Feminist Literary Theory

Assignment:

1) Take notes in your composition book based on the information contained in this post.  Title your notes "Feminist Literary Theory as applied to Scarlet Letter."  Notes can NOT be simply printed out and glued in.  Add underlines, highlighting, bullet points, etc to help organize your notes.

2) Look up/ infer from context the meaning of all of the italicized words that you find in the entire post.  Record them in your notes.

3) Answer the journal questions (found at the end of the post) in your composition book.

4) Make the notes your own by doing one of the following, in your composition book:

• Create a visual or graphic organizer that represents the information
• Generate some questions based on the notes (study questions or questions that you'd like to discuss)
• Apply the information to your SSR book by answering the journal questions a second time, this time related to the SSR book.
• Something else creative that you can think of :)

If you have any questions about what you're supposed to do, just post a comment here and I'll answer.

Notes to record in composition book: Feminist Literary Theory as applied to SL.

Basic terms:

•Female: determined by sex organs

•Feminine: adoption of gender attributes commonly and culturally associated with being female.

•Feminism: belief in the equality of men and women

Questions feminist literary theorists ask:

1)How have female authors been historically treated?

•Within the major cannon, to what extent have female authors conformed to patriarchal expectations or not?

•Within the minor cannon, what are the patriarchal influences on female authors?  Gynocentric literature?

•According to feminist literary theorists, there are three stages that female writers have historically gone through (not so much as individuals, but rather as a collective group):

•Imitate male authors

•Protest against patriarchy

•Provide alternative/ female perspectives.

2) How do female readers experience the text?

3) How are women portrayed in literature?

–Are characters independent/ submissive?

–Language is controlled by the patriarchy, so is it adequate to express the female experience? (for example: universal “he”) 

Concerns for feminist literary theorists:

•By focusing on the female experience, are we perpetuating the dichotomy between male and female?

•By looking at and for powerful heroines, are we misleading readers into thinking it is possible to not be conditioned by one’s cultural ideas about gender?

Important note:

•The same three core questions can be asked about any group of the population…

 Such as, African- Americans:

–How have African-American author’s historically been treated?

–How do African-American readers experience the text?

–How are African- Americans represented?

Feminist Literary Theory Journals (please respond in paragraph form in your composition book):

1) How does your gender influence the way you experience The Scarlet Letter?

2) How does the text portray women?  Men?

3)Choose another group represented in the book (Native Americans, doctors, ministers, children, etc).  How does the text portray them?  If you were a member of that group, how do you think it would influence your interpretation of the text?