Tuesday 4 October 2016

Literary Lenses

Literary Lenses

Reading a text through literary lenses is a neat way of looking at a text through the different points of view. It gives us a good idea of the variety of outlooks and widens our perspective on a much larger scale. There are many different types of lenses, however the three lenses we focused on as a class include – Feminist, Marxist and Psychoanalytic lens.

Feminism gives emphasis to analyzing how women are portrayed in the text. It explores the negative, positive or mediocre qualities of women specifically. The key idea is to critically think about the way women are being perceived. By doing this we get an understanding of how the author valued women in his/her texts.



Marxist view focuses on how social causes and poverty are being sidelined in the name of fame and power. Through this lens the reader is able to understand the importance of justice and how much it matters to stick to the true morals and ethics.

Psychoanalytic lens argues that the work represents the author’s own childhood manifestations and secret desires. It says that our unconscious mind gives rise to the desires and archetypes portrayed in the text. By reading the text through this lens, the reader is able to detect the repressed feelings of the author and understand how different actions are influenced by his/her past experience.

- Nayaelah, Viya, Karishma and Tanya