Analysis # 6: Feminism, Little Women, Angels in the House

[Quote from Little Women]
Holding a hand of each and watching the two young faces wistfully, Mrs. March said, in her serious yet cheery way - 'I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved, and respected; to have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman, and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience.

To millions of girls living in the mid 1800's (as well as today) the names Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy became recognized names in virtually every American home.When Louise May Alcott's book Little women was published in 1868, the world was presented with an ideal model of female virtue, modesty, sacrifice, purity,and womanhood through the story of the March sisters. For over the a century the March sister have remained in literature the unrivaled "angles in the house".

Mother's encouraged their daughters to strive as best as they could to emulate the pious virtue of Meg and quite humility of Beth. Until the the mid 50's women in literature were traditionally portrayed as saint-like goddesses within the home.
In Gilbert and Gubar's essay "The Mad Woman in the Attic" they argue that, "the images of the 'angel' and 'monster' have been so ubiquitous throughout literature by men that they have also pervaded woman's writing to such and extent that few definitively 'killed' either figure" (812).

One of the works of fiction that is attacked by Gilbert and Gubar is Alcott's Little Women because it reinforces the "angle" image of women that was originally constructed from men's desire to dominate women "because women are defined as wholly passive, completely void of generation power they become numinous to male artist" 815). Like many female writers during her time, Louisa May Alcott reinforces the male stereotypes about women. The March sisters are encouraged to stay at home and become good housewives. Their mother says the best and sweetest thing is to be loved and CHOSEN by a man.

Like novels and self help books during the Victorian era Alcott, "enjoin[s] young girls [towards] submissiveness, modesty, selflessness; reminding all women that they should be angelic" (816). Images of sacrificial women in books who were devoted to their husbands and homes and nothing else became the norm in society until the late 1950's. Through books and ladies magazines women measured their own worth, fashioned their identities around a mythological ideal woman found in fairy tales.

The challenge that female writers encounter when created a female character is to avoid retelling the cliche "angle" "monster" story about women. Female writers today must create female characters that are three dimensional and does not exaggerate their flaws are inflate their virtues. "The woman writer acknowledges with pain, confusion, and anger that what she sees in the mirror is usually a male construct, the "pure gold baby" of male brains, a glittering and wholly artificial child" (813).


Perhaps the "madwoman in the attic" is every woman who tries to break free from the prison that society has placed her in. Those who questions the norms of their society are often considered "mad" by the critics. Women like Jane Austen had to hide their writings lest other should think them strange. Fortunately, "by the end of the eighteenth century women were not only writing, they were conceiving fictional worlds in which patriarchal images and conventions were severely , radically revised" (824).

Today the madwomen in the attic have escaped are now free to run over the pages of fiction.

Works Cited

Gilbert, Sandra and Gibar, Susan. "The Madwoman in the Attic". Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Alcott, Louisa. Little Women. New York: VIKING, 1996

Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCyIwNPUK0k

Analysis # 5: Postmodernism, Discipline and Punishment

The church has always served as not only a place of spiritual worship, but also as a means of reinforcing social norms and punishing deviant behavior. According to to Foucault’s essay Discipline and Punishment, “Foucault suggests that citizens of the Western democracies act as their jail-keepers. They internalize the social control that monitors society and maintains the disciplined efficiency of the social system” (559). Although in might be offensive to many people to view the church as a prison, in many ways the church/temple is like a panopticon. The Priest, Pastor, Rabbi, Guru ...etc serve as ever watchful prison guards over their congregation whose eternal soul hangs over the balance between heaven (reward) and hell (punishment).

Foucault says, “In England, it was private religious groups that carried out, for a long time, the functions of social discipline” (559). Even within early American society until our present day churches have enforced laws that forbid drinking, gambling, abortion, birth control, and homosexual marriages. The goal of the church for many years has been to sift out the wicked and uplift the righteous. Foucault says, “The constant division between the normal and the abnormal, to which every individual is subjected, brings us back to our own time, by applying the binary branding and the exile of the leper to quite different objects […] All the mechanisms of the power which, even today, are disposed around the abnormal individual, to brand him and to alter him” (554).

According to the Bible, God is the supreme watchman. He is the unseen guard at the center tower of the panopticon that surveys all. Proverbs 15:3 says: the eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. If heaven symbolizes the watchtower and earth symbolizes the prison cell, than are we not all prisoners who live in fear of God. No matter where we go, the Bible reminds us that God is watching! “For what matters is that he knows himself to be observed [he] must never know whether he is being looked at at any moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so” (555).

Within a religious congregation the members are fully aware of the gaze not only of God but of the priest/pastor as well. Numbers 32:23 says: be sure your sins will find you out. The Bible serves as a guidebook for obedience and discipline. This helps to maintain the power and order in society. “By means of wise police, the sovereign accustoms the people to order and obedience” (Foucault 560). Believers are taught that sins and deviances will be punished in he afterlife. As a result believers strive to live moral lives for fear of “discipline” in the afterlife. “Generally speaking, it might be said that disciplines are techniques for assuring the ordering of human multiplicities” (Foucault 562).


Works Cited

Foucault, Michel. "Discipline and Punish".Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Analysis #4: Marxism

In 2002 author Eric Schlosser wrote a bestseller book entitled Fast Food Nation: The dark Side of the All-American Meals. The book –like Upton Sinclair’s Jungle –sheds light on the rather grim underworld of the fast food industry. Like Carol Marx, Schlosser highlights the how fast food workers are exploited and underpaid for the profit of the capitalist bourgeoisies (i.e. the fast foods industry).

In the introduction to Wage Labor and Capital, Rivkin says, “That the secret to wealth is that workers are systematically underpaid” (558). According to Marx the bourgeoisies exploits its workers by paying them wages that is the equivalent of slave labor. Marx says, “Not only are they slaves of the bourgeoisies class, and of the bourgeoisies state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over- looker, and, above all, by the bourgeoisies manufacturer himself” (5). Although companies like McDonalds make a hundred billons dollars every year; the rarely take time to consider their underpaid workers who must spend lengthy hours performing the same monotonous task over and over again. In Fast Food Nation Schlosser says, “Instead of relying upon a small, stable, well-paid, and well-trained workforce, the fast food industry seeks out part-time, unskilled workers who are willing to accept low wages” (68).

Teenagers and first generation immigrants make the perfect candidates for exploitation. They are less likely to complain about conditions, form unions, or complain about long hours. “These laborers, who sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of the of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market” (Marx 5). The system of most fast food restaurants little or no room to rise up the social-economic ladder. Workers –like cheap objects –can be hired and fired at the whim and will of their employers. According to Marx, “The capitalist , it seems therefore, buys their labor with money” (659). The wages that worker make is eventually circulated back to that capitalist who reap the reward. Through this process the rich get rich and the poor stay poor. The bourgeoisies is able to acquire more land and goods; which Marx believed should be equally shared with everything. Like Schlosser, Marx accuses the capitalist of, “[stripping] away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced family relation to mere money relation” (Marx 2). The fast food industry has nearly wiped out the sentimental “mom and pop” chains that once doted the highways of American. Companies like Burger King, Wendy’s, Carols Jr., McDonalds, and Inn and Out made their money on the cheap labor of others.

Works Cited

Marx, Karl. "Wagr Labor and Capital". Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New YorK: Harper Perennial, 2004

Analysis # 3: Freudian interpretation of the song "I won't grow up"

In the introduction to psychology, Julie Rivkin and Michael discuss several of Freud’s theories in their essay entitled. Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis. Freud was very much intrigued by the process by which a child became a functioning member of society. He also studied the relationships between fathers and mothers towards their children (especially boys) and how their relationship influenced a child’s' gender identity. In the Peter Pan musical, Peter proudly boasts that he will never grow. One can use Freud's theory of the Oedipus Complex as a foundation for analyzing Peter's desire to remain a boy forever.

Peter says, "Anyone who wants to try and make me a man, catch me if you can!"
According to Rivkin, "Anxiety about entry into an adult world perceived as threatening of a too fragile sense of self or anxiety that awakens either troubling memories or drives energies will propel some people to fixate at an early state of development." It is clear from the song that Peter pan is fixated in an early stage of his childhood development. He has a very fragile sense of self, and if frightened by the adult world that must forever run away from.

Peter is also driven by his id and wants instant gratification all of the time. His id remains unchecked by his ego and superego, so all he cares about his pleasure and having fun. Peter cannot participate the normal social world, which demands that we repress sexual and aggressive emotions. "Repression is essential to civilization, the converse of animal instinct into civil behavior" (Rivkin 389). As a person dominated by his id, Peter Pan finds going to school, obeying rules/norms, wearing a tie, being serious, and maintaining job daunting tasks.

If everyone in the world were like Peter Pan there would be no civilization because everyone would run away from his or her responsibilities. Freud would also say that Peter has not given up his pre-Oedipal desires. "All male children, Freud argued, experience an early attachment to their mother that is sexual in nature. Only the father's intervention, separates the mother from child, prevents incest" (Rivkin 391). Peter's fear of becoming a man may have to do with "castration anxiety" which Freud believed would lead to homosexuality if not overcome. Peter does identify with his father, an important stage in a boy's life.

"A little boy will exhibit a special interest in his father...we will simply say that he takes his father as ideal" (Freud 438). If Peter Pan were to grow up he would most likely have anxieties about sex or be asexual. His abilities to form relationships would be very limited, and would have neurotic tendencies to fly and play with little boys.

Works cited

Rivkin, Julie. "Strangers to Ourselves" & Freud, Sigmund. "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego". Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

youtube video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy3hB8ERBvI

Analysis of My Niece: Why Children Play?

When my niece was 1 1/2 years old I used to babysit her after school. A neighbor (Abby) would take care of her until three o'clock, and then I would pick her up. I often liked to watch my niece play, especially with her dolls which she like to dress and feed with plastic bottle and food.

One day, while she was playing, she tried to stand one of her dolls on its feet in order to brush the doll's hair. The doll would not stand because its legs were made out of fabric instead hard plastic. The doll flopped onto the floor over and over again. When my niece became angry she ordered her doll to "Stay, stay!"

When the doll would not stay, my niece walked it over to the corner and gave her doll a time out. "Bad Baby" she said to her doll.
I had never heard my niece say the words "Bad Baby" and wondered who had said the expression in her presence. I later learned from my niece's babysitter, Abby, that my niece hated to have her hair brushed and often fussed and cried.

Like the child in Freud's essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" my niece re-enacted with her doll an experience that was not pleasurable for her. By punishing her doll, my niece was able to take an active part in the unpleasant experience. Punishing her doll by placing it in the corner was an act of revenge/mastery against Abby her babysitter who often gave her time outs for throwing tantrums whenever she did not want her hair brushed.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. "Beyond the Pleasure Principle".Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Analysis #2: Russian Formalism & Defamiliarization

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself

When the poet Philip Larkin wrote his famous lines they fucked you up in his 1971 poem entitled “This be the verse” it sent a shock wave across the nerves of parents everywhere, and challenged young adults and teens to see their parents in a new light. According to Julia Rivkan’s introduction on Art as Technique, “[Russian Formalist] were concerned with writing that would be brutally honest and shockingly new, these writers rejected traditional culture and traditional artistic forms that had for them become boring and overly conventional” (15).

What made Larkin’s poem so shocking in the 1971, as well as today, is the incorporation of the technique called defamiliarization. In Larkin’s poem he uses the common and familiar word “fuck” and defamiliarizes it by referencing it to ones parents. Unlike poem in past history that often praised the virtues of parents and obedience, Larkin goes against the grain by resisting the traditional prose in poetry (i.e roughened up language) and instead uses everyday slang in his verses.

Larkin is similar to Tolstoy who, “Described the [religious] dogmas and rituals he attacked as if they were unfamiliar, substituting everyday meaning for the customary religious meaning of the words common in church ritual. Many persons were painfully wounded; they considered it blasphemy to present as strange and monstrous what they accepted as sacred” (Rivkan 18). Many readers both today and well in the 70s found Larkin’s use of everyday vulgar language highly offensive.

However, Larkin’s goal in his poem is to challenge his readers, especially his young readers, to reject the socially habitual way they have always viewed their parents and Grandparents. Rivkin says, “the general law of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual it becomes automatic” (15).
Television shows in the 1950s like Leave It To Beaver, portrayed parents as perfect, all-knowing, all-wise, and without any faults. It became habitual for adults and children living in the 50s to watch perfect families like the Cleaver’s until they were overly familiarized by the images on screen.

Larkin defamiliarized the notion of the ideal perfect parents by telling his reader that all parents have faults that are passed down from generation to generation. Ironically, Larkin calls on his young reader to have some sympathy for their parents. They may not mean to, but they do… But they were fucked up in their turn. By fools in old-style hats and coats, who half the time were soppy-stern and half at one another's throats.
Larkin’s poem succeeds in shocking his reader as well as disrupting the habitual ways of seeing and thinking.

Works Cited

Shklovshy, Viktor. “Art as Technique”. Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell publishing; United Kingdom, 2004.

Larken, Philip. “This Be the Verse”. Black, Joseph. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Broadview press; Canada, 2007.

Word Art

A family gathers for Thanksgiving dinner, and the much awaited turkey has arrived. Ironically, everyone seated at the table focuses on one another and not the turky. The family -aunts, uncles, and niece -are completely absorbed in their own conversations and do not see the delicious turkey being presented to them. The Grandfather and Grandmother are the only two people focused entirely on the turkey.

There is a contrast between the young and older generation. They are caught up in the festive moment and seem to take for granted the hard work of the Grandmother who is still wearing her apron. The Grandfather stands over his wife at the head of the table, and re-enforces the masculine/feminine roles of the time.The table is also very bare and the family drinks water instead of wine. There is celery on the table which is not a traditional Thanksgiving food.

At the bottom righthand corner a man looks out at the viewer(us!)and we realized that we are part on the table too! His mouth is concealed, but he looks as though he is speaking to us. We (the viewer) are seated at the head of the table smiling back.