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.

Romanticism Theory Analysis

ROMANTICISM

At First Sight (Novel)

By Nicholas Sparks

Synopsis:

There are a few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he’d never do: he’d never leave New York City; never give his heart away after barely surviving one failed marriage; and never become a parent. Now Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, engaged to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the start of their family. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, a mysterious and disturbing e-mail sets off a chain of events that will change the course of this young couple’s relationship. How well do we really know the ones we love? How do we handle the inevitable doubts, fears concerning parenthood, and stumbling blocks that are sometimes placed in our way? Continuing the story of the young couple introduced in Sparks’s bestselling True Believer, this novel captures all the heartbreak, tension, romance and surprises of those who are newly wed. An astonishing tale about the love between a man and a woman and between a parent and a child, At First Sight is about endings that bring new beginnings . . . tragedies that lead to unexpected joy . . . and, most of all, the magic of everlasting love.

 

Analysis:

In this literary piece, I can say that it is under the romanticism theory approach. It is because the story focuses on the emotions of the text rather than the intelligence. It also shows the love for each other that whatever it is they’ve been through, they’re hearts will still leads them to where they belong. This novel wants to emphasize the true meaning of love by giving us the realizations in life (what is really happening in our lives) also, forgiveness and fidelity to each other, to the person you love. That Love, is the greatest gift among all.