As your first assignment you will complete the following tasks:
1. You will look up research on “the gaze” and tell me how you understand it
2. You will discuss specifically by using quotes, two scholarly sources and how they helped you grasp the concept.
Below is my short explanation but I expect yours to be more thorough and detailed.
In general the gaze “refers to the hierarchical and ideological ways in which spectators view images of people, as well as to the gaze or look of those portrayed.” To apply this concept to literature is to analyze how the storyteller uses their “power” of watching, observation, and telling of the story. Through the act of writing authors exercise their “power” to enforce the “truths” they tell. They tell the story how THEY see it. Now, why is this important? Well one who controls the gaze controls the narrative. What happens to those writers whose writing is omitted from literature we teach? When only one story through one dominant perspective is told? What are the consequences in how we see the world and our place in it?
