Critical Approaches to Literature: Cultural Studies Criticism

Alyssa Love

Professor Sakwe

English 1020-W7

26 March 2017

Critical Approaches to Literature: Cultural Studies Criticism

        When thinking of criticism, it is commonly assumed to be in a negative sense. There is automatically a deleterious connotation attached to the word. Critics are often viewed as the people who are paid to judge books, movies, or any other piece of work or art displayed to the public. They are often portrayed as those people who rate movies or books based on personal satisfaction or amusement. For example, if one were to Google “Reviews on the movie Fences,” they would receive various opinionated reviews rating the movie. Some may include in depth reasoning such as “The movie is an accurate depiction of the struggles of families being broken by infidelities.” Then there are those reviews that are based on personal preference such as, “I liked Fences better in its original context of being a play.” Both examples have their own biases, but that does not take away from both of the reviews being accurate forms of “criticism”.

On a day to day basis, whether it is intentional or not, Criticism is used in just about everything. You ask your mom if she likes a shirt, and she responds with, “It is a nice blouse, but the color is just a little dull,” she has just used a form of criticism. In Literature, criticism is an important aspect of literary analysis. When studying a piece of work, it is often observed under a psychological microscope. It is picked apart with every piece magnified in order to comprehend the what, when, why, where, and how of the writing. Any great literary work of art answers all of those questions in some shape, form, or fashion. It is up to the reader to analyze the work and find the answers. Jeffrey C. Davis, an English Professor at Wheaton College stated that, “One of the marks of a great work of literature is its ability to raise significant questions in the mind of the reader,” (Jeffrey C. Davis, Wheaton College). Once the reader uncovers the answers to these questions, it is then their responsibility to form an interpretation based on the type of literary perspective they seemed fit. While studying the different possible perspectives, one fact remains true; All of them are under the same umbrella; Literary Criticism.

Literary Criticism has been an analytical device used to categorize the broad methods of interpreting and comprehending Literature. In the book, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, there are ten methods of criticism highlighted. The interesting concept of these forms of criticism is that they are not “mutually exclusive” as the book states. There are some forms that are primarily based on facts such as the historical and biographical forms of criticism. This means that, for example, the Biographical Criticism uses the author’s life to analyze his or her piece of work. Someone using this type of criticism, could formulate the opinion that the mood of Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, is so dark and brooding due to the fact that he may have understandably dealt with depression as a result of some of the important women in his life dying from tuberculosis. This type of critic used facts about the author’s life to form an educated opinion on their reasoning behind the way in which this particular story was written. In contrast, there are other forms of criticism that analyzes writings by investigating the relations between conscious and unconscious elements in the mind of the author or the characters in the piece of work. Examples include Psychological, sociological, and Mythological Criticism.

While using the psychological criticism, a critic could state that in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator’s illness was not a physical one, but mental based on different scenes in the story showing signs of delusion and insanity. Such as thinking that the wallpaper was speaking to her or the fact that she kept stating she was sick, but yet her husband, a doctor, could not find any physical injuries or signs of any treatable illnesses. This critic used research of psychological theories to formulate an opinion pertaining to a character in the story. Even though Literary Criticism has been categorically shaped, very frequently you will pull or barrow different principles from other forms to help analyze a piece of work.

Cultural Criticism uses historical facts as well as sociological and psychological elements to analyze a body of work. This type of Criticism focuses on the time period in which a story was written and what type of practices and traditions were common during the designated time. Then the critic uses the facts to compare and contrast what was culturally accepted during the time period, with what actually happens in the story. Basically this critic is judging the authors ability to write within the psychological confines of the time period in which the story is portrayed to be in. In this paper, Cultural Studies Criticism will be used in order to analyze the highly controversial Parable of The Prodigal Son, found in the Gospel of Luke.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son, the story centers on a father and his two sons. In the opening verse, the younger son, impatiently asks his father for his portion of inheritance. Quickly after taking his fair share, he abandoned his family and went into another country. It was not soon after, he spent his inheritance very irresponsibly, just as the country he was in, fell into a famine. After realizing he had absolutely nothing and that he could not survive on his own, he decided to go back and apology to his father, hoping he could work for him in return for some earnings. While approaching the land, his father spots him and with extreme happiness, he father runs to his son and hugs him. Just as he rehearsed, the son apologized to his father, before he could ask his father if he could work for a living, his father called to his servants, requesting that them to bring him his finest robe and the family ring. Then he requests them to kill the biggest calf to celebrate his lost son’s arrival back home. Coming home from a hard day’s work, the eldest son hears the commotion going on nearby. He asks one of the servants what is the occasion and they tell him that his father is celebrating in honor of his brother’s return. Noticeably upset, he refused to indulge, causing his father to come outside. Angrily, the son displays his jealousy stating that he never insulted his father and he always did his work, but yet his father honors his brother for being disobedient. The father clearly states in the last verse, that he is celebrating not his youngest son’s disobedience, but the fact that he understood his doing and came home.

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