1. ELIT 48C Class 5
Composed or Comprised
The board is composed/
comprised of five members.
2. • Composed means, more or less, “made up of” — and when you
say something is composed of {these things} you may or may not
be including all of the {things} of which it is made, opting for only
the items most relevant to making your point.
• To comprise means “to contain” and the correct usage will usually
include ALL the parts making up the whole. Oh, and with
comprise, the whole should come before the parts.
• Thus, the board comprises five members, whereas five members
compose (or make up) the board. It is also correct to say that the
board is composed (not comprised) of five members.
3. AGENDA
• Lecture:
– Feminist Criticism
– Lesbian, Gay, and Queer
Criticism
• Discussion:
– QHQs and The Great Gatsby
5. • Feminist criticism is concerned with “the ways in which literature
(and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the
economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of
women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of
our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and “this
critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in
male writing about women" (Richter 1346). This misogyny, Tyson
reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps
the most chilling example [...] is found in the world of modern
medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been
tested on male subjects only" (83).
Feminist Theory and Criticism
6. The objectives of the criticism include the
following:
1. To uncover and develop a female tradition of
writing
2. To interpret symbolism of women’s writing
so that it will be lost or ignored by the male
point of view.
3. To rediscover old texts
4. To analyze women writers and their writing’s
from a female perspective
5. To increase awareness of the sexual politics
of language and style.
7. FEMINIST CRITICISM HAS, IN
MANY WAYS, FOLLOWED WHAT
SOME THEORISTS CALL THE THREE
WAVES OF FEMINISM:
8. First Wave Feminism
• Ran from late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft
(A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the
inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and
Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement,
which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the
passing of the Nineteenth Amendment
9. Second Wave Feminism
• From early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal
working conditions necessary in America during World War
II, movements such as the National Organization for Women
(NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism.
Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, 1972)
and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the
dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the
American Civil Rights movement.
10. Third Wave Feminism
• From early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over
generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual,
middle class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism
borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race
theories to expand on marginalized populations' experiences.
Writers like Alice Walker work to “reconcile [feminism] with the
concerns of the black community [and] the survival and wholeness
of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of
dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and
of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 97).
15. Lesbian criticism is concerned with issues of personal identity and
politics analogous to those analyzed by feminists […]. However,
while feminism addresses issues related to sexism and the
difficulties involved in carving out a space for personal identity and
political action beyond the influence of sexist ideologies, lesbian
critics address issues related to both sexism and heterosexism. In
other words, lesbian critics must deal with the psychological,
social, economic, and political oppression fostered not only by
patriarchal male privilege, but by heterosexual privilege as well.
(Tyson 322-23)
Lesbian Criticism
16. Gay Criticism
The kinds of analyses that tend to engage the attention of gay
critics often fall under the heading of gay sensibility. How does
being gay influence the way one sees the world, sees oneself
and others, creates and responds to art and music, creates and
interprets literature, or experiences and expresses emotion?
In a heterosexist culture such as the one we inhabit at the turn
of the twenty-first century in America, gay sensibility includes
an awareness of being different, at least in certain ways, from
the members of the mainstream, dominant culture, and the
complex feelings that result from an implicit, ongoing social
oppression. In other words, part of seeing the world as a gay
man includes the ways in which one deals with being
oppressed as a gay man. Among others, three important
domains of gay sensibility, all of which involve responses to
heterosexist oppression, are drag, camp, and dealing with the
issue of AIDS. (Tyson 330)
17. Queer Theory
For queer theory, categories of sexuality cannot be defined by such simple
oppositions as homosexual/heterosexual. Building on deconstruction’s
insights into human subjectivity (selfhood) as a fluid, fragmented, dynamic
collectivity of possible “selves,” queer theory defines individual sexuality as
a fluid, fragmented, dynamic collectivity of possible sexualities. Our
sexuality may be different at different times over the course of our lives or
even at different times over the course of a week because sexuality is a
dynamic range of desire. Gay sexuality, lesbian sexuality, bisexuality, and
heterosexuality are, for all of us, possibilities along a continuum of sexual
possibilities. And what these categories mean to different individuals will
be influenced by how they conceive their own racial and class identities as
well. Thus, sexuality is completely controlled neither by our biological sex
(male or female) nor by the way our culture translates biological sex into
gender roles (masculine or feminine). Sexuality exceeds these definitions
and has a will, a creativity, an expressive need of its own. (Tyson 335)
18. • Finally, lesbian, gay, and queer criticism often rely on similar
kinds of textual evidence. For example, in addition to the more
obvious forms of textual cues—such as homoerotic imagery
and erotic encounters between same-sex characters—there
are rather subtle textual cues that can create a homoerotic
atmosphere even in an otherwise heterosexual text, as we saw
in the examples of lesbian, gay, and queer criticism provided
earlier. No single textual cue can stand on its own as evidence
of a homoerotic atmosphere in a text. Nor can a small number
of such cues support a lesbian, gay, or queer reading. But a
preponderance of these cues, especially if coupled with other
kinds of textual or biographical evidence, can strengthen a
lesbian, gay, or queer interpretation even of an apparently
heterosexual text. (Tyson 339)
19. Typical questions:
1. What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay,
lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed
in...the work's thematic content or portrayals of its
characters?
2. What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a
specific lesbian, gay, or queer works?
3. What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer,
gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary
history?
4. How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that
are by writers who are apparently homosexual?
5. How might the works of heterosexual writers be reread to
reveal an unspoken or unconscious lesbian, gay or queer
presence? That is, does the work have an unconscious
lesbian, gay or queer desire or conflict that it submerges?
20. More Questions
6. What does the work reveal about the operations (socially,
politically, psychologically) homophobic?
7. How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality
and sexual "identity," that is the ways in which human sexuality
does not fall neatly into the separate categories defined by the
words homosexual and heterosexual?
8. What elements in the text exist in the middle, between the
perceived masculine/feminine binary? In other words, what
elements exhibit traits of both (bisexual)?
9. What elements of the text can be perceived as being masculine
(active, powerful) and feminine (passive, marginalized) and how do
the characters support these traditional roles?
10. What sort of support (if any) is given to elements or characters who
question the masculine/feminine binary? What happens to those
elements/characters?
22. • Homosocial bonding—
– The depiction of strong emotional ties between
same-sex characters.
• Gay or lesbian “signs”—
– “feminine” male characters or “masculine” female
characters.
– coded signs created by the gay or lesbian
subculture itself.
• Same-sex “doubles”—
– same-sex characters who look alike, act alike, or
have parallel experiences.
• Transgressive sexuality—
– A text’s focus on transgressive sexuality, including
transgressive heterosexuality (such as
extramarital romance).
24. QHQs Feminist Criticism
1. Q: How does using feminist criticism, or that of any
minority, provide a deeper understanding of a text?
2. Q: Is it possible to resist the deeply rooted framework of
patriarchal programming when interpreting a literary
work despite the deep oppression of female identity,
role, and behavior over the course of centuries?
3. Q. How are fairy tales still under the control of a
patriarchal society and why “good girls” and “bad girls”
are often the common trope in fairy tales.
4. In Tyson’s introduction she quotes the common
responses to people denying their feminism, “I’m not a
feminist – I like men!” As many readers can catch on she
is using this as a form of sarcasm; why are we so afraid
of identifying as “feminists,” if that is what we stand for?
25. 1. Why has the idea of feminism and women of color had a line of
boundary in early history? Why are women of color associated with
their own category?
1. Because “Feminist Criticism” often paints the white women
experience as the standard, would it be reasonable to use the feminist
critique on literature written by black women, Latina women, Asian
women, or even non-western religious members, like Muslim Women,
when their experiences and culture are not similar to white (American)
women (ex. how some white feminists see the hijab as the symbol for
oppression, but these women are choosing to wear it)?
Feminist Theory and Women of Color
26. Feminist Criticism on The Great Gatsby
1. Q: Lois Tyson reiterates an ultimatum, “Caught within
patriarchy, Irigaray posits, women have only two choices:
(1) to keep quiet (for anything a woman says that does not
fit within the logic of patriarchy will be seen as
incomprehensible, meaningless) or (2) to imitate
patriarchy’s representation of herself as it wants to see
her (that is, to play the inferior role given her by
patriarchy’s definition […]).” It seems that in The Great
Gatsby, Daisy chooses the latter, but to her own benefit. If
a woman chooses this second option, but uses it to her
advantage, can she be deemed dominant over her
situation? Additionally, is keeping quiet the only other
option?
2. Q: Tyson characterizes The Great Gatsby as an almost
anti-feminist novel. In what ways is this a based analysis?
Does Gatsby pass the Bechdel test?
27. 1. Q: Lois Tyson writes about the French feminist Colette
Guillaumin. According to Guillaumin, the primary form of
women’s oppression is “direct physical appropriation,” which
she says is “the reduction of women to the state of objects.” In
what ways does Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy reduce her to an
object of possession?
2. Q1: Is the Great Gatsby a beneficial book for young girls to
read/be influenced by?
Feminist Criticism on The Great Gatsby
28. QHQs: Gay, Lesbian, Queer Criticism
1. Q: What is heterocentrism and how does it affect our
view of literature and the world?
2. “A better way to define a lesbian, then, is to say that she
is a woman whose sexual desire is directed toward
women”(Tyson 324).
Q: Does that mean that a woman who is attracted to
women is lesbian? Why do we still feel the need to label
ourselves or others?
3. Q: What is truly considered “queer” in the
heteronormative bias in society and literature?
29. QHQs: Gay, Lesbian, Queer Criticism
1. Q: In Lois Tyson’s chapter on “Lesbian, gay, and queer
criticism” she mentions the fact that many lesbians and
gay men find that oppression is one of the few
experiences they have in common. So why are both
often times grouped together if they do not share same
personal experiences?
2. Can human sexuality be accurately defined? Should
there be a need to define it, or does it transcend any
construct created by the human mind?
30. Q: In Lois Tyson’s discussion of LGBTQ+ theory, how is it
possible for essentialist and constructionist arguments
for and against homosexuality to occur?
Q: What is the difference between universalizing views
and social constructionism?
QHQs: Gay, Lesbian, Queer Criticism
31. 2. The functions of “minoritizing” and “universalizing” views of homosexuality were
developed by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in Epistemology of the Closet
32.
33. LGBTQ Criticism on The Great Gatsby
1. Is Nick Carraway a queer character?
2. Is there more potential for queer reading in
The Great Gatsby?
34. QHQ: similarities and intersections
1. Q: Are there any similarities between the Feminist criticism
and the LGBT criticism?
2. How does patriarchal ideology affect those who do not
identify with either gender?
35. HOMEWORK
• Read: Critical Theory
Today: Chapter 11
“African American
Criticism” 359-409
• Post #5: QHQ: African
American Criticism
