FEMINIST LITERARY

CRITICISM
LINDA NAPIKOSKI
 BASIC METHODS?

• Basic methods of feminist literary criticism include:

• Identifying with female characters: This is a way to
challenge the male-centered outlook of authors.
Feminist literary criticism suggests that women in
literature were historically presented as objects seen
from a male perspective.
• Reevaluating literature and the world in which
literature is read: This involves questioning whether
society has predominantly valued male authors and
their literary works because it has valued males
more than females.
 WHAT IS EXAMINED?

• Feminist literary criticism assumes that literature both

reflects and shapes stereotypes and other cultural
assumptions. Thus, feminist literary criticism
examines how works of literature embody
patriarchal attitudes or undercut them, sometimes
both happening within the same work.
• Feminist literary criticism may bring in tools from
other critical disciplines: historical analysis,
psychology, linguistics, sociological analysis,
economic analysis, for instance.
 FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM MAY
USE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING
METHODS:
• Deconstructing the way that women are described,
especially if the author is male. This applies to both
fictional characters in novels, stories, and plays, and
women characters in nonfiction including
biography and history.
• Deconstructing how one's own gender influences
how one reads and interprets a text, and which
characters and how the reader identifies
depending on the reader's gender.
• Deconstructing how women autobiographers and
biographers of women treat their subjects, and how
biographers treat women who are secondary to the
main subject.
• Describing relationships between the literary text
and ideas about power and sexuality and gender.
• Critique of patriarchal or woman-marginalizing
language, such as a "universal" use of the masculine
pronouns "he" and "him."
• Noticing and unpacking differences in how men
and women write: a style, for instance, where
women use more reflexive language and men use
more direct language (example: "she let herself in"
vs. "he opened the door").
• Reclaiming women writers who are little known or
have been marginalized or undervalued,
sometimes referred to as expanding or criticizing the
canon -- the usual list of "important" authors and
works.
• Reclaiming the 'female voice' as a valuable
contribution to literature, even if formerly
marginalized or ignored.
• Analyzing multiple works in a genre as an overview
of a feminist approach to that genre: for example,
science fiction or detective fiction.
• Analyzing multiple works by a single author (often
female).
• Examining how relationships between men and
women and those assuming male and female roles
are depicted in the text, including power relations.
• Examining the text to find ways in which patriarchy
is resisted or could have been resisted.
 GROUP WORK

• Please analyze I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Film applying Feminist literary criticism in group in
ELENA.