ELIT 48CClass #18

Disinterested or Uninterested?

Disinterested Versus Uninterested

Disinterested traditionally means having no stake in the matter. For example, when you are arguing

with someone, you might bring in a disinterested third person to help

settle the issue fairly

.

Uninterested traditionally means not engaged, bored, or

unconcerned.

AGENDA

Marxist Criticism

Writing a character analysis

Author Introduction: William Faulkner

Marxist CriticismLecture

Marxist criticism is based on the theories of Karl Marx (and so influenced by Hegel). This theoretical perspective is concerned with class differences: economic, social, and cultural, as well as the challenges and consequences of the capitalist system. Tyson says that “Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience” (277).

Those working in the Marxist tradition are interested in answering the overarching question, whom does it (the work, the effort, the policy, the road for example) benefit? The elite? The middle class?

Marxists critics are also interested in how the lower or working classes are oppressed in everyday life and in literature.

The Material Dialectic

This Marxist belief system maintains that “what drives historical change are the material realities of the economic base of society, rather than the ideological superstructure of politics, law, philosophy, religion, and art that is built upon that economic base" (Richter 1088).

Marxist critics generally work in areas covered by the following questions.

Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted, successful, or believed?

What is the social class of the author?

Which class does the work claim to represent?

What values does it reinforce?

What values does it subvert?

What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays?

What social classes do the characters represent?

How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?

Discussion

Post #17: Brain BusterDiscuss Feminist, New Critical or Marxist theories in terms of The Great Gatsby. Choose a specific passage on which to focus your interpretation.

by Lois Tyson

(Tyson 75)

(Tyson 76)

By Lois Tyson

Feminist Criticism by Lois Tyson

By Lois Tyson

The Eight Methods of Characterization

Eight ways to look at a character in a story

1. Physical Description

Physical description is the most common way of describing a character.

It identifies physical attributes of the character.height, skin, hair and eye

color, short/tall, skinny/fat, glasses, nose size and shape, disability, difference

gestures and movements: walking, standing, moving, wrinkling brow

Example of physical description:

Tom Buchannan is a “sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face, and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward … you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.” (1)

2. Name Analysis

To analyze a character’s name, look more closely at its meaning, allusion, or suggestion. Not all characters have a name with significance

to the story. Often though, author’s carefully choose a character’s name to represent a trait or quality about the character or the story.

Example of name analysis:Daisy: A common, yellow centered flower with white rays. A flower is something we look at, appreciate for its beauty. Is Daisy a common beauty?

Jordan: A gender neutral name. Is Jordan less of a woman because she is an athlete?

3. Attitude/Behavior

This method of characterization is the reader’s description of the character’s attitude and behavior.

The character’s attitude is how the character appears to feel about what is happening to him or her in the story. Sometimes we read attitude in behavior rather than words.

Example of attitude/behavior:

Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair. (Chapter 5)

4. Dialogue

Dialogue refers to characters’ words

Dialogue includes the characters diction (word choice) and syntax (word arrangement).

It also includes the tone of the character when he or she speaks.Is the character serious? Sarcastic? Shy?

Obnoxious? Ignorant?

Example of dialogue:

“I almost made a mistake, too,” [Mrs. McKee declared vigorously. “I almost married a little kyke who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: ‘Lucille, that man’s ‘way below you!’ But if I hadn’t met Chester, he’d of got me sure.”

“Yes, but listen,” said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, “at least you didn’t marry him.”

“I know I didn’t.”

“Well, I married him,” said Myrtle, ambiguously. “And that’s the difference between your case and mine.” (Chapter 2)

5. Thoughts The thoughts of a character

can only be analyzed if we are inside the head of the character.

This means that you can only include an analysis of a character’s thoughts if you are told what the character is thinking.

Example of Thoughts:

Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body.

It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply — I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man’s coat. (Chapter 3)

6. Reactions of OthersWhen analyzing the reactions of

others, you are looking closely at how other characters in the story react to or treat the character that you are characterizing.

Reactions include verbal responses and physical or emotional treatment.

Character reactions can tell you if the character you are analyzing is liked or disliked, popular, honest, trustworthy and so on.

Reactions of Others:

“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai ——”

Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (Chapter 2)

7. Action or Incident Characters can be analyzed by looking

at an action or incident and how it affected them or how they reacted to it.

What action did the character take when confronted with a certain situation?

Is there and incident in the character’s past that has shaped him or her as a character?

The action or incident determines the way the character develops as the story goes on.

Example of Action or Incident:“I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,” remarked Wilson. “That’s why I want to get away. That’s why I been bothering you about the car.”

[…] The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn’t alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before — and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty — as if he had just got some poor girl with child. (Chapter 7)

8. Physical/Emotional Setting:The setting of a story affects the

characters’ development as well as the plot.

The physical setting of a story is where the story is actually taking place and can affect the way a character develops.

The emotional setting of a story is the series of emotions that the character deals with throughout the story.

Example of Physical/Emotional Setting

One of the three shops [the building] contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant, approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage — Repairs. George B. Wilson. Cars bought and sold. — and I followed Tom inside.

The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. (Chapter 2)

William Faulkner

Author Introduction

William Faulkner, shown here in 1954, believed it was a writer's duty to write about the compassion and endurance of people

Novelist William Faulkner knew the South well. He spent most of his life there, and wrote with compassion about family, community, and the people he knew. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897, Faulkner created the legendary Yoknapatawpha County. Its fictitious population includes Southern white aristocrats, merchants, farmers, poor whites, and persecuted blacks. Faulkner told how the South is still affected by its past. "The past is never dead," he wrote. "It's not even past." http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/progress/

jb_progress_faulkner_1.html

HOMEWORKRead: “Barn Burning” 800-12

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