Everything below is copied and pasted from my assignment. TO BE CLEAR: the assignment simply called to pick one question from one form of criticism (I’ll leave that up to you for which criticism you choose) and use it to analyze The Beach by Alex Garland. This teacher is very philosophical so it doesn’t matter what form you follow for the essay. The sources that you should use are “The Beach by Alex Garland” and “Critical Theory Today: by Lois Tyson”.
This is a formal essay to wrap up unit 3. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed Garland’s The Beach, and perhaps you’ve even had a chance to watch the film adaptation directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leo DiCaprio
Please use MLA format. Please include in-text citations, and a properly formatted works cited page. This paper should be approximately 2000 words maximum.
Some ideas to help:
1) Use Google Docs (Google Docs has an MLA template, and they also generate citations)
2) Use your Discussion Board posts to help you bring in some material you’ve already discussed. Maybe you have already said something in a previous discussion that you would like to roll into this essay. I am totally okay with this. Just be careful how you do it. I’d rather you referred to your discussions as if they were focused formal free writes, but it is up to you how you want to use them. I was hoping you could use them to help you with this essay.
3) Pick either New Criticism, Reader Response Criticism or Structuralism. Once you’ve selected a theory, refer to the section in Tyson’s book called “Questions _______Critics ask about literary texts.” I’ve included them below. Pick a theory, and then, pick a question. Remember, new critics ask one question because they believe there is one answer in the text based on the text’s formal elements.
The question new critics asked about literary texts:
Given New Criticism’s focus on the single meaning of the text and its single method of establishing that meaning, it should not be surprising that our list of questions New Critics asked about literary texts should consist of only one complex question:
What single interpretation of the text best establishes its organic unity? In other words, how do the text’s formal elements, and the multiple mean- ings those elements produce, all work together to support the theme, or overall meaning, of the work? Remember, a great work will have a theme of universal human significance. (If the text is too long to account for all of its formal elements, apply this question to some aspect or aspects of its form, such as imagery, point of view, setting, or the like . . . .)
Some questions reader‐response critics ask about literary texts:
The questions that follow are offered to summarize reader‐response approaches to literature or, more accurately, to the reading of literature. Question 1 draws on transactional reader‐response theory. Questions 2 and 3 relate to affective stylistics. Question 4 draws on psychological reader‐response theory. Question 5
relates to social or psychological reader‐response theory, and Question 6 draws on subjective reader‐response theory.
1. How does the interaction of text and reader create meaning? How, exactly, does the text’s indeterminacy function as a stimulus to interpretation? (For example, what events are omitted or unexplained? What descriiptions are omitted or incomplete? What images might have multiple associations?) And how exactly does the text lead us to correct our interpretation as we read?
2. What does a phrase‐by‐phrase analysis of a short literary text, or of key portions of a longer text, tell us about the reading experience prestructured by (built into) that text? How does this analysis of what the text does to the reader differ from what the text “says” or “means”? In other words, how might the omission of the temporal experience of reading this text result in an incomplete idea of the text’s meaning?
3. How might we interpret a literary text to show that the reader’s response is, or is analogous to, the topic of the story? In other words, how is the text really about readers reading, and what exactly does it tell us about this topic? To simplify further, how is a particular kind of reading experience an important theme in the text? Of course, we must first establish what reading experience is created by the text (see Question 2) in order to show that the theme of the story is analogous to it. Then we must cite textual evidence—for example, references to reading materials, to characters read‐ ing texts, and to characters interpreting other characters or events—to show that what happens in the world of the narrative mirrors the reader’s situation decoding it.
4. Drawing on a broad spectrum of thoroughly documented biographical data, what seems to be a given author’s identity theme, and how does that theme express itself in the sum of his or her literary output?
5. What does the body of criticism published about a literary text suggest about the critics who interpreted that text and/or about the reading experi‐ ence produced by that text? You might contrast critical camps writing dur‐ ing the same period, writing during different periods, or both. What does your analysis suggest about the ways in which the text is created by readers’ interpretive strategies or by their psychological or ideological projections?
Some questions structuralist critics ask about literary texts:
The following questions are offered to summarize structuralist approaches to literature. Keep in mind that structuralists don’t try to determine whether or not a literary text constitutes great literature. Their focus is on the structural systems that underlie and generate literary meaning.
1. Using a specific structuralist framework (such as the ones we examined by Frye and Scholes), how should the text be classified in terms of its genre?
2. Using a specific structuralist framework (such as that of Greimas, Todo‐ rov, or Genette), analyze the text’s narrative operations. Can you speculate about the relationship between the text’s “grammar” and that of similar texts? Can you speculate about the relationship between the text’s gram‐ mar and the culture from which the text emerged?
3. Using Culler’s theory of literary competence, what rules or codes of interpretation must be internalized in order to “make sense” of the text? Depending on the text in question, it might be necessary to identify codes in addition to those specified by Culler. (In other words, what does a given text contribute to our knowledge of literary competence?)
4. What are the semiotics of a given category of cultural phenomena, or “texts,” such as high school football games, television and/or magazine ads for a particular brand of perfume (or any other consumer product), or even media coverage of a historical event, such as Operation Desert Storm, an important legal case, or a presidential election campaign? In other words, analyze the nonverbal messages sent by the “texts” in question, as well as the semiotic implications of such verbal “tags” as “Desert Storm” or “White Diamonds” (a brand of perfume). What is being communicated, and how exactly is it being communicated
