Wrap it up

Overall this class has been interesting and challenged. I think that critical theory is difficult subject matter for the most part. I like how we eased into it with liberal humanism because most of us were already familiar with it. It's the way we learned about literature in the past. The idea that literature is an art, it is a vehicle for knowledge and literature enlightenment. It makes you more "human" by reading, interpretig, and understanding it

It took me time with most of the other concepts though. I found that i struggled with marxism and i'm not sure why most people seemed to get it pretty easy while on the other hand structuralism and post structuralism came fairly easy.

The most interesting theory was the psycho-analytic. Not just because i presented on it but i think that frued and lacan produced some signinficant theories. I'm drawn to concept of the unconcious and how it makes us act and feel. It really makes me woder how so much can be figured out by using the unconcious to find meaning behinnd ones thoughts or literary work.

When it comes to Mantissa and Cloud 9 i enjoyed reading both but i think cloud 9 was a lot easier to relate to feminism, colonialism, and post-colonialism than any of the theories to mantissa. It's very clear how those concept are aprent throughout the play. For instance clive is the "head of the house" in the first act. Betty and edward base their lives around him. He disempowers betty and edward because all they want to do is please him, they throw aside their feelings and what they desire. Cloud 9 shows how the colonial strcuture impacted how people lived, what was right, and what was socially acceptable.

This has been one of the most difficult classes i've taken at emmanuel but i feel it has been rewarding at the same time. I can look at literary works in from several different ways.

Not sure

I don't really understand the feminism view on literature that well. I don't see how some words can be masculine and some feminine. I don't understand how a whole literary work could be considered feminine unless it was something discussing feminism. I'm not really sure about the whole concept of feminist discourse or masculine for that matter. How can you give a peice of literature a sex? I understand different points of view but it's not clear how it can be categorized as one or the other.

baudrilliard

the first thing i have to question is that who is baudrilliard? i mean what is he? He is considered a postmodernist even though he argued against postmodernism. i agree with his thoughts on marxism and how you have to use sign as well as the other aspects of marxism. Sign has so much value today, it drives our economy, without sign there wouldn't be brand names and symbols that people desire which would defeat our economy. Preexisting sign-value is important because we need a basis to branch off of for anything.

the idea of exchange-value and use-value is an interesting concept, losing sight of how much effort is put into the construction of something disapears when it is converted to a money value. I can see how people may lose sight of it's value, but the price of the object in my opinion reflects the work that has gone into that product. Baudrilliard gets it right when he talks about this and that it doesn't matter who produces it but that it is constantly produced because in capitalism it's all about new products for the consumers.