimes writers do not agree with their peers’ suggestions; indeed, authors do not always revise everything suggested by editors. However, it is important to clarify what might have prompted a response from a peer, such as “This seems like more of an unsupported opinion than text-based evidence.” Here you might consider including a source citation either from the text or from an outside resource, or consider further explaining your claim. However, if you think your peer reviewer misinterpreted or read your claim superficially, do not revise it. At all times, though, maintain ownership. It is your paper; you are the ultimate judge of whether the ideas in it represent you and your views. Never include someone else’s idea in your paper if you do not understand it or believe it. Whether or not you decide to revise, be sure to read and consider all suggestions carefully.
• Focus on global suggestions first. Global feedback applies to your entire paper. You may have to revise your topic or thesis so that your paper meets assigned guidelines or does what it should. It is important to revise global feedback first, for these revisions might necessitate changes in content and organization, among other things.
• Complete a close revision. Check your paper to revise for clarity at the sentence level, and double-check citations, if you have them, for accuracy and style.

In Chapter 16, you have learned about the revision process, including how to evaluate suggestions for revision from peer review. In this activity, evaluate each revision suggestion for specificity. A specific suggestion is helpful and easy to implement. A general suggestion is not helpful and should be ignored unless you can go back and ask the reviewer to provide more details. Based on your evaluation, look at each revision suggestion and decide whether to implement or to ignore.

Student Revision Model

Below is a paragraph from the first draft of Gwyn Garrison’s paper. It was reviewed by a peer, who made the suggestions indicated. First, read the draft. Next, read the reviewer’s suggestions and consider whether you would accept or reject each one. Then, read the paragraph as it appears in the final version. After each suggestion, consider why you think Gwyn Garrison accepted or rejected the reviewer’s comment.

Original Draft

student sample text When Calixta acts outside of societal norms, she discovers the freedom of self-expression and passion. Chopin’s diction evokes a spiritual transcendence that allows Calixta to exist momentarily outside social norms that exist only in the physical plane of existence: “when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon at the very borderland of life’s mystery.” The affair becomes a vehicle that allows Calixta to get to a place of true self-expression. The storm, an aspect of nature or the natural world, acts as the catalyst in Calixta’s natural self-realization of womanhood. The storm breaks externally and internally for Calixta. Chopin’s depiction of Calixta’s sexual liberation and fulfillment outside of her marriage is an early step in the fight to bridge the gap between women’s bodies and their sociopolitical lives. By presenting female sexuality in a way that is enlightening rather than degrading, Chopin helps destigmatize labels such as whore, which have been used to shame women for acting outside of traditional gender expectations. end student sample text

Peer Reviewer’s Comments

• A transition would help link this paragraph with the previous one.
• At the beginning of the paragraph, after the first sentence, add a short description or explanation of what is happening in the scene.
• The quotation from the text doesn’t help explain your claim. Anyway, you left out a word.
• Perhaps you could add a quotation about the storm.
• Can you clarify the relationship between the storm and Calixta’s self-realization?

Final Version

student sample text When Calixta acts outside of societal norms, however , she discovers the freedom of self-expression and passion. All of the parts of her womanhood that have no place in the society in which she lives have been repressed until this one moment. In this scene, Chopin takes possession of the term whore and redefines Calixta’s behavior as a transformative awakening. Chopin’s diction evokes a spiritual transcendence that allows Calixta to exist momentarily outside social norms that exist only in the physical plane of existence: “when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery.” The affair becomes a vehicle that allows Calixta to get to a place of true self-expression. The storm, an aspect of nature or the natural world, acts as the catalyst in Calixta’s natural self-realization of womanhood. As the storm breaks externally, it also breaks internally for Calixta. Chopin’s depiction of Calixta’s sexual liberation and fulfillment outside of her marriage is an early step in the fight to bridge the gap between women’s bodies and their sociopolitical lives. By presenting female sexuality in a way that is enlightening rather than degrading, Chopin helps destigmatize labels such as whore, which have been used to shame women for acting outside of traditional gender expectations. end student sample text

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“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker Critical Analysis Research Paper

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, which depicts the situation of a rural American south family, is one of the widely studied and regularly anthologized short stories. The story is set in a family house in a pasture and it is about an African-American mother, “Mama Johnson,” and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee.

Mama, who grew up during the early twentieth century, is the main character in the story since she narrates it. She is portrayed as struggling to embrace the culture of her daughter Dee. Dee got an advanced education in Augusta Georgia before moving to work in an urban set up. Maggie, who is portrayed as the less fortunate one, stayed with her mother while Dee was going to school. The author uses her talent in writing to illustrate the difficulties encountered by African-Americans, particularly those of the females.

Currently, there are marked similarities and differences between families living now and those who lived in the past. Although there may be disparity in setting, several family issues as well as situations are similar. In addition, most families still cherish and hold certain things sacred. An example of these is culture. In this present world, most households are still interested in knowing the background they came from.

This is inclusive to both parents and their children. However, it is important to note that the significance of culture to a family is varied. A number of people take the position that their actions are dictated by their ancestral traits. For instance, a person may perceive that he or she may have inherited a character trait such as being cunning from a past relative. Even though, some other individuals have not developed the interest of knowing their family backgrounds.

The representation of family backgrounds in “Everyday Use” is what makes this literary work unique and worthwhile. As Walker intertwines a story about the African culture and its role in one family’s life, she succeeds in portraying it differently through the eyes of Mama’s daughters.

Both Maggie and Dee (Wangero) have contrasting traits and both hold diverse viewpoints regarding the quilts. Mama serves the purpose of connecting her two daughters. Nevertheless, she is depicted to be closer to Maggie. This is because the two have similar behavioral traits.

Maggie and her mother hold the opinion that ones culture is based on a foundation of inherited objects as well as methods of thinking. On the other hand, Dee views culture as something that is no longer relevant in the modern society since it has been washed away by history.

The most central point is that the culture depicted in the short story is focused on learning and education. More so, the thoughts possessed by the different characters played a pivotal role in shaping the culture they depended on. Therefore, the varied viewpoints concerning African American culture result in the tension evident throughout the short story.

By the use of the technique of contrasting the characters and their opinions in the story, the author succeeds in demonstrating the significance of comprehending our present life in relation to the culture that our own people practiced in the past.

Through calculated descriptions and attitudes, the author illustrates the factors that have a say in the values of an individual’s heritage and culture. Walker shows that they cannot be symbolized through the possession of objects or mere appearances. She emphasizes that the lifestyle and attitudes of an individual are the ones capable of symbolizing them.

In the short story, the author personifies the various aspects of culture and heritage. She achieves this in portraying the contrast between Dee and her mother. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie can be said to represent the relationship between generations and culture that passed between them since their actions are based on traditions and what they learnt from their past ancestors.

The author also represents Maggie as a type of culture to her mother herself, and the traditions were passed to her through teaching. As Dee’s mother makes it clear to her, Maggie is conversant with her heritage, “She can always make some more; Maggie knows how to quilt” (Missy and Merickel, 454).

However, it is interesting that Dee does not take the initiative to know whether her sister is able to make quilt. Maggie demonstrates the trait of vulnerability. This makes her to be extremely uncomfortable through her inward and outward appearance. Maggie’s actions demonstrate how she is self-conscious. As Mama puts it, “She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs” (Missy and Merickel, 449). Most of the time, Maggie liked to keep to herself and follow instructions.

In the story, both Mama and Maggie are portrayed to be living in a run-down home and both of them were not educated in schools. They claim to have received teaching by means of another tradition assisted by their ancestors. The learning they received from their surroundings is out of reach of the present day society. Although Mrs. Johnson had few intentions of pursuing further education just like her daughter, Dee, she only managed to reach second grade (Missy and Merickel, 451).

Nonetheless, she seems to be contented with her own education, which she had acquired from the ancestors. Maggie just adhered to what she was told, chose to stay where she was born, and envied his sister’s outward appearance. By living with her mother, she learnt the skills of life by means of the experiences of her ancestors. Her mother also taught her some traditions.

Culture through the traits of Dee is depicted in a different way from her mother and sister. Dee represents culture in the materialistic and complex context, which ought to be observed and looked upon, but not experienced. The way Dee handles herself is enough to shed more light on her perception about culture and heritage. As the story starts, the narrator takes time to tell the reader how the two sisters were different from one another.

Dee is described as “lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure” (Missy and Merickel, 450). Mama says that she is self-assured and beautiful. These attributes differentiates her from Maggie and Mrs. Johnson who were scared and rough respectively. Dee was known to portray a different character, “She wanted nice things. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was” (Missy and Merickel, 450-451).

She pursued further education away from her homeland. This depicts her as wanting to reach to the society in order to be famous. Mama was aware of the determination of her daughter, “She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time” (Missy and Merickel, 450-451).

During the visit, which stood for her misconception on heritage and culture, Dee endeavored to reconnect with her traditional roots (Cowart, 180). The visit took place during the period of emerging black awareness and empowerment. Since it had taken years before coming home, she embraced the new lingo and style that was demonstrated by the modernized black women then.

She accompanied herself with a partner called by an Islamic name, Asalamalakim. Moreover, she now prefers to be called Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Here, the reader gets a sense of the disappointing behavior of Dede to her close relations. One anticipates that she will come back to herself before the culmination of the short story in order to realize her mistake.

To welcome her daughter home, Mama has prepared various delicacies. Among the various foods prepared, Dee’s partner did not prefer to consume collards and regarded pork as not clean. However, the others consumed everything. After sometime, Dee started to trouble her mother with various questions pertaining to the household furnishings, their value, as well as their age. The household cherished pictures that were taken in front of the home.

The churn top, which was constructed by Dee’s late uncle, served a historical purpose in the household. Dee considers these items as part of her culture. However, she did not think of them in that perspective while she was growing up. Her perception then was meant to illustrate how she is rooted in her culture.

It was to give an indication to her family members as well as her to her so-called friends, “I can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table, and I’ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher” (Missy and Merickel, 453). Mrs. Johnson gave permission for her daughter to take these items because she did not consider them as valuable as the quilts.

The peak of the story comes when Dee demands the quilts from her mother. She preferred the old handmaid quilts to the ones stitched by machine. Since the quilts were promised to Maggie when she will eventually marry John Thomas, her mother tried to persuade her to go for the newer ones.

After these arguments, Dee becomes angry and childish, and cries out that her sister will not be able to appreciate the old quilts. She says that Maggie would probably be “backward enough to put them to everyday use!” (Missy and Merickel, 454).For this reason, the title of the story reads “Everyday Use.” By this statement, Walker presents her unique argument whether or not culture ought to be safeguarded and displayed or incorporated into everyday life. A reader can assume that the phrase “Everyday life” relates only to the argument about the quilt.

However, deeper reading within the short story reveals that it concerns people’s culture and heritage and how they make the decision to preserve it or not. In the story, the author developed a critique of postmodern ideals. She also illustrates the detachable nature of symbols. In proposing to hang the quilts, Wangero would be taking them away from their “everyday” use. Therefore, their embedded contextual meaning would be lost.

Mrs. Johnson stood by her decision. Thereafter, Dee and her supposed boyfriend or husband leaves the home. This illustrates another central theme in the story: standing up for the right thing no matter the consequences. This should not be just for oneself, but for others also.

This is demonstrated by the way Mama stood by her decision not to let Wangero go with the handmaid quilts. Mrs. Johnson understood how much Maggie valued the quilts. She also understood that Wangero simply wanted the family belongings so as to keep up with the new African fashion.

Moreover, Dee just wanted to be popular. That is why she even changed her name, which was not the case when she was growing up. As the two visitors leave, Dee laments that Mrs. Johnson does not understand her own heritage. Dee also proposes to her sister to strive to make something out of herself. Eventually, Mama and Maggie, relieved, gaze at the car as it leaves. They then spend time together dipping snuff and they become conscious of the fact that they are the ones enjoying their lives as well as their cherished heritage.

The misunderstanding that is evident between Dee and Maggie concerning the right ownership of the quilts and their use is essential to the theme of the story. By this, the author is “arguing that the responsibility for defining African-American heritage should not be left to the Black Power movement (White, para.16). Walker effectively argues that the Black Americans ought to take responsibility of their whole heritage, even the parts that seem to be hurting.

Mrs. Johnson symbolizes most of the African-Americans who did not know how to match their past with the civil rights movements that took place in the 1960s (Hoel, para.2). During that time, most Blacks were not at ease with the Black Power movement solution. The technique that the author uses to challenge the African-Americans to respect their heritage is what helps to define this piece of work as a literature of importance.

“Everyday Use” is an exact symbolization of the way of life of most Black Americans in the modern society. Among them, there are those who despise their history and pay less attention to their unprivileged peers. More so, they attempt to be popular and look for wealth in the capitalist world, which entails assertiveness and opportunism.

On the other hand, the rural south is slow and they esteem the importance of the family and culture. The conservative rural folks find it difficult to embrace the extremes of urbanism. At the same time, however, those who abandoned the traditional black culture are still trying to hold on it. They achieve this by having cultural artifacts, antiques, as well as souvenirs.

Walker uniquely presents this scenario in the short story, which is about African-American identity crisis and the place of their culture and values in the modern society.

Through the story, the author illustrates that it is impossible to change ones culture. This is because an individual’s culture and heritage are passed on from one generation to the next. It cannot be acquired or, worse still, picked up all of a sudden. Therefore, Walker’s point is clear: An individual who holds real heritage and culture is obliged to apply it each day of his or her life on earth.

Works Cited

Cowart, David.”Heritage and Declaration in Walker’s ‘Everyday Use.’” Studies in Short Fiction 33 (1996): 171-84. Print.

Hoel, Helga. “Personal names and heritage: Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.”

Home. Online . Trondheim Cathedral School. 2009. Web.

Missy, James, and Alan, Merickel P. Reading Literature and writing argument , 3 ed. New York: Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.

White, David. “ ‘Everyday Use’: Defining African-American Heritage .” Anniina’s Alice Walker Page . 2002. Web.

Further Study: FAQ

📌 what is the everyday use summary, 📌 what is the purpose of everyday use by alice walker, 📌 what is the everyday use setting, 📌 what do the quilts symbolize in everyday use.

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Bibliography

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How to Write a Critical Essay

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• An Introduction to Punctuation

Olivia Valdes was the Associate Editorial Director for ThoughtCo. She worked with Dotdash Meredith from 2017 to 2021.

• B.A., American Studies, Yale University

A critical essay is a form of academic writing that analyzes, interprets, and/or evaluates a text. In a critical essay, an author makes a claim about how particular ideas or themes are conveyed in a text, then supports that claim with evidence from primary and/or secondary sources.

In casual conversation, we often associate the word "critical" with a negative perspective. However, in the context of a critical essay, the word "critical" simply means discerning and analytical. Critical essays analyze and evaluate the meaning and significance of a text, rather than making a judgment about its content or quality.

What Makes an Essay "Critical"? 

Imagine you've just watched the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." If you were chatting with friends in the movie theater lobby, you might say something like, "Charlie was so lucky to find a Golden Ticket. That ticket changed his life." A friend might reply, "Yeah, but Willy Wonka shouldn't have let those raucous kids into his chocolate factory in the first place. They caused a big mess."

These comments make for an enjoyable conversation, but they do not belong in a critical essay. Why? Because they respond to (and pass judgment on) the raw content of the movie, rather than analyzing its themes or how the director conveyed those themes.

On the other hand, a critical essay about "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" might take the following topic as its thesis: "In 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,' director Mel Stuart intertwines money and morality through his depiction of children: the angelic appearance of Charlie Bucket, a good-hearted boy of modest means, is sharply contrasted against the physically grotesque portrayal of the wealthy, and thus immoral, children."

This thesis includes a claim about the themes of the film, what the director seems to be saying about those themes, and what techniques the director employs in order to communicate his message. In addition, this thesis is both supportable  and  disputable using evidence from the film itself, which means it's a strong central argument for a critical essay .

Characteristics of a Critical Essay

Critical essays are written across many academic disciplines and can have wide-ranging textual subjects: films, novels, poetry, video games, visual art, and more. However, despite their diverse subject matter, all critical essays share the following characteristics.

• Central claim . All critical essays contain a central claim about the text. This argument is typically expressed at the beginning of the essay in a thesis statement , then supported with evidence in each body paragraph. Some critical essays bolster their argument even further by including potential counterarguments, then using evidence to dispute them.
• Evidence . The central claim of a critical essay must be supported by evidence. In many critical essays, most of the evidence comes in the form of textual support: particular details from the text (dialogue, descriptions, word choice, structure, imagery, et cetera) that bolster the argument. Critical essays may also include evidence from secondary sources, often scholarly works that support or strengthen the main argument.
• Conclusion . After making a claim and supporting it with evidence, critical essays offer a succinct conclusion. The conclusion summarizes the trajectory of the essay's argument and emphasizes the essays' most important insights.

Tips for Writing a Critical Essay

Writing a critical essay requires rigorous analysis and a meticulous argument-building process. If you're struggling with a critical essay assignment, these tips will help you get started.

• Practice active reading strategies . These strategies for staying focused and retaining information will help you identify specific details in the text that will serve as evidence for your main argument. Active reading is an essential skill, especially if you're writing a critical essay for a literature class.
• Read example essays . If you're unfamiliar with critical essays as a form, writing one is going to be extremely challenging. Before you dive into the writing process, read a variety of published critical essays, paying careful attention to their structure and writing style. (As always, remember that paraphrasing an author's ideas without proper attribution is a form of plagiarism .)
• Resist the urge to summarize . Critical essays should consist of your own analysis and interpretation of a text, not a summary of the text in general. If you find yourself writing lengthy plot or character descriptions, pause and consider whether these summaries are in the service of your main argument or whether they are simply taking up space.
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• How To Write an Essay
• Critical Analysis in Composition
• Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
• What an Essay Is and How to Write One
• How to Write and Format an MBA Essay
• Higher Level Thinking: Synthesis in Bloom's Taxonomy
• How To Write a Top-Scoring ACT Essay for the Enhanced Writing Test
• What Is a Critique in Composition?
• How to Structure an Essay
• How to Write a Solid Thesis Statement

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

9 Practicing New Criticism

Now that you’ve learned about New Criticism, practiced this method of analysis with “Ars Poetica,” and reviewed some examples, you will complete a theoretical response to a text using New Criticism as your approach. You will read three different texts below. Choose one text and respond to the questions in a short essay (500-750 words). I have included questions to guide your reading. You may choose to respond to some or all of these questions; however, your response should be written as a short essay, and you will need to come up with a thesis statement about your chosen text. Post your short essay as a response to the New Criticism Theoretical Response discussion board. I have included the theoretical response assignment instructions at the end of this chapter.

Checklist for New Criticism

Remember, when using the New Criticism approach, the goal is to closely examine the text itself and draw interpretations from its inherent literary qualities rather than relying on external context or authorial intent. Use “the speaker” instead of “the author” when writing about the text, and do not assume that the speaker is the author.

• Start with a close reading of the text. If you are working with a poem, number the lines. Then look for meter, rhythm, rhyme, stanzas, etc. (or identify whether the poem is free-verse)
• Try to identify the work’s oppositions, tensions, paradoxes, and ironies (complexities in the text).
• Look for evidence of unity in the work through specific elements including metaphor, point of view, diction, imagery, meter/rhyme, and structure.
• Once you have identified the text’s complexities and found evidence in its elements, create a thesis statement about how the poem’s various elements create unity. What is the the theme of the text, and how do the elements/complexities support that theme?

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot (1915)

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Beneath the music from a farther room.

               So how should I presume?

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

               And how should I presume?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

               And should I then presume?

               And how should I begin?

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               That is not it, at all.”

               That is not what I meant, at all.”

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Here are some New Criticism questions you can use to guide your response. You to do not have to use every question. You should formulate a thesis statement about the text and include this thesis statement in your response. Then support the thesis statement with evidence from the text.

• How does the poem’s use of imagery and symbolism contribute to the overall meaning of the poem? Explore specific instances of imagery and symbolism, such as the “yellow fog” or the “mermaids,” and discuss how they enhance the poem’s themes.
• Analyze the structure and form of the poem. How does the irregular rhyme scheme and meter influence the reader’s experience? How does Eliot’s use of enjambment and punctuation affect the pacing and interpretation of the text?
• Examine the diction and word choice in the poem. What impact do specific words and phrases have on the reader’s understanding of Prufrock’s character, his anxieties, and the sense of disillusionment conveyed in the poem?
• Explore the use of allusions and references. What are some examples of literary, historical, or cultural allusions in the poem? How do these allusions contribute to the poem’s meaning?
• Analyze the shifts in tone and mood throughout the poem. How do these shifts reflect the speaker’s changing emotions and the complexities of his self-perception? How does tone and mood contribute to the poem’s overall themes?
• Consider the role of time and temporality in the poem . How does the speaker’s preoccupation with time connect to the larger themes of regret, indecision, and mortality? How does the poem’s structure manipulate time?

2. The Parable of the Prodigal Son (c. 90 CE) King James Version

And he said, A certain man had two sons:

And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.

And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.

And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.

And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.

And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:

But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.

It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

The speaker in this text is Jesus, as reported in Luke’s Gospel. This passage is Jesus’s response to an accusation from the scribes and Pharisees that he “welcomes sinners” and even shares a table with them. The story seems to answer this accusation. How does knowing the context affect your reading of the parable? If you were raised and/or follow a Christian religious tradition, you may have extratextual interpretations for this parable. In your response, please try to set those aside. Remember that with New Criticism, the text itself is our focus, not the context or our outside knowledge of the text.

• Examine the parable’s structure and narrative sequence. How does the parable’s storytelling structure contribute to its impact? Consider the introduction, the conflict, the climax, and the resolution. How do these elements build tension and emotion?
• Analyze the characters’ personalities and development. How are the characters of the prodigal son, the father, and the older brother presented? How does their characterization contribute to the overall message of the parable?
• Explore the use of symbolism and metaphors. What symbolic elements in the parable contribute to its deeper meanings? How does the idea of the prodigal son’s journey and return symbolize themes like forgiveness, repentance, and redemption?
• Examine the parable’s language and diction. How does a phrase like “the fatted calf” affect the tone of this parable? What other examples of archaic diction contribute to the voice? What impact do specific words and phrases have on the parable’s meaning and emotional resonance?
• Analyze the use of repetition and rhetorical devices. How does the repetition of certain phrases or ideas contribute to the parable’s emphasis and rhythm? How do rhetorical techniques like parallelism or contrast enhance the storytelling?
• Discuss the use of irony in the parable. What examples of irony can you find? How do they contribute to the text’s meaning?

3. “Recuerdo” by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1922)

• Explore the poem’s title and its significance. How does the title “Recuerdo” (Spanish for “I remember”) set the tone for the poem? How does the title’s choice of language relate to the theme and content of the poem?
• Analyze the use of imagery and diction in the poem. What vivid images does the speaker use to describe the scene and events in the poem? How does the language style contribute to the poem’s atmosphere and themes? Are there any specific words or phrases that stand out as particularly significant? How does the poem explore the idea of remembering a past experience? What emotions and reflections does the speaker’s recollection evoke, and how are these emotions conveyed through the poem’s language and imagery?
• Examine the poem’s tone and mood. How does the tone shift throughout the poem, from the playful and carefree beginning to the reflective and contemplative ending?
• Analyze the poem’s structure and form. How do the poem’s rhyme and meter contribute to the work? Does the poem conform to a set genre (e.g., quatrain, sonnet, villanelle, etc.)? How does its use of or rejection of a specific genre contribute to the poem’s overall themes?
• Examine the use of punctuation. How does Millay’s use of  punctuation affect the rhythm and pacing of the poem? How does it impact the reader’s interpretation?
• Discuss the use of the second-person point of view. How does the poem’s use of “you” and “I” create a sense of intimacy and immediacy? How does this choice of point of view contribute to the poem’s unity?

Theoretical Response Assignment Instructions

Instructions.

• 15 points: theoretical response
• 10 points: online discussion (5 points per response) OR class attendance.

Critical Worlds Copyright © 2024 by Liza Long is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Critic as Friend

The challenge of reading generously.

No figure in the whole of English literature is as reviled as the critic. He seems to have been invented to provoke scorn and skepticism. Among the first men to borrow from the Latin criticus (“one who judges”) to create the English word critike was John Bridges, Bishop of Oxford, who, in a 1587 treatise, advised young parish clerks not to “write, & be carried away with a light madness.” To show them madness in action, he told a story about a fictitious clergyman named “Grunnius,” the grunter, whose name called to mind a whining pig. Appearing before an audience of scholars to debate a matter of scripture, Grunnius mocked his opponents. He accused them of harboring vices that he knew himself to be guilty of. He flaunted what little learning he had. “You would have said he had been Longinus the Critike (one that gives his judgment against everybody),” Bridges complained.

This vision of the critic as a pig, an uncouth, if mildly intel­ligent, animal rolling in his own sweet filth, has resonated with writers across the centuries. “Critikes,” “Criticks,” or “Crieticks” were the enemies of pleasure and praise, the scourge of writers and readers alike. In William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost , first published in 1598, the lovestruck Lord Biron dispatches a letter to his fair Rosaline, then laments his inability to express his affection in words: “And I, forsooth, in love! I that have been love’s whip; / A very beadle to a humorous sigh; / A Crietick, nay, a night-watch Constable.” Translators of travel logs and philosophical tracts alike decried the audacious and habitually dishonest “Critikes,” who would “transpose, and omit, and foist into the Text many words and conceytes, whereof the Author never dreamed.” For satirists writing in that delightful seventeenth- and eighteenth-century genre, the character sketch, the critic presented an especially attrac­tive figure for ridicule. Both Samuel Butler’s Characters , written between 1677 and 1679, and Abel Boyer’s The English Theophrastus , published in 1703, denounced the critic with the same savage glee with which the critic denounced the poets and the playwrights. “How strangely some words lose their Primitive Sense!” Boyer exclaimed. “By a Critick , was originally understood a good Judge ; with us now-a-days, it signifies no more than a Fault-finder .” The critic once was useful, he conceded, but so too were “Executioners and Informers.”

The wisest commentators understood that at issue was the problem of authority. Who granted the critic the power to judge? What justified his judgments? In his 1750 essay for The Rambler , “An Allegory on Criticism,” Samuel Johnson attempted to answer these questions by imagining Criticism as a shining and virtuous demi-goddess. The eldest daughter of Labor and Truth, Criticism was raised by Justice in the palace of Wisdom, where she learned from the Muses the ancient rules of tragic and comic drama: the unities of action, time, and place; a sense of proportionality and balance. When Criticism came of age, she was given a scepter by Justice, one end of which was bright and the other dark, and a torch by Labor and Truth. By the light of her torch, she could perceive the beauties and the faults of all manmade objects. With the bright end of her scepter, she could consign what was harmonious and true to immortality. With the dark end, she destroyed whatever appeared twisted and false.

But as the ancient rules of art were forgotten or cast aside and as new forms were forged out of old ones, men brought before Criticism works that were beautiful in certain ways and faulty in others, works that were too mixed, too modern, for her to judge with any conviction. Bewildered, Criticism referred these works to Time, who did exactly what she asked of him; he bequeathed the most deserving works to the future and crushed everything else. Satisfied with Time’s conduct, Criticism withdrew from the world and broke her scepter. From its fragments, there arose the modern critic, a genus composed of two species: Flattery, which discov­ered the scepter’s bright shivers and touched them to whatever fur­thered their own careers, and Malevolence, which found the dark shivers, and to whom the Furies gifted a special torch to illuminate only a work’s flaws.

In Johnson’s allegory, Criticism was the heavenly ideal of the preservation of beautiful objects over time; the critic was Criticism’s earthly maladaptation, her bad son, her great and enduring disap­pointment. In the absence of strict moral or aesthetic rules gov­erning Criticism’s judgment, the critic embraced either his naked self-interest or the secret malice of the human spirit. A deformed creature, he should have gone extinct long ago. Instead, having tasted power, he grew shrewder, conscious of his shriveled status and infatuated with fantasies of cultural heroism—of continuing to aid Time or even to beat him at his own game. Anxiously, the critic began to take any opportunity he could to not only justify his existence but also to exalt it.

In the burgeoning print public sphere of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, more species of critics emerged than Johnson’s flatterers and malcontents. They sought shelter in insti­tutions like reviews and monthlies. They cloaked themselves in the noblest and most winning guises they could contrive. Some elabo­rated a philosophy and a practice of criticism that enabled the spec­tator to “judge in the same spirit in which the Artist produced,” the poet Samuel Coleridge wrote in his 1814 treatise “On the Principles of Genial Criticism in the Arts.” Others modeled an appealing tem­perament or an ethos that one could cultivate through criticism: the cool, abstracted discrimination by which one could “reconstruct the fragments” of a painting or a novel “into a whole,” George Eliot wrote in an 1868 essay; or “the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects,” as Walter Pater described criticism a decade later, in a language of hot, panting communion between the critic and the work of art. Still others opted to ally the critic not with an ethos but with a profession. John Addington Symonds, in his 1900 essay “On Some Principles of Criticism,” suggested that one could think of the critic “as judge, as showman, and as scien­tific analyst.” “The true critic,” he wrote, “must combine all three types in himself, and hold the balance by his sense of their recip­rocal relations.”

Pope’s critics were fallen creatures, moderns with no compass to guide their judgment other than the “glimm’ring light” of their own minds, which too often bent sinister.

The balance, though, did not hold. The showman mostly fell out of favor. The analyst retreated into the academy. The judge remained, becoming the preeminent analogy for critics to describe their own actions through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. “The very word critic means [judge] and nothing more, etymo­logically considered,” William Morton Payne observed in his tart response to Symonds’s essay. The mottos of magazines like the Edinburgh Review —“ Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur ,” or “The judge is condemned when the guilty are acquitted”—suggested to Charles-Augustine Sainte-Beauve “the spectacle of the court.” “Reviewers we have but no critic; a million competent and incor­ruptible policemen but no judge,” Virginia Woolf complained in her 1923 essay “How It Strikes a Contemporary.” The appeal of the analogy is easy to understand. Criticism’s function was to preserve worthy artworks through acts of judgment; the figure of the judge seemed buried in the word itself, as if to unearth him, one needed only to scrape away the excess letters. The judge was animated by the idea of propriety, of power checked by sense and compassion. He set the precedent by which future readers and writers had to abide. He anointed himself Time’s co-regent in the realm of culture.

But inherent in the image of the critic as judge were the unsa­vory ideas that the critic was superior to the text and that criticism was a matter of crime and punishment. As Northrop Frye put it in the 1980s, trying to play the role of judge was a “preposterous ego trip for the critic to attempt.” It turned the critic into an “intel­lectual thug” who uttered only “clap-trap”: “I approve of this,” or “I am disappointed by that.” What was needed instead, Frye argued, was a different figure, an image of “understanding” and “deep con­cern for literature” that captured “the subjection of the critic to the uniqueness of the work being criticized.”

this figure who meets Frye’s criteria of concern and subjection is the critic as a friend to the text. To appreciate her, we must pull on a parallel thread in the history of criticism, different than the one that leads to the judge’s chambers. This thread runs through essays in which the writer interrupts his lengthy rebuke of the state of criticism by invoking the friend as “the real helper of the artist, a torch bearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother,” as Henry James writes—a friend whose presence, like the sun breaking through the clouds, can make a gray and inhospitable world suddenly seem expansive and warm. William Hazlitt’s “On Criticism” (1812), James’s “Criticism” (1899), and Marcel Proust’s “John Ruskin” (1906) represent the high points of this tradition, although its ori­gin is surely Alexander Pope’s 1711 “An Essay on Criticism,” which hails the critic as “the Muse’s judge and friend.”

Many of us are familiar with the trope of the book as a friend or of reading as a “form of friendship,” as Proust described it. “The fact that it is directed at someone who is dead, who is not there, lends something disinterested, almost moving to it. It is a form of friendship freed moreover from all that makes other forms ugly.” In Proust’s account, the ugliness of friendship between people emerges from interest—from expectations of equivalence and rec­iprocity and from a sense of mutual obligation. We want to know and to be known by our friends, to love and to be loved by them. We notice, and we are irritated, when a friend talks about himself ceaselessly, without asking after us; when he takes and never gives; if he is moody when we want him to be cheerful, or cheerful when we are moody. We keep score, even though we know, as we count, that it diminishes us.

Ideally, no such ugliness is possible for the critic. One should not expect mutuality from a text. It would be absurd for its themes or its style to accommodate who the critic is or what she desires, morally, politically, or emotionally. The text is what it is. It cannot be otherwise. It owes us nothing. We can demand nothing in particular of it. It is easy to lash out in the face of such vast indifference, to surface a disappointment so intense, a desire for gratification so bottomless, that it eclipses everything other than the drama of its own emergence. The challenge, as Pope elaborated it, is to meet the text with generosity—with a readiness to give more of one’s gifts than is necessary or expected. “Just as propriety finds figu­rative expression in the image of the judge,” Harold Bloom wrote, “generosity for Pope also calls forth its representative figure: the critic as friend.”

“An Essay on Criticism” is written in heroic couplets and divided into three parts. Part One begins rather acidly: “’Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill / Appear in writing or in judging ill.” Poets may test our patience, Pope claimed, but critics—partial, arrogant, defensive—“mislead our sense.” Their writing was distorted by “false learning,” “pretending wit,” “vain ambition,” and “needful pride.” The drive to censure turned them into drones, “half-form’d insects” that swarmed by the dozens to a single dull verse. Like Johnson’s critics, Pope’s critics were fallen creatures, moderns with no compass to guide their judgment other than the “glimm’ring light” of their own minds, which too often bent sinister. But it was not always so, Pope assured us. High on Parnassus, the precepts of art were derived from the poetry of the ancients, which the first critic brought down to earth. He was like Prometheus, only guile­less and gentlemanly: “The gen’rous critic fann’d the poet’s fire, / And taught the world with reason to admire.”

“The gen’rous critic,” as Pope reconstructed him in Parts Two and Three of the essay, had a great capacity for “gen’rous pleasure” and a highly developed sense of commensurability, which allowed him to “regard the writer’s end / Since none can compass more than they intend.” The generous critic identified and accepted the work’s intentions, its conventions. He never approached, for instance, a romance as one would read a history and always sit­uated the parts of the work in relation to it as a whole. This was in contrast to ordinary critics, who, Pope wrote, had an offensive “love of parts”: a fascination with conceit, a fixation on meter and rhyme, and an overvaluation of style, which often masked a dearth of sense. Particularly offensive was the obsession with the individ­ual word, a tendency Hazlitt would later deride as the practice of “mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong.” Colossally offen­sive was the decision that only “one small sect” of writing deserved one’s attention: “Some foreign writers, some our own despise; The ancients only, or the moderns prize.”

Running underneath Pope’s account of the commensurability between the generous critic and the text was a wonderfully com­plex and democratic theory of pleasure. Pleasure, for Pope, arose neither from the critic’s purely subjective reaction nor from the poem’s objective perfection. It derived from the mingling of admi­ration and reason—“a happiness as well as care.” Reason reconciled wholes and parts, intentions and expectations, to show “the joint force and full result of all.” It distinguished a principle from a mere notion, saving a critic from sacrificing a work to his own folly and his impossible fantasies of perfection: “Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, / Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.” It taught the critic to be staunchly catholic in his pursuit of pleasure, not to limit it based on notions of what count as simple or diffi­cult, popular or niche. Reason was as spirited as it was judicious, as open as it was exacting.

Once the critic understood the intent of the text, the question became how to talk about it—or, more accurately, with it. The critic as friend had “manners gen’rous” and a talent for “gen’rous converse,” or conversation. He addressed the text as an equal, with patience and humility. He did not shout over it or drown it out with his own theatrics. He refused to twist words or pluck them out of context. He listened for their subtler inflections, and he spoke where the text chose to remain silent. A poem did not announce its metrical structure or its rhyme scheme. A novel did not declare its shifts in focalization or its point of view. It was up to the critic to give voice to these mute essentials and “like a friend, familiarly convey / The truest notions in the easiest way,” Pope wrote. This conversation would open outward, drawing one person’s under­standing of the text toward “human kind.” The conviviality of criticism permitted the friend of the text to speak such that others would want to not only eavesdrop but also participate: “’Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join; / In all you speak, let truth and candour shine: / That not alone what to your sense is due, / All may allow; but seek your friendship too.”

Generosity, commensurability, conversation—how calm, how dispassionate these words can seem. They do not, however, mean that the critic must be uncritical or mild-mannered. Far from it. It would be wrong to confuse generosity with approval, or commen­surability with inattention. Being generous does not mean ignoring a friend’s lapses. Nor does it mean maintaining a perfect equanim­ity, a composure so thoroughgoing that it shades into neutrality or indifference or, worse, into a laissez-faire injunction to simply let people enjoy things.

In a 2015 essay that argues for criticism as a supremely personal experience, Frances Ferguson articulates a startling, unsentimen­tal vision of the critic as friend that makes room for all kinds of judgments. “The friend doesn’t merely recognize a friend at his or her most characteristic,” Ferguson writes. The friend recognizes the writer at his absolute worst as well as his absolute best. How is it possible that the same writer who wrote To the Lighthouse also wrote The Voyage Out ? Ulysses and Stephen Hero ? Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss ? The Wings of the Dove and The American ? For Ferguson, the critic is “a writerly friend” who “sustains the identity of the writer” over time. The critic sees “a style, a name, an attach­ment” in moments “unrecognizable to less committed admirers”—the moments of imperfection or failure that mark a career, a life, as sharply as the moments of success.

Ferguson is primarily interested in the identity of the writer over time, but her argument shows us how the critic as friend can broker a new relationship between Time and Criticism. With one eye fixed on the present and the other on the future, the critic pre­serves the author’s identity not by uncritically celebrating or canon­izing his books but by transmitting the generosity—the generous pleasure, generous manners, and generous converse—by which others can learn to read these books as the singular works that they are. The critic models the practice of inquiry and the manner of feeling by which you, the reader, can also become a friend to the text. Of course, just because I am someone’s friend does not mean that you can be persuaded to be his friend too. But our friendships do not resist all attempts at articulation. I can suggest that you may come to feel as I feel about a person, a book, that you may want to know it as intimately as I do. I can help it pass gracefully from my hand to another’s, from the present into the future.

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Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 2 )

With Shakespeare the dramatic resolution conveys us, beyond the man-made sphere of poetic justice, toward the ever-receding horizons of cosmic irony. This is peculiarly the case with Hamlet , for the same reasons that it excites such intensive empathy from actors and readers, critics and writers alike. There may be other Shakespearean characters who are just as memorable, and other plots which are no less impressive; but nowhere else has the outlook of the individual in a dilemma been so profoundly realized; and a dilemma, by definition, is an all but unresolvable choice between evils. Rather than with calculation or casuistry, it should be met with virtue or readiness; sooner or later it will have to be grasped by one or the other of its horns. These, in their broadest terms, have been—for Hamlet, as we interpret him—the problem of what to believe and the problem of how to act.

—Harry Levin, The Question of Hamlet

Hamlet is almost certainly the world’s most famous play, featuring drama’s and literature’s most fascinating and complex character. The many-sided Hamlet—son, lover, intellectual, prince, warrior, and avenger—is the consummate test for each generation’s leading actors, and to be an era’s defining Hamlet is perhaps the greatest accolade one can earn in the theater. The play is no less a proving ground for the critic and scholar, as successive generations have refashioned Hamlet in their own image, while finding in it new resonances and entry points to plumb its depths, perplexities, and possibilities. No other play has been analyzed so extensively, nor has any play had a comparable impact on our culture. The brooding young man in black, skull in hand, has moved out of the theater and into our collective consciousness and cultural myths, joining only a handful of comparable literary archetypes—Oedipus, Faust, and Don Quixote—who embody core aspects of human nature and experience. “It is we ,” the romantic critic William Hazlitt observed, “who are Hamlet.”

Hamlet also commands a crucial, central place in William Shakespeare’s dramatic career. First performed around 1600, the play stands near the midpoint of the playwright’s two-decade career as a culmination and new departure. As the first of his great tragedies, Hamlet signals a decisive shift from the comedies and history plays that launched Shakespeare’s career to the tragedies of his maturity. Although unquestionably linked both to the plays that came before and followed, Hamlet is also markedly exceptional. At nearly 4,000 lines, almost twice the length of Macbeth , Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest and, arguably, his most ambitious play with an enormous range of characters—from royals to gravediggers—and incidents, including court, bedroom, and graveyard scenes and a play within a play. Hamlet also bristles with a seemingly inexhaustible array of ideas and themes, as well as a radically new strategy for presenting them, most notably, in transforming soliloquies from expositional and motivational asides to the audience into the verbalization of consciousness itself. As Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt has asserted, “In its moral complexity, psychological depth, and philosophical power, Hamlet seems to mark an epochal shift not only in Shakespeare’s own career but in Western drama; it is as if the play were giving birth to a whole new kind of literary subjectivity.” Hamlet, more than any other play that preceded it, turns its action inward to dramatize an isolated, conflicted psyche struggling to cope with a world that has lost all certainty and consolation. Struggling to reconcile two contradictory identities—the heroic man of action and duty and the Christian man of conscience—Prince Hamlet becomes the modern archetype of the self-divided, alienated individual, desperately searching for self-understanding and meaning. Hamlet must contend with crushing doubt without the support of traditional beliefs that dictate and justify his actions. In describing the arrival of the fragmentation and chaos of the modern world, Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold declared that “the calm, cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared, the dialogue of the mind with itself has commenced.” Hamlet anticipates that dialogue by more than two centuries.

Like all of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet makes strikingly original uses of borrowed material. The Scandinavian folk tale of Amleth, a prince called upon to avenge his father’s murder by his uncle, was first given literary form by the Danish writer Saxo the Grammarian in his late 12th century Danish History and later adapted in French in François de Belleforest’s Histoires tragiques (1570). This early version of the Hamlet story provided Shakespeare with the basic characters and relationships but without the ghost or the revenger’s uncertainty. In the story of Amleth there is neither doubt about the usurper’s guilt nor any moral qualms in the fulfillment of the avenger’s mission. In preChristian Denmark blood vengeance was a sanctioned filial obligation, not a potentially damnable moral or religious violation, and Amleth successfully accomplishes his duty by setting fire to the royal hall, killing his uncle, and proclaiming himself king of Denmark. Shakespeare’s more immediate source may have been a nowlost English play (c. 1589) that scholars call the Ur – Hamlet. All that has survived concerning this play are a printed reference to a ghost who cried “Hamlet, revenge!” and criticism of the play’s stale bombast. Scholars have attributed the Ur-Hamle t to playwright Thomas Kyd, whose greatest success was The Spanish Tragedy (1592), one of the earliest extant English tragedies. The Spanish Tragedy popularized the genre of the revenge tragedy, derived from Aeschylus’s Oresteia and the Latin plays of Seneca, to which Hamlet belongs. Kyd’s play also features elements that Shakespeare echoes in Hamlet, including a secret crime, an impatient ghost demanding revenge, a protagonist tormented by uncertainty who feigns madness, a woman who actually goes mad, a play within a play, and a final bloodbath that includes the death of the avenger himself. An even more immediate possible source for Hamlet is John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge (1599), another story of vengeance on a usurper by a sensitive protagonist.

Whether comparing Hamlet to its earliest source or the handling of the revenge plot by Kyd, Marston, or other Elizabethan or Jacobean playwrights, what stands out is the originality and complexity of Shakespeare’s treatment, in his making radically new and profound uses of established stage conventions. Hamlet converts its sensational material—a vengeful ghost, a murder mystery, madness, a heartbroken maiden, a fistfight at her burial, and a climactic duel that results in four deaths—into a daring exploration of mortality, morality, perception, and core existential truths. Shakespeare put mystery, intrigue, and sensation to the service of a complex, profound epistemological drama. The critic Maynard Mack in an influential essay, “The World of Hamlet ,” has usefully identified the play’s “interrogative mode.” From the play’s opening words—“Who’s there?”—to “What is this quintessence of dust?” through drama’s most famous soliloquy—“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”— Hamlet “reverberates with questions, anguished, meditative, alarmed.” The problematic nature of reality and the gap between truth and appearance stand behind the play’s conflicts, complicating Hamlet’s search for answers and his fulfillment of his role as avenger.

Hamlet opens with startling evidence that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” The ghost of Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet, has been seen in Elsinore, now ruled by his brother, Claudius, who has quickly married his widowed queen, Gertrude. When first seen, Hamlet is aloof and skeptical of Claudius’s justifications for his actions on behalf of restoring order in the state. Hamlet is morbidly and suicidally disillusioned by the realization of mortality and the baseness of human nature prompted by the sudden death of his father and his mother’s hasty, and in Hamlet’s view, incestuous remarriage to her brother-in-law:

O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on’t! ah, fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

A recent student at the University of Wittenberg, whose alumni included Martin Luther and the fictional Doctor Faustus, Hamlet is an intellectual of the Protestant Reformation, who, like Luther and Faustus, tests orthodoxy while struggling to formulate a core philosophy. Brought to encounter the apparent ghost of his father, Hamlet alone hears the ghost’s words that he was murdered by Claudius and is compelled out of his suicidal despair by his pledge of revenge. However, despite the riveting presence of the ghost, Hamlet is tormented by doubts. Is the ghost truly his father’s spirit or a devilish apparition tempting Hamlet to his damnation? Is Claudius truly his father’s murderer? By taking revenge does Hamlet do right or wrong? Despite swearing vengeance, Hamlet delays for two months before taking any action, feigning madness better to learn for himself the truth about Claudius’s guilt. Hamlet’s strange behavior causes Claudius’s counter-investigation to assess Hamlet’s mental state. School friends—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—are summoned to learn what they can; Polonius, convinced that Hamlet’s is a madness of love for his daughter Ophelia, stages an encounter between the lovers that can be observed by Claudius. The court world at Elsinore, is, therefore, ruled by trickery, deception, role playing, and disguise, and the so-called problem of Hamlet, of his delay in acting, is directly related to his uncertainty in knowing the truth. Moreover, the suspicion of his father’s murder and his mother’s sexual betrayal shatter Hamlet’s conception of the world and his responsibility in it. Pushed back to the suicidal despair of the play’s opening, Hamlet is paralyzed by indecision and ambiguity in which even death is problematic, as he explains in the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy in the third act:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death— The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn No traveller returns—puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.

The arrival of a traveling theatrical group provides Hamlet with the empirical means to resolve his doubts about the authenticity of the ghost and Claudius’s guilt. By having the troupe perform the Mousetrap play that duplicates Claudius’s crime, Hamlet hopes “to catch the conscience of the King” by observing Claudius’s reaction. The king’s breakdown during the performance seems to confirm the ghost’s accusation, but again Hamlet delays taking action when he accidentally comes upon the guilt-ridden Claudius alone at his prayers. Rationalizing that killing the apparently penitent Claudius will send him to heaven and not to hell, Hamlet decides to await an opportunity “That has no relish of salvation in’t.” He goes instead to his mother’s room where Polonius is hidden in another attempt to learn Hamlet’s mind and intentions. This scene between mother and son, one of the most powerful and intense in all of Shakespeare, has supported the Freudian interpretation of Hamlet’s dilemma in which he is stricken not by moral qualms but by Oedipal guilt. Gertrude’s cries of protest over her son’s accusations cause Polonius to stir, and Hamlet finally, instinctively strikes the figure he assumes is Claudius. In killing the wrong man Hamlet sets in motion the play’s catastrophes, including the madness and suicide of Ophelia, overwhelmed by the realization that her lover has killed her father, and the fatal encounter with Laertes who is now similarly driven to avenge a murdered father. Convinced of her son’s madness, Gertrude informs Claudius of Polonius’s murder, prompting Claudius to alter his order for Hamlet’s exile to England to his execution there.

Hamlet’s mental shift from reluctant to willing avenger takes place offstage during his voyage to England in which he accidentally discovers the execution order and then after a pirate attack on his ship makes his way back to Denmark. He returns to confront the inescapable human condition of mortality in the graveyard scene of act 5 in which he realizes that even Alexander the Great must return to earth that might be used to “stop a beer-barrel” and Julius Caesar’s clay to “stop a hole to keep the wind away.” This sobering realization that levels all earthly distinctions of nobility and acclaim is compounded by the shock of Ophelia’s funeral procession. Hamlet sustains his balance and purpose by confessing to Horatio his acceptance of a providential will revealed to him in the series of accidents on his voyage to England: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, / Roughhew them how we will.” Finally accepting his inability to control his life, Hamlet resigns himself to accept whatever comes. Agreeing to a duel with Laertes that Claudius has devised to eliminate his nephew, Hamlet asserts that “There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.”

In the carnage of the play’s final scene, Hamlet ironically manages to achieve his revenge while still preserving his nobility and moral stature. It is the murderer Claudius who is directly or indirectly responsible for all the deaths. Armed with a poisonedtip sword, Laertes strikes Hamlet who in turn manages to slay Laertes with the lethal weapon. Meanwhile, Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup Claudius intended to insure Hamlet’s death, and, after the remorseful Laertes blames Claudius for the plot, Hamlet, hesitating no longer, fatally stabs the king. Dying in the arms of Horatio, Hamlet orders his friend to “report me and my cause aright / To the unsatisfied” and transfers the reign of Denmark to the last royal left standing, the Norwegian prince Fortinbras. King Hamlet’s death has been avenged but at a cost of eight lives: Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencranz, Guildenstern, Laertes, Gertrude, Claudius, and Prince Hamlet. Order is reestablished but only by Denmark’s sworn enemy. Shakespeare’s point seems unmistakable: Honor and duty that command revenge consume the guilty and the innocent alike. Heroism must face the reality of the graveyard.

Fortinbras closes the play by ordering that Hamlet be carried off “like a soldier” to be given a military funeral underscoring the point that Hamlet has fallen as a warrior on a battlefield of both the duplicitous court at Elsinore and his own mind. The greatness of Hamlet rests in the extraordinary perplexities Shakespeare has discovered both in his title character and in the events of the play. Few other dramas have posed so many or such knotty problems of human existence. Is there a special providence in the fall of a sparrow? What is this quintessence of dust? To be or not to be?

Hamlet Oxford Lecture by Emma Smith

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

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• What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

Published on May 30, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment .

To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources .

Critical thinking skills help you to:

• Identify credible sources
• Evaluate and respond to arguments
• Assess alternative viewpoints
• Test hypotheses against relevant criteria

Table of contents

Why is critical thinking important, critical thinking examples, how to think critically, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about critical thinking.

Critical thinking is important for making judgments about sources of information and forming your own arguments. It emphasizes a rational, objective, and self-aware approach that can help you to identify credible sources and strengthen your conclusions.

Critical thinking is important in all disciplines and throughout all stages of the research process . The types of evidence used in the sciences and in the humanities may differ, but critical thinking skills are relevant to both.

In academic writing , critical thinking can help you to determine whether a source:

• Is free from research bias
• Provides evidence to support its research findings
• Considers alternative viewpoints

Outside of academia, critical thinking goes hand in hand with information literacy to help you form opinions rationally and engage independently and critically with popular media.

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Critical thinking can help you to identify reliable sources of information that you can cite in your research paper . It can also guide your own research methods and inform your own arguments.

Outside of academia, critical thinking can help you to be aware of both your own and others’ biases and assumptions.

Academic examples

However, when you compare the findings of the study with other current research, you determine that the results seem improbable. You analyze the paper again, consulting the sources it cites.

You notice that the research was funded by the pharmaceutical company that created the treatment. Because of this, you view its results skeptically and determine that more independent research is necessary to confirm or refute them. Example: Poor critical thinking in an academic context You’re researching a paper on the impact wireless technology has had on developing countries that previously did not have large-scale communications infrastructure. You read an article that seems to confirm your hypothesis: the impact is mainly positive. Rather than evaluating the research methodology, you accept the findings uncritically.

Nonacademic examples

However, you decide to compare this review article with consumer reviews on a different site. You find that these reviews are not as positive. Some customers have had problems installing the alarm, and some have noted that it activates for no apparent reason.

You revisit the original review article. You notice that the words “sponsored content” appear in small print under the article title. Based on this, you conclude that the review is advertising and is therefore not an unbiased source. Example: Poor critical thinking in a nonacademic context You support a candidate in an upcoming election. You visit an online news site affiliated with their political party and read an article that criticizes their opponent. The article claims that the opponent is inexperienced in politics. You accept this without evidence, because it fits your preconceptions about the opponent.

There is no single way to think critically. How you engage with information will depend on the type of source you’re using and the information you need.

However, you can engage with sources in a systematic and critical way by asking certain questions when you encounter information. Like the CRAAP test , these questions focus on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

When encountering information, ask:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert in their field?
• What do they say? Is their argument clear? Can you summarize it?
• When did they say this? Is the source current?
• Where is the information published? Is it an academic article? Is it peer-reviewed ?
• Why did the author publish it? What is their motivation?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence? Does it rely on opinion, speculation, or appeals to emotion ? Do they address alternative arguments?

Critical thinking also involves being aware of your own biases, not only those of others. When you make an argument or draw your own conclusions, you can ask similar questions about your own writing:

• Am I only considering evidence that supports my preconceptions?
• Is my argument expressed clearly and backed up with credible sources?
• Would I be convinced by this argument coming from someone else?

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Paraphrasing

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
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• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
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• Common knowledge

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Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and to be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own.

Like information literacy , it involves evaluating arguments, identifying and solving problems in an objective and systematic way, and clearly communicating your ideas.

Critical thinking skills include the ability to:

You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

Ask questions such as:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence?

A credible source should pass the CRAAP test  and follow these guidelines:

• The information should be up to date and current.
• The author and publication should be a trusted authority on the subject you are researching.
• The sources the author cited should be easy to find, clear, and unbiased.
• For a web source, the URL and layout should signify that it is trustworthy.

Information literacy refers to a broad range of skills, including the ability to find, evaluate, and use sources of information effectively.

Being information literate means that you:

• Know how to find credible sources
• Use relevant sources to inform your research
• Understand what constitutes plagiarism
• Know how to cite your sources correctly

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with our pre-existing values, opinions, or beliefs. It refers to the ability to recollect information best when it amplifies what we already believe. Relatedly, we tend to forget information that contradicts our opinions.

Although selective recall is a component of confirmation bias, it should not be confused with recall bias.

On the other hand, recall bias refers to the differences in the ability between study participants to recall past events when self-reporting is used. This difference in accuracy or completeness of recollection is not related to beliefs or opinions. Rather, recall bias relates to other factors, such as the length of the recall period, age, and the characteristics of the disease under investigation.

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Student Resources

Critical approaches chart.

Use the critical approaches discussed in the chart below to help you find an interesting angle from which to approach a text. Each approach is given a brief description (Beliefs) , some guidelines for studying a text (Practices) and prompts to inspire your discussion (Questions) .

Do not simply list and answer the questions for a particular critical approach. Instead, use the questions as a starting place for your actual analysis. The questions are intended to be thought-provoking, not a list to be completed.

• Survey of American Literature II. Authored by : Joshua Watson. Provided by : Reynolds Community College. Located at : http://www.reynolds.edu/ . License : CC BY: Attribution