Genre Theory Analysis

GENRE CRITICISM

The Last Song

By Nicholas Sparks

Synopsis:

The Last Song is the story of Ronnie Miller and the summer that she spends with her father at Wrightsville Beach. At the start of the summer, she is a rebellious 17 year old who resents her parents for their messy divorce; she is particularly annoyed that she is being forced to spend the summer with her estranged father, to whom she has not spoken in three years. She is so angry that she has abandoned the one thing that she and her father used to share in common — playing the piano. She has no desire to spend the summer in North Carolina; she has no desire to get to know Will Blakelee, the good-looking beach volleyball player who literally bumps into her during her first day in the South; and she has no desire to reconnect with the father who walked away from her, her mother, and her brother. However, a run-in with the wrong crowd combined with a nest of endangered loggerhead turtle eggs results in Ronnie's unexpected maturation. The summer she initially dreaded ends up being an opportunity for her to learn about faith, family, and love.

Analysis:

 The last song is a novel because it has a unified and plausible plot structure, 

sharply individualized believable characters and a pervasive illusion of reality. This novel is a very inspiring and interesting novel to read. Also, this is a genre criticism theory because this is divided into chapters and cannot be read in just one sitting.

Narratology Theory Analysis

NARRATOLOGY

Footnote To Youth

By Jose Garcia Villa

Synopsis:

Dodong wanted to marry Teang and asked his father’s permission. Thinking that since they are young, their love would be short, he allowed them to get married. After nine months, Teang gave birth to a child named Blas. For six consecutive years, a new child came along. Teang did not complain even thought she secretly regretted being married at an early age. Sometimes she even wondered if she would have the same life if Lucio, her other suitor who was nine years older than Dodong, was the one she married. Lucio has had no children since the time he married. When Teang and Dodong were twenty they looked like they were fifty. When Blas was 18, he told his father that he would marry Tona. Dodong did not object, but tried to make Blas think twice before rushing to marriage - because Dodong doesn’t want Blas to end up like him.

Analysis:

The short story is in the narratology literary theory because the story is narrated in the third person point of view using the sequential order. the story started and ended on what happens from the father of Dodong, to Dodong who's asking a permission ro his father and from his son who also asked the same permission to his father Dodong. this story shows that the three fathers committed and continuously doing the same decision but ended regretting it.

Darwinian Theory Analysis

DARWINISM

Creation (Movie)

Synopsis:

British naturalist Charles Darwin is a young father who lives a quiet life in an idyllic village. He is a brilliant and deeply emotional man, devoted to his wife and children. Darwin is especially fond of his eldest daughter Annie, a precocious and inquisitive ten-year-old. He teaches her much about nature and science, including his theory of evolution, and tells her stories of his travels. Her favourite story, despite the sad ending, is about the young orangutan Jenny, who is brought from Borneo to the London Zoo, where she finally died of pneumonia in the arms of her keeper. Darwin is furious when he learns that the family clergyman has made Annie kneel on rock salt as punishment for contradicting him about the existence of dinosaurs, as their existence and extinction contradicts the church's position that life is unchanging and that the Earth is very young.

Having returned from his expedition in the Galapagos Islands 15 years earlier, Darwin is still working on finishing a manuscript about his findings, which substantiates his theory of evolution. The delay is caused by anxiety about his relationship with his devoutly religious wife, Emma, who fundamentally opposes his ideas and understands the threat to their religion that his work poses. Emma worries that she may go to heaven and he may not, separating them for eternity.

The film shows Annie in flashbacks and hallucinations, a vibrant apparition who goads her father to address his fears and finish his masterwork. It is apparent that Annie has died, and that her death is a taboo subject between Darwin and Emma, as both feel intense blame for her death. As a result of the strained relations between Charles and Emma, they stop making love entirely. Anguished, Darwin begins to suffer from a mysterious, fatiguing illness.

It is revealed that after Annie becomes ill in 1851, Darwin takes her to the Worcestershire town of Malvern for James Manby Gully'swater cure therapy, against Emma's will. Annie's condition worsens, and she ultimately dies after her father, at her request, tells her Jenny's story once more. Darwin is devastated, and her death sharpens his conviction that natural laws have nothing to do with divineintervention. To his contemporaries, this is an idea so dangerous it seems to threaten the existence of God. In a box in Darwin’s study, we discover the notes and observations that will become On the Origin of Species.

Having read his 230-page synopsis, Darwin's friends in the scientific community, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Thomas Henry Huxley, also encourage him. Huxley admiringly tells Darwin that with his theory he has "killed God", which fills Darwin with dread. In his hallucinations, he also feels that Annie disapproves of his procrastination.

Darwin receives a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858, which details the same findings as Darwin in 20 pages. He has mixed feelings about this; all his work may have been in vain, but on the other hand, as he will not have to write his book, the discord with Emma will heal. However, Darwin's friends will him to continue, as his book is much more comprehensive.

After receiving treatment at Malvern himself, Darwin makes a pilgrimage to the hotel where Annie died. The journey marks a change in him; upon his return home, he is able to reconnect with his wife, and they speak to each other for the first time of their fears and grief over Annie's death. They specifically speak about the possibility that Annie died because she was genetically weak, as Darwin and Emma are closely related cousins. Their renewed devotion restores Darwin's health, and he is able to resume his work, as it also restores Emma's faith in their marriage, and she regains her strength to support his controversial work. Darwin decides that Emma must make the decision about publishing his work. After reading the manuscript, she quietly returns it addressed to John Murray publishersin London. Emma accepts that she is an "accomplice" now, but hopes that God will forgive them both.

Darwin walks down the lane, holding the package. When the postman arrives, Darwin falters, almost letting him go empty-handed. The postman rides away, unaware of the powerful idea about to be released onto the world. As Darwin walks home, the little figure of Annie walks alongside him.

Analysis:

Darwinian Literary Studies (aka Literary Darwinism) is a branch of literary criticism that studies literature in the context of evolution by means of natural selection, including gene-culture coevolution. This literary piece is under this because in the movie, it shows the evolution of man in the earth and also this is based on the real-life letters and documents of the Darwin family.

Archetypal/Mythological Theory Analysis

ARCHETYPAL

Ceyx And

Alcyone (Excerpt)

Synopsis:

Ceyx and Alcyone are married happily until the day when Ceyx decides to journey across the ocean. Knowing the dangers of the sea, Alcyone begs him not to go, or at least to take her with him. But Ceyx declines her offer and sets out without her. On the first night of the journey, a storm ravages his ship, and Ceyx dies with Alcyone's name on his lips. Alcyone continues to wait for her husband, making him cloaks and praying fruitlessly to Juno for his safe return. Juno pities the woman and asks Somnus, god of Sleep, to tell her the truth about her husband's death. Somnus sends his son Morpheus to break the news in a dream, so Morpheus takes the form of the drowned Ceyx. Alcyone wakes from the terrible dream and knows her husband has died. She goes into the ocean to drown herself and be with him, but she sees his body floating towards her. She dives in but, miraculously, flies over the waves instead of sinking into them. The gods have turned her into a bird! The body of Ceyx disappears, and Ceyx turns into a bird as well. They are still together, flying and in love.

Analysis

 The literary piece is an archetypal theory because it is a situational archetype. It is because the story grows out of the parallel between the cycle of nature and life.  Morning and springtime represent rebirth, birth, and youth; evening and winter suggest old age and death. Here, Ceyx was reincarnated as a bird in order to be with his wife because he died because of the shipwreck. This is an archetype because it is patterned on the Greek Mythology and also the symbolism given is very obvious to understand.

Cultural Studies Theory Analysis

CULTURAL STUDIES

I THANK YOU GOD (Poem)

By BERNARD DADIE

I thank you God for creating me black,

For making of me

Porter of all sorrows

Setting on my head

The World.

I swear the Centaur’s hide

And I have carried the World since the first morning.

White is a colour for special occasions

Black the colour for everyday

And I have carried the world since the first evening.

I am glad

Of the shape of my head

Made to carry the World,

Content

With the shape of my nose

That must snuff every wing of the world

Pleased

With the shape of my legs

Ready to run all the hats of the world

Thank you God for creating me black

For making of me

Porter of all sorrows

Thirsty-six swords have pierced my heart

Thirty six fires have burnt my body.

And my blood on all calvaries has reduced the snow

And my blood at every dawn has reddened all nature

Still I am

Glad to carry the World,

Glad of my short arms

 of my long legs

 of the thickness of my lips.

I thank you God for creating my black,

White is a colour for special occasions

Black the color for everyday

And I have carried the World since the dawn of time

And my laugh over the World, through the night, creates the Day.

                                                                                                                  

I thank you God for creating me black.

Analysis:

Cultural study theory talks about the relationship of the literary piece to the author’s cultural background. Here, the poem was written by the poet by its cultural influence. He wrote this poem dedicated to his fellowmen (Africans) and to the things that they are experiencing towards others.

Neo-Classicism Theory Analysis

NEO-CLASSICISM

Napoleon (Novel)

By Emil Ludwig

In 1799, after the French Revolution had quieted into the Thermidorean Reaction, a brilliant general named Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory and came into power as leader of the Consulate, beginning in 1799. Under Napoleon, France became a nationalist power, expanding its territory into Italy and exerting its influence over other powers. Napoleon consolidated his rule by suppressing rebellions in France, normalizing relations with the Church in the Concordat of 1801, and streamlining the French law system in the Napoleonic Code. By 1804, Napoleon was so powerful that he declared himself Emperor.

Defeating the various military coalitions the other powers of Europe threw against him, Napoleon won battle after battle: Marengo (1800), Austerlitz (1805), Jena-Auerstadt, and Friedland (1807). He built a vast empire of dependant states, forced Czar Alexander I to ally with him in the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit, and controlled the majority of Europe. Everywhere he went he spread the reforms and influence of the French Revolution to a remarkable extent. Just about the only blemish on his record during the first decade of the 19th century was a stunning naval loss to Britain at the Battle of Trafalgar

Seeking to undermine Britain's sea power, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree in 1806, imposing the Continental System on Europe, which was meant to stop European countries from trading with Britain. Instead of hurting Britain, the Continental System hurt Napoleon. Upset by Napoleonic rule, Germanic nationalism got its start, and the Germans began to move towards Romanticism as an intellectual rebellion against French Enlightenment ideas. In Spain, the attempt to impose the Continental System led to the Peninsular War, a protracted guerrilla war that diverted French forces from the rest of Europe.

In 1810, Napoleon replaced his wife, Josephine, who had borne him no heir, with a younger wife, Marie Louise of Austria. They produced an heir, referred to as The King of Rome. Napoleon's happiness did not last, however, because at the end of 1810, Alexander I withdrew Russia from the Continental System. In 1812, Napoleon moved his Grand Army into Russia. Though Napoleons army pushed the Russians into constant retreat, the terrible Russian winter decimated Napoleon's Grand Army. Napoleon rushed home to raise a new army, but was defeated in October 1813 by an international coalition of armies at the Battle of Leipzig.

In 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba and Louis XVIII took the throne of France, returning a Bourbon to the throne that had been lost by Louis XVI just twenty years earlier. As the powers were just starting to negotiate a settlement, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France, raising an army during the period known as the Hundred Days. Napoleon's army was defeated by Wellington (Britain) and Blucher (Prussia) at Waterloo in June 1815. He was then exiled to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he eventually died.

The chaotic Europe left behind by roughly two decades of war was reorganized by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The major powers sent their top negotiators: Metternich (Austria), Castlereagh (Britain), Alexander I (Russia), Hardenberg (Prussia), and Talleyrand (France). The complex and delicate negotiations in Vienna created a stable Europe wherein no one power could dominate the others, as Napoleon's France had, for quite some time. Not until a century later, when World War I started in 1914, would another Europe-wide military conflict break out.

 

Analysis:

The English Neoclassical movement, predicated upon and derived from both classical and contemporary French models, embodied a group of attitudes toward art and human existence — ideals of order, logic, restraint, accuracy, "correctness," "restraint," decorum, and so on, which would enable the practitioners of various arts to imitate or reproduce the structures and themes of Greek or Roman originals.

This literary piece is a neoclassical for it was published and written during neoclassical period. A revival in literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and restraint.

Moral Criticism Theory Analysis

MORAL CRITICISM

The Last Hellion (Novel)

By Loreta Chase

Synopsis:

The hero of The Last Hellion is Vere Mallory, Duke of Ainswood, one of the disreputable friends of the hero of LOS. Vere is Duke even though he is a younger son of a younger son, for the Mallory family has been cursed by one death after another in the preceding decade. The most poignant death was that of Vere's nephew, Robin, the nine-year old sixth duke, felled by diphtheria. Nowhere is Chase's writing talent more on display than in the moving prologue when we feel Vere's pain as one after another his loved family members die. And we come to understand why he is such a hellion and why his behavior since becoming the seventh duke has been so irresponsible. How can he accept a position bought at the price of so many deaths?

The heroine is Lydia Grenville, the most popular writer for one of London's weekly magazines. Although Lydia's mother was the descendant of a marquess, her runaway marriage to an actor had led to her being disowned by her family. Lydia's life had been harsh; her mother had died young, her father was a wastrel and a gambler; her sister died when the family was sent to Marshalsea prison when her father could not pay her debts. After her father absconded to America, she had been raised by her eccentric great aunt and uncle who traveled widely if not always wisely.

Lydia has become a 19th century investigative reporter, with a particular interest in uncovering the perils that beset young women in London. When one day she sees a noted procuress with a new victim in tow, she rushes to the rescue. The Duke of Ainswood crosses Lydia's path at this point, and interferes in her confrontation with the evil madam. Lydia proceeds to deck him, treating him with the contempt his behavior and reputation seem to warrant, but is inexplicably attracted to this man who seems the epitome of all she despises.

For Vere, it is love at first punch (although he refuses to recognize his feelings for what they are.) And so begins a series of confrontations between this seemingly mismatched pair as they engage in one adventure after another. Nobody does humorous repartee between hero and heroine better than Chase. At times I was close to laughing out loud (Remember me, the dour Scot.) And she likewise does a great job of building and sustaining sexual tension. Her love scenes are elegantly incendiary.

There is a lot more in this book: a charming secondary romance between Bertie Trent and Lydia's protege; breaking and entering; a carriage race; a rescue of Vere's wards from the the evil procuress; the reappearance of Dain from LOS; the discovery of Lydia's true parentage. But Chase never loses control over her story and all the parts come together to provide an exciting tale that never lost my interest.

Central to the story are Vere and Lydia. Lydia is a marvelous heroine – bright, strong-minded, ambitious, caring, daring as well strikingly attractive. One can believe that Vere would come to love her and that she can heal his wounds. Vere is a more familiar hero – the rake extraordinaire, the care for nobody, who really cares too much but who flees his pain until Lydia (or as he charmingly calls her, Grenville) forces him to face it. An altogether satisfying romance.

Analysis:
The literary piece is in the Moral criticism theory because it gives us a realization in life while reading it. The realization in this story is passion. Lydia Grenville is dedicated to protecting London's downtrodden. Dissolute noblemen like Ainswood are part of the problem, not the solution. She would like him to get his big, gorgeous carcass out of her way so that she can carry on with her work. The problem is, Ainswood can no more resist a challenge, especially in female form, than he can resist the trouble she seems to attract.

If they can only weather their personal firestorm...they might survive the real danger that threatens all they hold dear.

Post Modernism Theory Analysis

 POST MODERNISM

Naked Lunch (Novel)

William S. Burroughs

Synopsis:

The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (aka Lee the Agent), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the US where he is fleeing the police, in search of his next fix. There are short chapters here describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way.

Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway; for what, he is not told. Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a "Total Demoralizator". The story then moves to a state called Freeland — a form of limbo — where we learn of Islam Inc. Here, some new characters are introduced, such as Clem, Carl, and Joselito.

A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace. The Black Meat is sold here and compared to "junk", i.e. heroin. The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a cruel, manipulative sadist.

Time and space again shifts the narrative to a location known as Interzone. Hassan, one of the notable characters of the book and "a notorious liquefactionist", is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a "factualist bitch" - a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently "clashing" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy "a midway position"). A short descriptive section tells us of Interzone University, where a professor and his students are ridiculed; the book moves on to an orgy that AJ himself throws.

The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr Berger, Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories.

After the description of the four parties of Interzone, we are then told more stories about AJ. After briefly describing Interzone, the novel breaks down into sub-stories and heavily cut-up influenced passages.

In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee's reality, two police officers, Hauser and O'Brien, catch up with Lee, who kills both of them. Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad, saying he wants to speak to O'Brien. A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there's no one in their records called O'Brien. When Lee asks for Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again.

Analysis:

Postmodernism is a critical response to existing discourses of predominant systems like politics, society, philosophy, and economics, which constrain our common perceptions of our selves, society and language. It maintains that we cannot rely on our so-called reality anymore because it is a construct of our own minds.

Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later introductions to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs—is a valuable and fresh experience of a novel that has lost none of its relevance or satirical bite

Modernism Theory Analysis

MODERNISM

A Room of One (Novel)

By Virginia Wolf

Synopsis:

The narrator begins her investigation at Oxbridge College, where she reflects on the different educational experiences available to men and women as well as on more material differences in their lives. She then spends a day in the British Library perusing the scholarship on women, all of which has written by men and all of which has been written in anger. Turning to history, she finds so little data about the everyday lives of women that she decides to reconstruct their existence imaginatively. The figure of Judith Shakespeare is generated as an example of the tragic fate a highly intelligent woman would have met with under those circumstances. In light of this background, she considers the achievements of the major women novelists of the nineteenth century and reflects on the importance of tradition to an aspiring writer. A survey of the current state of literature follows, conducted through a reading the first novel of one of the narrator's contemporaries. Woolf closes the essay with an exhortation to her audience of women to take up the tradition that has been so hardly bequeathed to them, and to increase the endowment for their own daughters.

Analysis:

Eco-Criticism Theory Analysis

ECO-CRITICISM 

Rapid Changes in the Arctic Ecosystem During Ice Minimum in Summer 2012 (Article) Feb. 14, 2013 

— Huge quantities of algae are growing on the underside of sea ice in the Central Arctic: in 2012 the ice algae Melosira arctica was responsible for almost half the primary production in this area. When the ice melts, as was the case during the ice minimum in 2012, these algae sink rapidly to the bottom of the sea at a depth of several thousands of metres. Deep sea animals such as sea cucumbers and brittle stars feed on the algae, and bacteria metabolise what's left, consuming the oxygen in the sea bed.

This short-term reaction of the deep sea ecosystem to changes in sea ice cover and ocean productivity has now been published in the scientific journal Science by a multidisciplinary team of researchers around Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen.

Scientists and technicians from twelve nations travelled the Central Arctic on the research icebreaker Polarstern in the late summer of 2012. In and under the ice they used a large number of ultra-modern research devices and methods such as camera-guided sampling devices and an under-ice remotely operating vehicle (ROV). Prof. Antje Boetius, who leads the Helmholtz-Max Planck Research Group on Deep-Sea Ecology and Technology has a first answer to the all-important question of how the Arctic is changing due to warming: "Far quicker than has so far been expected! The seabed at a depth of more than 400 metres was littered with clumps of ice algae which had attracted lots of sea cucumbers and brittle stars," explains the microbiologist.

The algal deposits with diameters of up to 50 centimetres covered up to ten per cent of the seabed. The researchers were able to count them using an Ocean Floor Observation System (OFOS). Also for the first time in the ice-covered Arctic, the Helmholtz-Max Planck researcher Dr. Frank Wenzhöfer was able to measure the bacterial and faunal oxygen consumption directly in the deep sea using micro-sensors. And life was thriving under the algae cover: bacteria had started to decompose the algae as evident from a greatly reduced oxygen content in the sediment. By contrast, the sea bed in the adjacent algae-free areas was aerated down to a depth of 80 centimetres and had virtually no algal residues.

But where do the large quantities of algae on the deep-sea floor come from? Plants cannot grow in 4000 m water depth because there is no light. Using an ROV, the researchers found lots of remains of ice algae everywhere under the sea ice. "It has been known for some time that diatoms of the typeMelosira arctica can form long chains under the ice. However, such a massive occurrence has so far only been described for coastal regions and old, thick sea ice ," explains Boetius. When planning the expedition three years ago the researchers proposed the hypothesis that ice algae could grow faster under the thinning sea ice of the Central Arctic. And the observations now published in the scientific journal Science support their hypothesis: at 45 per cent, the ice algae were responsible for almost half of the primary production in the Central Arctic Basin. The remaining primary production was attributable to other diatoms and nanoplankton which live in the upper layers of the water column.

Normally, the small phytoplankton cell sinks only very slowly through the water column and is largely consumed already within the ocean surface layer. By contrast, the long chains of algae formed by Melosira arctica are heavy and can quickly sink to the bottom of the sea. In this way they exported more than 85 per cent of the carbon fixed by primary production from the water surface to the deep sea in summer 2012, just before the expedition. The researchers suppose that the algae had actually grown recently because they found only one-year old ice in the Central Arctic, and because the algae extracted from the guts of sea cucumbers were still able to photosynthesise upon return to the ship's laboratory. The good nutritional state of the sea cucumbers was also evidence of the massive food supply: the zoologist Dr. Antonina Rogacheva of the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology found that the animals were larger than normal and with highly developed reproductive organs -- an indication that they had been eating abundantly for some two months.

The sea ice physicists on board investigated why ice algae are able to thrive beneath the thinning Arctic sea ice, and how they may also lose their habitat quickly due to the increasing ice melt. They determined the ice thickness with an electromagnetic probe dragged by a helicopter and by ice drillings. They also used an underwater robot (ROV) to view the ice from below and to measure how much light penetrates through the ice. Dr. Marcel Nicolaus from the Alfred Wegener Institute explains: "At the end of the summer we still found a lot of ice algae remains, and could quantify them by using an under-ice ROV. The increasing cover by melt ponds permits more light to permeate the ice, and makes the algae grow faster." However, since the ice has become so much thinner in recent years, and the Arctic so much warmer, the ice algae will melt out more quickly from the ice and sink.

"We were able to demonstrate for the first time that the warming and the associated physical changes in the Central Arctic cause fast reactions in the entire ecosystem down to the deep sea," summarises lead author Boetius. The deep sea has so far been seen as a relatively inert system affected by global warming only with a considerable temporal delay. The fact that microbial decomposition processes fueled by the algal deposits can generate anoxic spots in the deep sea floor within one season alarms the researcher: "We do not know yet whether we have observed a one-time phenomenon or whether this high algal export will continue in the coming years." Current predictions by climate models assume that an ice-free summer could occur in the Arctic in the next decades. Boetius and her team warn: "We still understand far too little about the function of the Arctic ecosystem and its biodiversity and productivity, to be able to estimate the consequences of the rapid sea-ice decline."

Analysis:

The essay is under the eco criticism literary theory because it talks about the Rapid Changes in the Arctic Ecosystem During Ice Minimum in Summer 2012. Meaning, this article shows the interrelationship between the ecosystem and literature for whatever that is happening on our environment  is being written and published to the public.