Background:
As I have mentioned previously, a piece of literature is likely to have more than one theme. You have found themes by taking note of the meaning that you and the author together create as you encounter the text (Reader Response approach to analysis) and you have found themes by analyzing the way that literary devices work to bring certain ideas to light (Formalist approach to analysis) . In this unit on the novel, you are going to gain experience seeing literature from the perspective of someone who aligns himself/herself with a particular school of thought. Literary scholars often do, over the course of many years of reading and studying literature, come to see patterns in the sorts of things they attach to and which seem meaningful when interpreting and analyzing the texts. There are several of these “schools of thought” or approaches in literary criticism/analysis. In this unit you have been introduced to a six of these approaches to add on to the Formalism and Reader Response approaches which you have already learned about and practiced using.
Any of these (now) eight approaches could be used to good effect to locate and prove a theme in JM Coetzee’s novel Disgrace.
The question is—which of these schools of thought do you find particularly fruitful, fun, interesting? Which one or two help you to really hone in on a theme, an overall message about humanity, life, how things work, etc.
Your Task:
After familiarizing yourself with the approaches to literary criticism you read about it Writing about Literature, pgs. 181-194, and now that you have read part of the novel Disgrace, choose two approaches to apply to the work.
Write a 6-8 page essay that discusses what you take as one of the primary, overall meanings in Disgraceand how you have come to that conclusion.