No Compromise In Defense Of Mother Earth!

This is my literary criticism essay on the movie Unbreakable, using reader-response!!

Unbreakable

For those of you who have not seen me, Emily and Amanda’s presentation on New-Criticism, here it is!!!

NewCriticism

Enjoy!

Rene Girard

• Was born in France
• Phd in History
• Published influential esays on Albert Camus, and Marcel Proust

Scapegoating

• When one character wants something, the other character will want it
• Antagonis which creates similarities between 2 characters
• Blurrs the line between good and evil
• Throws off balanceof story
• Balance returns when protagonist is turned into a scapegoat

- human kind, not god, has a problem with violence

- Jesus was a scapegoat

Mimesis

• Girard  developed a new wayof speakin about literary text
• There are psychological laws which are consequences of fundamentalities- reality grasps reality
• We borrow our desires from othres
• Our desire is provoked by the desire of another person
• “All desire is the desire to be”

* It is not the object that we want/desire – it is, for example, the social stutaus which is related to the object that we desire- For example, we might associate being successful with having a nice car…

* Drama queens – are “in love” with th idea of being in love, not in love with the person with which they claim to be…

* Bin Laden – the U-S’s scapegoat after 911

Theoretical Assumptions

• We always make assumptions
• Interpretation falls between the reader and the text itself
• Gains meaning by the purposeful act of the reader reading and interpreting it.
• Does a poem exist if no one reads it?

Louise Rosenblatt

• Literary text has no fixed meaning- there is no correct meaning
• Literature is like Drama- each reading is a performance
• She is known for her text: Literature as exploration
• -Reader plays a vital role in the life of any piece of literature
• Wrote: the reader, the text, the poem: the transactional theory of literary work: no one else can read the poem or the story for us
• You can get different feelings, attachements to different things depending on past experience

Varying Emphasis

• How reader interprets text is subjective

Interpretive communities- Stanley Fish

• We interpret text because we are part of an interpretive comunity that gives us a particular way of reading the text
• Ex: Class of sixth graders
• The interpretive community is made up of those who share interpretive strategies
• Knowledge is not objective but socially conditioned
• All that we know made possible by the social context in which we live
• Thoughts are made by presupposition of community in which one lives- cannot think beyond the limits made possible by the culture
• Can we really have our own ideas if we are limited by society?

Authorial content

• You can completely ignore what the author meant
• Regardless of what the author meant, it can be impossible to truly know
• But we can get a general idea of whar he/she intended

Using our knowledge

• Being able to apply what we know to our reading, we can have a more thourough interpretation of the text.

The way we read

• Louise- “efferent-aesthetic continuum”, a scale to categorize the way we read
• The way we read should change depending on what we read- newspaper vs peom

Wolfgang Iser

• Text contains gaps, meant for the reader to fill in
• Gaps- unanswered questions that the author leaves for us
• Imagine what would happen if the author tried to remove every single gap?

These are the notes I managed to take during Olivia’s presentation…

Mythopoeia: Based on fictional mythology

Archetypes: Stereotypical characters

Archetypes

• The hero: Usually on a journey – Frodo
• Death: The dark lord
• The shadow: Inner evil of hero psyche – Superheroes
• Mother/father: – Wendy from Peter Pan
• Wise old man: mentor
• Friendly beast: Proves to be pro-hero
• Double: terrible person tempting the hero
• Scapegoat: death brings relief to others- Jesus
• Outcast: Banished for betrayal- Romeo
• Earth mother: emotional, spiritual, comfort. Always female
• Temptress/Terrible mother: temps hero aka witch, sorceress – The white queen
• Perfect woman: character inspires the best in hero
• Unfaithful wife: has relations with other man
• Damsel in distress: in need of physical or emotional saving: buttercup
• Star crossed lovers: Romeo and Juliet
• Trickster- disloyal/untrustworthy- may become useful to hero.

Plot patterns

• Quest
• Task
• Initiation/transformation
• Death and rebirth
• Journey
• Fall
• Nature vs mechanical world
• Unhealable wound
• Ritual

James G. Frasier

• Death and rebirth theory
• related it to the harvest- story of Persephone-
• really believed in myths

Carl jung

• Collective unconscious- we all believe the same things, have this innate knowledge
• You wouldnt know that you think it because it is in your unconscious
• contradicts himself- you read domething and say “I know this because of my collective unconscious” – well how wold you know?

Northrop frye

• Wrote essay archetypes of criticism which made him widely known
• believed that the harvest cannot be viewed as a ritual
• Did not believe in the collective unconscious
• he believed there were two categories in literature
• Tragic- tragedy (automn/fall) / Satire,Irony (winter)
• Comedic- comdy (spring) / romance (sumer)

Tolkien

• Defined/ coined term mythopoeia
• Lord of the rings
• Chronicles of Narnia

Sam presented her Impressionistic Criticism project today. She did very well considering EVERY single member of her group left her and she ended up doing most of the project by herself. Go Sam!

I am just posting the few notes I managed to take while she was presenting.

Impressionistic Criticism

• A kind of criticism that tries to convey what the critic subjectively feels and thinks about a work of art- Commonly found in theatre
• People criticising work using feeling
• The difference between reality/what you think – Objective (look at that blue painting)/subjective (It is beautiful)

Certain things that arent looked at so much when analysing

(although I believe that once you do have your opinions about a work, that you can use some of these aspects as aesthetics to back up your opinion -ex: this shade of blue makes me think that… / But I might be wrong!)

• Balance
• Proportion
• Variety-emphasis
• Harmony and Unity
• Colour
• Texture

* Just read a poem/ look at a painting etc. and describe what you think about it/how it makes you feel not what you know. There isn’t really a wrong answer- but you should be able to use certain characteristics of the painting/examples from the text to support your opinion. Pretty simple!

Oscar Wilde

• Playwright/poet
• Wrote two big works about impressionistic criticism 1. The decay of lying, 2. The critic as an artist: A piece of work that not have meaning until it is given meaning from an observer/reader/listener- therefore the critic IS and artist
• He went to jail for “Gross indecency” – did hard labour for two years. ( was accused of being a sodomite, decided to being the accuser to court, defended himself – lost because everyone knew that he was a homosexual -need I say more- and the court found reasons to charge him with gross indecency)

Walter Pater

• Led a group of British intellects reacting against excessive weight of moral criteria prevalent in critical judgments on the fine arts by “stressing the diversity of artistic experience and the need for flexibility in judgments
• Wrote about impressionistic criticism
• Criticized the Mona Lisa

The following is out lesson plan.. The only thing that needs to be changed (it is not quite completed yet), is how long each part will last!

1.Objectives:

The following are five objectives that we (Jessica M., Emily T.L, Amanda L) would like to reach. If these objectives are reached, then we have successfully presented the information to our classmates.

• Students will have an understanding of the history of new criticism

• Students will be able to form a clear definition of what new criticism is, as well as have a knowledge of it’s components.

• Students will have an overall understanding of the main ideas and theories from some of the leading personalities of this concept

• Students will be able to differentiate between what are and what aren’t components of new criticism

• Students will be capable in identifying the flaws in new criticism

2.Resources:

The following are resources that we will need the day of our presentation.

• A computer
• Our PowerPoint presentation
• A projector
• Our notes
• Our “dummies guide” handout
• A text handout
• A television
• A video

3.Methodology:

The firs thing we will do is hand out “Dummies Guides” to our classmates. The following is the breakdown of what we will be presenting and how long it will take.

1- A brief history

• Will be approximately 2 minutes

• Will cover when New Criticism started being used and how it came to be

2- An explanation of what new criticism is

• Approximately 10 minutes

• Will cover a series of definitions on what New Criticism is

• Will cover several components that are used in New Criticism

• Students will be asked questions on the components

3- What it isn’t

• Approximately 3 minutes

• Will cover the components that must not be used in new criticism

4- Flaws in new criticism

• Approximately 2 minutes

• Will go over some of the flaws that conflict with “the system”

5- Leading figures

• Approximately 20 minutes

• Will go over information on 4 different leading figures of New Criticism

• Will include some of their theories and explorations on the topic

• Students will be asked questions to demonstrate their understanding

• Students will be shown a video explaining affective and intentional fallacies

• Students will be asked to summarize what these fallacies are

6- An example of how to deconstruct a text using New Criticism

• Approximately 10 minutes

• Will show students a text and use the elements of New Criticism to analyze it

7- Activity

• The students will be handed lines from a poem and asked to analyze them using the components of New Criticism as well as their “Dummies Guides”

4. Evaluation:

The following is an explanation of how we will know if we have reached our four objectives.

• Students will be able to come up with their own definition of what new criticism is

• Students will have an understanding and will be able to apply the different components of new criticism to a text

• Students will be able to identify some of the leading figures of New Criticism as well as some of their theories

• Students will be able to answer questions that we ask them

The following is my bibliography for my part of the New Criticism project!

Bibliography

John Crowe Ransom

Quinlan, K (1999). John Crowe Ransom’s life and career. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from Department of English Web site: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ransom/life.htm

BOTijo , (2008,08,15). John Crowe Ransom. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crowe_Ransom

(1997-2008). John Crowe Ransom. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from Poets.org Web site: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/12

(2008). Ransom, John Crowe. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from enotes.com Web site: http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/ransom-john-crowe

(2008). John Crowe Ransom. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/john-crowe-ransom

I.A Richards

Lamoureux, E.L (2007,09,11). I.A Richards. Retrieved September 6, 2008, from Rhetorical Resources Web site: http://bradley.bradley.edu/~ell/iarichar.html

138.237.148.64, (2008, 09,10). I. A Richards. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Armstrong_Richards

William Kurtz Wimsatt

Jr Zenohockey , (2008, 05, 17). William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr. Retrieved September 6, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kurtz_Wimsatt,_Jr.

Beardsley

Lost, D (2008,03,13 ). Monroe Beardsley. Retrieved September 15, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Beardsley

Philosophy. Retrieved September 6, 2008, from UEN Web site: http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourElement.cgi?element_id=38207&tour_id=18706&category_id=30556

Affective & Intentional Fallacies

Gregbard , (2007, 12, 6). Affective Fallacy. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affective_fallacy

WhatamIdoing, (2008, 08, 12). Intentional fallacy. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_fallacy