Literary theory and literary analysis work together to help you understand a text.
You can think of literary theory as a pair of glasses. Theory serves as a lens through which to view the text. It can help you know which type of questions to ask about the text. Literary analysis is the close reading you do to explore the elements in a text. For example, you might examine the elements of characters, language, and theme. When you bring theory and analysis together, you create an interpretation, which is your explanation of what the text means and why it matters. Theory helps you decide what to pay attention to, and analysis helps you understand what you find. When someone reads a text using both literary theory and analysis, it makes the reading experience much deeper and more meaningful. Over time, new interpretations can even influence or reshape the theories themselves.
You can think of theory like a pair of glasses. You are seeing the story through a specific lens. Theory helps you determine the type of questions to ask while reading a text. Let’s look at an example using the classic fairytale, Cinderella. Cinderella is a kind and hopeful young woman who is mistreated by her stepfamily, yet she never loses her sense of goodness. With a bit of magical help, she gets the chance to go to a royal dance. She captures the prince’s heart and rises above her circumstances when he finds her again using the glass slipper she lost.
When we analyze the story through a specific literary theory, it becomes much more than a simple fairy tale. Marxist theory prompts us to consider who holds economic power and how they utilize it. We begin to see how Cinderella’s stepfamily controls every aspect of her life because they possess the resources, while she doesn’t. When we consider the story from a feminist theory lens, we notice how female characters are treated based on beauty, behavior, and social expectations. This helps us recognize how the story rewards certain kinds of femininity while dismissing others. Together, these questions help us understand not just what happens in the story, but what the story is saying about class, gender, and the kinds of people who are allowed to rise above their circumstances.
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