UNIT 38 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

38.1 Objectives
38.2 Introduction
3 HistoricalApproach
38.4 Riographical Approach
38.5 Psychological Approach
38.6 Marxist Approach
38.7 . Formalist Approach
38.8 Feminist Approach
38.9 Reader Response Appoach
38.10 Let [Js Sum Up
38.11 Answers to Exercises

38.1 ODJECTIVES
At the end of this Unit you should be able to :
identify some of the critical perspectives available to us in analysing texts;
define the different perspectives
A knowledge of these will help you to approach texts in more ways than one so that
you will be able to unravel the many dimensions that make up a literary text.

38.2 INTRODUCTION

It would be wrong to assume that these perspectives are water tight compartments with
which a novel may be explored and annlysed. Far from it, as all these perspectives are
inter related and there is no way to separate one from the other. But for the sake of
convenience we will try to fonn some basic ideas about each one of these perspectives

38.3 HISTORICAL APPROACH

While reading a novel you may feel that there are a number of ways b, which you can
approach the subject matter. Take for example, Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.This novel
may be explored from a historical perspective because the events are set during a crucial
phase of European history. As the fires of revolution engulfed France during the later half
of the eighteenth century, its neighbouring country, England could not remain unaffected.
In the opening lines of the novel there is a special emphasis on the word 'time' and
Dickens evokes the complexity of the historical situatio~iby suggesting that contradictions
had become quite natural at that time. History does not only mean the destiny of a nation
and its rulers. In the novel we see how individuals who do not have anything to do with
the revolution directly are slowly drawn into larger historical events and how tlieir lives go
through turmoil, tensions and tragedies because of situations over which they have no

Another interesting thing about the novel is that 1 ) I , \ c L ~ i hwas writing a novel in 1858
which had as its background the French Revolut11 I )id tile French revolutirri have
special meaning to Dickens in the middle of the 19th century'?What cot~clusionswas
Dickens d~awingfrom history? What was the socta; rid ecotromlc colid~tioklof Eiigllurd at
A N O V U ~:A RebpspsctSve thk time this novel was being written. If ydu have read some of Dickens other works like
Hard Times and Dombey and Son you will realise that Dickens was greatly concerned at
the socio-economic disparity between the rich and the poor and apprehended that a clash
between the two classes was inevitable if the society at large did not address itself to the
grievances of the poor and the underprivileged immediately. Is it possible that though the
novel A Tale of Two Cities Dickens was forewarning his Victorian readers that a similar
fate like that of France a hundred years ago awaited England if the growing disparity
between the rich and the poor was not controlled. After all it was the poor and the
dispossessed of France who had fired the revolution. In other words Dickens would prefer
that socio-economicand political problems be solved without one having to resort to
bloody violence because it brings too much grief to everyone, particularly to those who
are innocent and have nothing to do with the revolution. But there are people who believe
that a violent revolution is the only way that economic and social inequality and injustice
may be ended. Do you think such people will appreciate Dickens moderate approach
towards the problem?
To answer the questions we have raised one has not to read in detail the historical back
ground to the French Revolution and the Victorian Age in England but also interpret Ule
text with that historical infomation. There is no one kind of history, because history is a
'point of view which changes depending on whose point of view it is. For example many
English historians believe that English imperialism was a boon to pre-industrialised
societies as found in India and Africa and that modem civilisation was possible in these
societies only because of Western Europeqn influence. Whereas many Indian historians
are convinced that the English were chiefly for the callous destruction of a very delicate
cultural fabric that was the essence of Indian life prior to the arrival of the English and the
other European colonisers sometime in the middle of the 16th century. Ydur historical
perspective depends on the history you are prepared to believe in which in this case is
likely to be determined more by the prompti~lgsof patriotism than any scholarly research!
Of the six novels that you are studying, three of the authors are contemporary. They are
Attia Hosain, Gopinath Mohanty and Chinua Achebe. Whereas Charles Dickens,
Nathaniel Hawthorne and George Orwell are authors from the past. While reading their
novels we are dealing with three kinds of history, firstly, the historical time in which they
lived and worked, secondly, the llistorical time that they write about and finally the
historical time in which the novel is being read which in our w e is the lasf decade of the
20th century. We have to deal with thee historical time periods when we analyse a novel
by Dickens or Hawthorne. But for works which are written by contemporary writers we
need tefocus our attention on two historical timefrmes, the past that is being depicted in
the novel and the present in which the novel is being read.
We must remember that history flows like a river. The past and the present are inter
twirled and each influences the reading and understanding of the other. it is difficult not to
acknowledge the influence of history, particularly when you are dealing with any work of
art. After all the artist lives and works in a certain historical period In fact the study of the
life and times of a particular artist is a special kind of historical study. If you were to
analyse a novel by focusing yourself only on the life and time of the novelist who wrote it,
it would be said Ihat you were adopting a biographical approach.

38.4 BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH

\

One of the most traditional ways of analysing a novel is to establish a link between
incidents and events that may have occurred in the novelist's life and events that form a
part of the novel's narrative structure. When we read a novel, one of the questions we very
often ask ourselves is "why has the writer written this". We may be able to discover tlie
answer to such a question if we are able discover something in the writer's life which is
directly conencted to what has been written. Such connections do exist and any scholar
who is researching into the life of a writer may find such connections most illuminating, in
the way it throws light on the workings of the writer's mind.
It cannot be denied that situations. circumstances and events in a writer's life may leave a
profound impact on herlhis mind and may be reflected in hidher writings. In fact the
novelist gives creative expressions to the experiences of hisher life. No matter how
imaginative she is, dhe cat) not deny hidher own history and often writes about
14
 something slhe about. The fact that Dickens spent a childhood of poverty, want 'and
anxiety is reflected in many of the child characters of his novels. As it political worker and
thinker, Orwell's private disillusioilment with applied socialism is reflected in both his
novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Animal Farm. Attia I-Iossain's personal
knowledge about the life within a tradition bound Muslim family hnds expression in her
t novel. You may be able to discover, if you study in detail the life of ilny novelist, many
I instances where a personal experiei~cehas found its creative expressioi~in the either the
plot, character or the narrative structure of the novel. Such study is always interesting and
often fascinating, but a critical appreciatioo of a novel cannot only be based on a
I biographical exploration, because biographical links are only one of the aspects of the
novel that one needs to study. If the basis of the novel is only biographical, which is to
assume that the contents of the novel have no significance other than the fact that they
have certain links with the writer's life then obviously one is limiting oneself in one's
understanding of the significance of ar~ycreative effort.
While approachirg a novel from a biographical perspective you will be constmltly aware
of a tension hetween the private life of the writcr and the novel which is a public
presentation. It is also a clash between the subjective self of the author and the objective
worId that sur~our~ds hiidher. This happens to most artists and often the product of such a
clash and the resulting tension is the work of art itself. The writer may be aware of the
world outside or may not be. The outside and the inside may fuse inside the subconcious
of the writer", mind and for a student interested in biograp11y all this will h very
interesting.
I
1 One of the dangers of a critical approach based on biography is that one tends to give too
much emphasis to biographical facts and that often clouds our underslimding of the total
significance of the novel. For exunple a novelist may have had il very unhappy m'arried
life, and may have had a divorce or a separation from his wife; does that mean he can not
write about happiness and marriage? A writer may have been a miser all his life, does that
mean he cannot create a character in his novel who is a spendthrift? Suppose a writer does
something in his private life tllat we may consider immoral, like visiting a prostitute, does
that mean he has no right to write about social morality, or that his notions about morality
have no importance? We must be careful not to mix biography and the creative expression
in such a way that our understanding becomes reductive and limited.
p

38.5 PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

The characters in the novels that you have read are all creatioils of the authors, but they
are nc?t really puppets. In the sense that once they are created they behave in a coilsistent
fashion and the novelist cannot make them do anything but that which is consistent with
their character. If they do solnething inconsistent, we 'ue surprised and we look for a
reason. This consiste~~cy is inevitable because the novelist has to be true to the
psychological make up of hisher character. A c11,uacter cannot bc mindless. It is in the
mind of a character that the processes of behavior, thought, actioil arid speech are
formulated.
The science of psychology gives us methods and models by which we may be able to
analyse the ways and means by which a mind of a person works. Characters in a novel are
people, though imaginatively created but in ulally ways a reflection of the real. When you
approach a novel with the intention of scrutinising the working of a chmcter's mind you
are adopting the psychological approach. You may also scrutinise the 'way the mind of the
novelist has worked while slhe created the novel, which would be connected in more than
one sense with a biographical analysis. You may also wish to analyse the psychology of a
reader or readers in the way they receive a certain novel. For exarnple what was the social
psychology of the urban middle class in tlle 19th century Victorian England tl~atthey
found the novels written by Dickens and Conan Doyle so entertaining?
The study of psychology assumed great importance during the later half of the 19th
century in Europe. A German psychologist named Sigmund Freud made certain
observations about the human mind that not only shocked the society of his time but
brought about a radical change in the perception about the functioning of the human mind.
Firstly, Freud observed that the human mind is not a passive receiver of information. He
felt that the human mind had a dynamism of its own ai~dcould function independent of the
A Novel :A Retrospective individual will. For Freud the energy of the mii~dwas sexual in nature aild he called it
libido. Secondly, Freud said that the mind is divided into three chanbers. First the
co1:scious chamber where all tl~eimpressions and informations are galhered, secondly the
unconscious chambir where the impressio~~s i111d the illformations tllat have been gathered
in the conscious chamber me pushed when not in use. And finally and most important of
all, the subconscious chamber which lies somewhere in between the conscious and
unconscious chambers. The subconscious chLamberworks when tl~econscious chamber is
shut off, as it is when we sleep. Then. as if tl~edoor of the unconscious opens and lets out
random images and impressions that are stored in them. This is wliilt Freud called a dream.
Freud analysed many dreams 'and he concluded that the impressions and ideas that an
individual wishes to suppress or repress, things that he wishes to forget about, emerge out
of the recesses of the unconscious when the dominating cllrunber of consciousness has
been shut off due to sleep. So dreams become a symbolic expression of our wishes and
desires that we hove had to suppress due to social or any other restriction. These theories
had a far reaching impact and opened up areas of research which were previously not
thought of. One of Freud's disciples, Carl Jung applied many of Freud's ideas to a mass
of people, a race or a society. He felt that just as an individual has a memory so does a
race or a society. The individual shares that memory even though he may not be conscious
of it. Many ofFreud ideas cane as a shock to the conservative 19th century society of
Europe, just as Darwin's ideas had shocked everyone. Freud's ideas seemed to prove many
of I),arwin's theories. Darwin had established that the human race evolved from lesser
animals and Freud suggested that the human mind has a growth of its own tiom the
insinctuill to the rational to the super rational. Could violence, murder, rape and hate be
the expression of the bestial and the instinctual with the mind of a human being? Could
someone love instinctively without reason? Redasonwas sometl~ingto do with
civilisation, education and thought whereas instinct was sorne~laingnatural and animal-
like. Some intellectuals and 'mists of the 19th century felt Lllat civilisation and culture was
something artificial and unnatural and preferred the natural iu\linctive life which they
thought was truthful and therefore spiritual. The novelist D.H. I .awrence was one such
intellectual.
Further, psychologists also theorised that tlle human mind developed certain complexes,
which determined the personality of an individual. A son who was too attached to his
mother was thought to have the Oedipus complex. The individual who was uncertain of
himself and not bold enough was said to be suffering form an inferiority complex. A
human personality could now be analysed as a type.
Though the human mind came be to understood as chambers, they were not watertight
chambers. In fact ideas flowed from one to the other freely and a real
compartmentillisation could never be done. It was more like the flowing stream- tlle
stream of conscious~~ess-tlle free flow of ideas in the mind. Suppose you were to sit down
in a quiet place alone with a machine that is able to write down all the thoughts that cross
your mind automatically. What wouJd happen? A stream of ideas would begin to get
written down in the machine, not all of it would be logical ,and mucl'~of it would be about
things that you would never perhaps think of discussing with anyone!
All 1111\ provided exciting possibilities not only to the novelists but also to the critic and
the reader. A new way of cu~alysingthe text evolved where the focus was the analysis of
the mind of the character and the novelists. Also it provided the novelist with a new
technique of narration, by which the novelist was able to cnrry on with the story by
following faithfully the thoughts of a character. It is as if tlle novelist sits back and just
records the thoughts that flash across the mind of hisfher ch,uacter. Of the six novels tlmt
you have read, where all do you feel hat tl~enovelist has employed tllis technique?
The psychological interpretation is like going on a journey into the mind of the novelists
and their characters. This journey is interesting because the mind is a complex milze of
ideas, impressions and informations and'one is never sure as to how these would combine
to provide the impetus for a certain action or bebaviour. It is this mysteriousness of tlle
mind, the why it defies standards ,and structures nnd always surprises us with tl~estrange
and awkward, that fascinates. How often have cllwacters in the novcls that we have read
surprised us by doing something that we were 11otexpecting? On the other hi11ld Hester
Pryne's stoic sile~lceis an eloquent testimony to the streaglll of her mind, because her
suffering is not physical but mental. Mohiulty and Achebe study the psychology of the
Novels provide us with strange situations, ones that do not happen regularly. In these Critical Perspectives
situations the human mind is stretched to its limit and put through a kind of endurance test
and we often see that the mind displays great flexibility and adaptability.
The psychological approach of analysis has certain limitations. Over-emphasising the
psychology of a character may make us forget about social and historical situations and we
may also ignore the central theme or the moral and ethical questions that the novelist is
drawing our attention to. Only when we are able to integrate the psychological analysis to
the other perspectives in a balanced manner may we be able to claim that we have
analysed a novel objectively. But then this is true for all approaches; we cannot afford,
when we study a novel to over-emphasise a certain perspective at the cost of others.

38.6 MARXIST APPROACH

You are aware that the there is a close link between the development of the novel as a
literary fomr and industrialisation, urbanisation and the growth and rise of an
economically strong class of people known as the middle-class or the 'bourgeoisie'. It is
significant that the genesis of the novel can be traced to eighteenth century Europe, a
period which marked the beginning of industrial development. The economic strength of
the middle-class rested on the way it was able to generate 'profit' from the industry and
distribute it The middle-class did not share the values and life style of either tl~elanded
aristocracy or the rural farmer and artisan. Flushed with hard cash earned with relative
ease with the help or ever improving machines the middle class set out to redefine codes
of social conduct and behaviour. Profit-making was the ultimate enterprise and all
endeavour towards that end was deemed as morally positive. The old life style and value
system of the feudal ages was severely challenged by a changing society which was
becoming increasingly materialistic and dependent on machines.
What then IS the real connection between the middle-class and the novel? Perhaps it was a
desire to enjoy a story-telling session. The industrial age equated money with lime and the
moneyed middle-class could afford to spend a part of its time for enlertainment and
leisure. Unlike the aristocrat, the middle-class factory owner or the business man could not
go on a long holiday for hunting or travel, he had to have quick entertainment preferably
at home or at the theater or the dance hall. Since the middle-class bad enough money to be
able to afford education; reading also became a part of leisurely activity. The developing
industry provided from time to time adv'mced printing technologies which helped in the
publication of books. The publisher naturally wanted his books to sell and it was
important that the novels were read by a large number of people, therefore the content of
the novel had to be something that would interest a large number of people. Since the
middle-class was the reading clientele it was natural that the novel content concerned
itself with the themes that would interest the middle-class. It is necessary that this middle-
class readership interact and relate itself to the characters, situations and the moral
perspectives that a novel offers. Thus the novel generally focuses itself on the dominant
ideas, discussions and debates of its time. The novel gives an artistic expression to the
dominant ideas of its age. The participation of the novel in a social debate or discussion is
vital in the way it positions itself. Ideas of an age may be in conflict with each other ind
the novelist may explore the contradictions or slhe may opt for a viewpoint which may not
be the majority view in which case the novel is likely to become controversial. In short,
the novelist, the novel and the reader engage themselves in some kind of a me'aningful
discussion and the novelist makes sure that what slhe writes would attract the readers.
The Industrial Age was a distinct break from the feudal agrarian system of socio-economic
life. Human history was put to scrutiny and many historians interpreted the dawn of an
industrial age as the climax of a progressing civilisation. Karl Marx, a German thinker and
economist, interpreted human history from an economic point of view and suggested that
society is mainly governed by economic forces and a change in the economic structure of
a society generally results in an overall change in the society, because it was the economic
relationship between various classes within a social order that determined the nature of a
social syslem. He felt that material property and its ownership was central to any
economic and social system. The social class which owned property was also politically
powerful and was able to determine the rules, regulations and even the moral and ethical
structllres of 9 c n r i r ' . It was in the interest of this class to ensure that the property that
A Novel :A Rebvspeclive Further, Marx suggested that the industrial society would fillally have only two classes of
people. The 'haves' and the 'have-nots': the capitalists and the proletariat. The capitalist
elms, that owned property and capital would be able to set up industries by purchasing ,
land, machines and human labour to earn profit. Tlle proletariat would consist of people
who poksessed no property or capital and were totally at the mercy of the 'capitalist'
because its livelihood depended on its being able to sell its own labour. Tlle govenlnlent
of such a society would cater to the interests of the capitalist class and would formulate
laws and rules that helped in maintaining the status quo. Such a society would generally
accept only that literature which upheld values; ethical, moral and aesthetic, that in no
way challenged the dominance of the capitalist class. Creative efforts by individuals or
groups that challenged the system would be considered either immoral or subversive.
Marx balieved that the society was always engaged in the dynamics of a struggle between
the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. Historically the proletariat class would inevitably over
throw the ruling capitalist class and establish a classless society where the worker would
not work for a master but for the good of the wliole society. In such a society there would
be no one making profit because there would be no private enterprise. This was Marx's
socialist dream. One for all and all for one. He envisaged that with the progression of
history the class conflict would accentuate to a point where the proletariat would lake over
power and establish a classless society. This was the real revolution. Marxs interpreted
history and demonstrated how in the past there had been historical situations where the
ruling class had been severely challenged by the oppressed classes and how the ruling
classes created various rules, laws, and regulations to contain the dissatisfaction.
According to Marx all the ideas, notions, sentiments, rules, laws, regulations, moral and
ethical codes, aesthetic evaluatio~lsthat help sustain the ruling class are termed 'ideology'.
Any literature that challenged this ideology was regarded as 'progressive' because it
helped the society towards revolution and all literature that consciously or unconsciously
propounded the social 'ideology' was considered 'reactionary' and regressive because it
impeded the flow of historical progress. If you put literary texts to this stringent Marxist
test you will discover, as Marx did, that much of literature that is popular or wcll-known
had to be defined as reactionary because it always fitted in with the domillant ideas of its
time. Marxists feel that the seeds of revolution and progressive thoughts are hidden in
literary texts that are never patronised by the ruling class and never find favour with the
dominant ideas of its time. This is what is known as the alternative text or subaltern
literature because it is able to suggest a real alternative to the 'ideology' of the society
where it has its genesis. For example you may be aware that workers often hum songs and
tunes which help them to overcome the monotony of their work. Suppose you were to
make a collection of these songs. it may provide you with the glimpse of a revolutionary
sub-text. Of the six novels you have read, which one do you think challenges the social
order and its 'ideology' most severely?
A novelist as we know is trying to tell a story in the most interesting way possible. If she
diverted herlhiinself from that task and undertook the cause of spreading the ideas of Marx
through hisher novels slhe would perhaps cease to be a novelist and become a
propagandist. But the novelist is an artist who lives and experiences hidher own historical
time and she will be as much influenced by 'ideology' as slhe would be sensitive to the
forces that seek to change the social order. It is quite likely that the novel s h e writes will
reflect both. The novelist may also propagate hidher own beliefs and ideas but how slhe
draws the line between propaganda and an artistic expressions of ideas, thoughts and
experiences is the real test.
If you were to adopt a Marxist approach to literary criticism, you would have to interrelate
the historical background of the novel with the biographical details of the novelist. The
historical background would provide you with the structure of the society in which the
novel was written. You would be able to identify how various class interests are reflected
in the novel and how the novelist has positioned herlhimself ideologically. The novel
depicts a part or the whole of the novelists' 'world-view'. It is possible that if the novel
faithfully mirrors the society then the truth about the actual state of the class conflict
within the society will manifest itself no matter what the ideological position of its creator
is. This is what is known as the 'triumph of reality'. Early Marxist critics looked into
literary texts and other creative expressions to highlight the real nature of a social structure
that would filter thorough a text about which its creator may or may not have been
conscious of. Marxist criticism does not place the artist in the centre of its critical focus,
Modem society is a complex matrix of many social relations and m;my ecollomic groups
and sub-groups. There are many classes of people m~dclass interests are always in
conflict. Therc: is also conflict between members of the same class. Say the workers in
America and India belong to the same class 'workers', but if Indian workers resist an
American industry from entering the Indian market they are coming into coilflict with the
interests of American workers. Marxist approach to literary criticism takes this plurality
into account and appreciates the socio-economicand cultural aspirations of diverse
societies and different economic classes.
..*
38,7 FORMALIST APPROACH
In many ways the formalist approach is the exact opposite of the Marxist approach. In the
Marxist approach we examined how the context of the work was as in~portant,if not more,
than the contents of the text. The Formalist approach which began in the form of New
Criticism in the 1930's in America emphasised the centrality of the text. There was no
reality other illan the text and it was stressed that the text itself contained an intrinsical
unity that conesponded with reality that the author wished to project, so if one examined
the text alone it would be possible to understand the reality it sought to project. The text
was thus regarded as an artistic endeavour where the author had at hidher disposal a set
r :words, wh,ich created imaginatrve patterns. Formalists make a close exanination of
these patterns in order to discover how words in relation to other words create meaning, or
how a group of ideas interact with another set of ideas to produce a new set of ideas in the
reader's mind. The artist is seen as a magician of words who is able to relate words to
words and ideas to ideas in unusual ways and surprise hidher readers. This way the artistic
language seerns to be something that one in not familiar with. The Formalists believe that
the author tries to make reality appear strange so that a new interest is generated in it.
After all there is somkthing special about the language of,a novel and a poem or a play.
Even if the artist tried to capture the lmguage of everyday life, the Formalist critic would
analyse the deliderateness of the attempl and point out the means, methods and strategies
that the novelist has adopted in order to achieve the desired effect. The Formalist sees a
work of art like the architect sees a construction. It is a structure of words and ideas that
are delicately arranged to present a unique form. The Formalist is interested in the form,
the arrangement.
Formalism posed a challenge to the previously accepted theory that all art was
representational: that art was.mimetic or reflective of reality. Formalists claimed that nrt
was a pre-determined and calculated effort at creating a certain impact. The text was like a
container and the Formalist critic was only interested in scrutinising what it coiltained and
how. Something like studying a flower arrangement for the sake of the arrangement only!!
Interestingly, Marxist critics and many sociologisls found the Formalist approach quite
useful. The Marxists interpreted that the 'form' of a text was itself a part of ideology and
went on to prove that certain forms represent certain kinds of social structure. Sociologists
found in the 1:ormalist approach a tool that could take them into the very genesis of
language and began to emphasise the socio-cultural implications of words and their
meanings in terms of linguistics and phonetics.
If a work of art was Like a construction, a structure, then it was possible, argued some
critics, that this structure could be broken down, deconstructed, in order to discover the
real intentions behind its creation. So when the artist or the author was m'aking a choice of
certain words.; deconstructionists began to look for words that the author was not selecting.
They asked themselves if there was a reason as to why the author chose certain words and
not others, just as a builder would choose certain materials and not others because a
specific kind of construction is required. So the next obvious question was, what kind of a
construction was a particular text and why had the author decided to structure the text in
that particular manner. The Marxist critics took this idea and proved that if the text was
broken down, its structure laid bare, if it was deconstructed and each layer of its meaning
untied then it was possible to expose the ideology that lay hidden behind it or on the
contrary, it may expose those forces of change and revolution that the text sought to hide
either as a deliberate strategy or inadvertently.
The origins of the Formalist approach may be traced back to the end of the niileteentll
century in the intellectual assumption of some artists and critics that art was for the sake of
19
A Novel :A Retmspeclivc art only. This was basically a reaction against the materialism and consumerism of an
Industrial Age. Art wits not a product that could be sold or purchased, as the artist's effort
was considered sacred and unique. The only way one could appreciate art was to
experience it from a purely objective, detached and disinterested perspective. Art was
somethmg transcendental and that could oilly be comprehended if it was approached wit11
awe and without any self inter.est. The Formalists approach ;ut without the interest of
either history or biography or psychology or even society. It is a differenct matter that the
techniques of the formalist approach were found useful and adopted by critics from
various other schools of critical approach to further their own aims.

38.8 FEMINIST APPROACH rn

The modem world is mainly patri,uchal in character, meaning that we live in a male-
dominated society. Just as we had seen that the capitalist class would like to create a
system of values and establish patterns of social behaviour that would in no way challenge
their supremacy, so would the male try to create a world in which there would be no scope
for the woinan to challenge his authority. Firstly he would define the word 'woman' and
make sure that the women actually believe this definition. For example, you have heard
that woman is 'the other half of man, or that she was created from one of the ribs of
Adam (a man!), or it was because of her sill of having eaten the fruit of knowledge that
Mankind fell from the grace of God. Men often try to prove that the female is physically
weaker and call her the 'weaker sex' and are therefore convinced of the idea that woman
are better suited to household work than men. However, the family property was handed
over from one male to another as generations passed and the woman was given a small
share of it as dowry during her mamage when she changed the family name. It was man
who defined the moral structure of his society. He detennined what was good for the
won~anand what was bad, even to the extent of what she should wear and what she should
not. Most of the moral and ethical rules of a patriarchal social system are likely to have
the woman on the receiving end because it was the man who defined the role of the
woman in a society which he controlled.
A novelist engaged in the task of narrating a story and depicting a social scene would
naturally be projecting the conditions of life as he saw them. One is not surprised that we
have more men writers than women. The reason could be two fold. One, that a society
where the role of a writer is not traditionally assigned to a woman would naturally produce
less women writers, two, that a male dominated society would not project women writers
and so no one would know of them. Perhaps both are m e . Then how do we explain the
existence of many famous women novelists? Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf,
Asha Puma Devi (Bengali novelist who won the Jnyanpith Award), and Toni Morrison
(winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature) to n'une a few. Could you say that the
novels of these writers do not challenge male authority? Or that the patriarchal society has
failed to notice the challenges that the novels of these writers pose towards its authority?
Or is it because so-called liberal societies have the capacity to promote and finally
accommodate radical ideas?
In order to discover in a text the position of how the woinan has been actually placed one
may analyse it from many angles. We could approach the problem sociologically or
psychologically or even biographically. Anotl~erperspective that one could adopt could be
the feminist perspective in which women and women's issues become central to tlle
textual analysis. This does not mean simply to identify the roles that the women are
playing in the text but to place those roles within the dynamics of a social order where the
w o m q i s placed second to man. Like many of the other approaches the genesis of this
criticalb$yach also lies in industrialisation.
Industrialisatiotl had brought out women from the traditional confitles of their hotnes into
the factories where they had to work shoulder to shoulder with men. Ry the end of tl~e
nineteenth century, women in Europe, particularly in England had already started voicing
demands and protesting against the discriminations against the female sex. There was a
long struggle by women to fight for a right to vote, which they finally got in the 1920's.
Women soon realised that the oppression in the society was closely related to the fact that
it was patriarchal. They also realised that women were a class by tllemselves. Rut unlike
economic rights but also for equal social and cultural status. A conscious attempt was
made to highlight the fact that women were discriminated against by men in terms of
dress, social behaviour and moral codes. The women consciously began to adopt modes of
behaviour that were considered to be the preserve of men only. This way they thought that
a challenge could be posed to male authority. In America this became the Women's
Liberation movement. By the middle of this century, there was a considerable rise of
consciousness among women all over the world due to the spread of education and the
development of communication. Larger numbers of women from different countries began
to participate in the women's rights movements. Seen in the global perspective this was
known i s the feminist movement. Feminism was intellectually and morally supported by
women from all fields of human activity. Women writers made a special contribution as
they began to highlight women-related issues in their writings. Feminists created a special
kind of critical theory to approach literature by which analysis and exploration of a text
from the women's point of view could be made. Today men are as much a part of this
movement as women are, because there is no doubt that a just and humane society can
only be created on terns of equality.
It is not that the problems of women began to surface in the novel because of the feminist
movement. In that case how are we to explain Hawthorne's characterisation of Hester
Prynne? If you were to approach Tbe Scarlet Letter from a feminist perspective you
would be focusing on the social, economic and cultural forces that determined Hester's
condition and relate it to the moral and ethical codes of a patriarchal society. You would
also look for suggestions within the text which pointed to those ideas that would be
responsible for a challenge to male authority at a later time. You may also look at the text
to show how it actually helped in perpetuating the dominant patriarchal ideas of its time
and yet discover within it a woman who stood up to challenge those ideas. As a feminist
critic you may relate Hawthorne's text to any other text in a different cultural set-up to
illustrate how patriarchal domination extended regional and race and cultural boundaries
and demonstrate that what was true of American society was true even in an Indian
context.
Feminist critical approaches have gone through a process of vigorous debate and today
there are many angles to it. Some feminist critics focus on the language of a literary text to
show how language is 'male centric' and contains a sexual bias. For example language
discriminates between a married woman (Mrs.) and an unmarried one (Miss) while it .
makes no such distinction in the case of men(Mr.). This is only a very simple example
Feminist ttheories dealing with language and gender are very complex and sophisticated.
It has been suggested mat language in a very subtle way reinforces the male idea of
superiority and dominance.
Some feminist critics examine texts from a cultural angle to determine the dominant
cultural forces that contribute towards the inequality of sexes. This approach includes
analysis of myths and other primal literary inputs that shape the cultural consciousness of
a society. Women have also begun to realise that the condition of women differs from
region to region and what could be considered a sexual bias in one region may not be so in
another. Indian women do not often share the western woman's perspective regarding sex
and family life. Women in industrialised societies have different problems than women in
the non-industrialised ones. It has also been recognised that class oppression may continue
in spite of feminist concerns. A nch white woman is likely to oppress a poor black woman
who happens to be her servant. A rich high caste woman may ill-treat a poor low caste
servant woman in India. Not only that, even a poor but high caste woman may culturally
oppress a poor low caste woman. So it is not that all women have joined forces against a
male dominated society. There are these gray areas which need to be understood. In the
novel Sunlight on a Broken Column you will discover how women ,are not able to come
out of the ideology of a male society in order to define themselves and how some of the
inherent prejudices prohibit them from doing so.
Feminist critics today accept the plurality of the global society. There is no one single
solution to the problems. No text, no novel can be put through a single feminist critical
perspective. Nevertheless it must be remembered that the idea of feminism is not to
establish a separate world of women, but to claim a socio-political and cultural space in a
soclety which would deny it. Feminist criticism is as much a literary exercise as it is a
social activity because it directs our attention to a social discrimination that is perhaps as
old as human civilisation itself.
21
A Novel : A ReM~gactive
READER-RESPONSE APPROACH

Modem critical approaches to literary texts can be divided into three groups. First, as a
preoccupation with the writer (historical, biographical and psychological approaches),
second, an exclusive concern with the text (formalism, structuralism, deconstruction)and
finally a shift in attention to the reader. Literature does not exist if it is not read because
the text receives its meaning only when it is subjected to the reading process. One of the
latest and very specialised kinds of critical activity concerns itself with what is known as
the Reception Theory. This deals with a theoritical formulation that puts the reader in the
centre of analysis. You will recollect that we had discussed that reading a novel was like a
discussion between the novelist, the reader and the characters of the novel. Most critical
perspectives that we have discussed so far keep the text and the creator of the text, in this
case the novelist, at the centre of their critical analysis. But if we approach a text from the
reader-response perspective we will be examining a text in the context of the response it
generates amongst its readers.
What really is reading? It is not simply the understanding of the meaning of words and
phrases and sentences. It is not just grasping the story. Reading means a participation of
the reader in a dialogue between herlhiiself and the text, where dhe is cotlstantly asking
questions, drawing inferences and making assumptions. The text according to the
reception theorist is like a scheme, a set of suggestions that the reader must interpret and
assimilate from herlhis own perspective. This process of 'actualising' the text is dynamic
because as the reader continues to read from one page to another herlhis understanding of
the text keeps changing. The reader may have to revise hidher opinions, shed some of Ule
old assumptions and build new ones. The act of reading is not one-directional, the reader
can move forward or backwards simultaneously, predicting or recollecting. Say you were
reading A Tale of Two Cities and you had reacl~edthe middle, will you not be able to
reflect on the past incidents and at the same time conceive in your mind what is likely to
happen in the future? So you will be actually recreating the future action of the novel in
your mind and as you read along, the story may go just like you liad Tllought it would,
which will you give you a creator's satisfaction or on the other hand if things turned
differently you would have the excitement of experiencing a surprise. Some theorists
believe that the most effective literary text is the one which forces the reader to a new
kind of awareness about things which she is used to and takes for granted. A text may
force you to make a critical assessment of some of the values that you believed in. A
valuable work of literature questions the beliefs and habits that we consider nornlal and
forces us to accept new ways of perception. When a reader reads a text s h e transforms it
by hidher own understanding of the world, but simultaneously the text also transfornls tile
reader's understanding of the world. The good reader is an open-minded readgr who will
allow the text to question hidher own perconceptions and beliefs and be willing to accept
new perceptions and thoughts.
When a text is placed for a reader-response analysis on a historical perspective we have to
determine how the text was read by its readers at different points of time. What kind of
questions did its reading pose to its readers? Did the readers modify their assumptions
about the world on the reading of the text? If so, how much? It is basically an attempt to
understand how the reader feels on reading a particular text. You may have heard of
novels that have fired the imaginations of its readers in such a way as to pave tl~eway for
a socio-political change. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Anand Matb, created a great
political storm because it must have made its readers question their political position vis-
a-vis the fact that India was under British doinination and the readers inust have been
forced to see themselves in a completely new political equation. The critic interested in
the reader-responseapproach deals with such phenomena. Why is a ilovel popular and
why is it not? Why is it popular at a certain period of time and not so later? What is
popularity? It is also possible that the way a reader reads a text may be at variance with
the way a specialised critic, both of whom are readers reads a text, so the assumptions
made by 3le critic may also be questioned by juxtaposing it with the reader-response.

22
A Novel :A R e b ~ s p c B v e
A Novel :A ReIrospac6've
38.10 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit we introduce some of the established critical approaches hat mily be adorted
while analysing a text. These ,are the historical, the biographicd and the psychological
approaches. We have also briefly looked at the Marxist, formalist and feminist approaches
and concluded with a discussion of reader-response criticism. This IJnit lxs given you a
brief overview of these different appro,whes with the hope chat you will read in greater
detail about the particular perspective that interests you. A suggested reading list in the
next Unit will help you towards this. As an Indian you may be interested to look into the
aesthetic lheories as formulated by Rharat Muni in his farnous treatise Natyashashtra and
apply those to critically examine a novel hat you have read.

38.1 1 ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

1 For example, if you were to choose a scene from The Scarlet Letter, you could use
either the historical, tlle psychological or the feminist approach. However, the choice
is yours !
2 Refer to 38.9
3+4 Here you need to be imaginative and creative if you are to come up with interesting
questions and answers !
5 . Here you could take up Nineteen Eighty-Four or Paraja .