Critical Approaches in Writing A Critique Paper

CRITICAL APPROACHES IN
WRITING A CRITIQUE
There are various ways or standpoints by
which you can analyze and critique a certain
material. You can critique a material based on
its technical aspects, its approach to gender,
your reaction as the audience, or through its
portrayal of class struggle and social
structure.
FORMALISM
It claims that literary works contain intrinsic
properties and treats each work as a distinct
work of art. In short, it posits that the key to
understanding a text is through the text itself;
the historical context, the author, or any other
external contexts are not necessary in
interpreting the meaning.
FOLLOWING ARE THE COMMON ASPECTS
LOOKED INTO FORMALISM:
 Author’s techniques in resolving contradictions
within the work
 Central passage that sums up the entirety of the
work
 Contribution of parts and the work as a whole to
its aesthetic quality
 Relationship of the form and the content
 Use of imagery to develop the symbols in the
work
 Interconnectedness of various parts of the work
 Paradox, ambiguity, and irony in the work
 Unity in the work

FEMINISM
It focuses on how literature presents
women as subjects of socio-political,
psychological, and economic oppression.
It also reveals how aspects of our culture
are patriarchal, i.e., how our culture views
men as superior and women as inferior.
The common aspects looked into when using
feminism are as follows:
 How culture determines gender
 How gender equality (or lack of it) is
presented in the text
 How gender issues are presented in literary
works and other aspects of human
production and daily life
 How women are socially, politically,
psychologically, and economically oppressed
by patriarchy
 How patriarchal ideology is an overpowering
presence
READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM
It is concerned with the reviewer’s reaction as an
audience of a work. This approach claims that the reader’s
role cannot be separated from the understanding of the
work; a text does not have meaning until the reader reads it
and interprets it. Readers are therefore not passive and
distant, but are active consumers of the material presented
to them.
The common aspects looked into when using reader
response criticism are as follows:
 Interaction between the reader and the text in
creating meaning
 The impact of the reader’s delivery of sounds and
visuals on enhancing and changing meaning
MARXIST CRITICISM
It is concerned with differences between
economic classes and implications of a
capitalist system, such as the continuing
conflicts between the working class and the
elite. Hence, it attempts to reveal that the
ultimate source of people’s experience is the
socioeconomic system.
The common aspects looked into when using
Marxist criticism are as follows:
 Social class as represented in the work
 Social class of the writer/creator
 Social class of the characters
 Conflicts and interactions between
economic classes
The Approaches in Writing a Critique Paper
1. Formalist Criticism is an approach regards
literature as “a unique form of human knowledge
that needs to be examined on its own terms.”All
the elements necessary for understanding the
work are contained within the work itself. The
elements of form like the style, structure, tone,
imagery, and the like are the interests of the
formalist critique.
There are several subdivisions within
the realm of Formalism, the most
notable of which are New Criticism,
Russian Formalism and New
Formalism.
“begins with
the simple but central insight that literature is
written by actual people and that understanding an
author’s life can help readers more thoroughly
comprehend the work.” It aims to comprehend a
literary work by probing at the social, cultural,
political, and intellectual context that produced it –
a context that includes the artist’s biography and
milieu.
3. Gender Criticism examines how sexual
identity influences the creation of the literary
text.
a. Masculinist Approach is advocated by poet
Robert Bly which
focuses on the desire to work with men’s
issues and yields to the political conviction
that feminism does not fit with the facts.
b. Feminist Approach, on the other hand, attempts
to correct the imbalance of sexes by analyzing and
combating the patriarchal attitudes that have
dominated western thought.
Gender criticism is an extension of feminist literary
criticism, focusing not
just on women but on the construction of gender
and sexuality, especially LGBTQ issues, which gives
rise to queer theory.
4. Psychological Criticism is a criticism in which
the method, the concept, or the form of the
material is influenced by psychoanalysis by
Sigmund Freud who expressed that psychoanalytic
theories changed our notions of human behavior
in which authors explore new or controversial
areas like wish fulfillment, sexuality, the
unconscious and repression.
The Psychological approach in critiquing has
several approaches,but it practically employs
one or more of the threeapproaches written
below:
Probing the creative process ofthe artist :
What is the nature ofthe literary genius and
how does it relate to normal mental
functions.
The psychological study of a particular
artist by scrutinizing how the author’s
biographical circumstances influence his
motivation or behavior in writing the text
The analysis of fictional characters using
the language and methods of psychology.
4. Sociological Criticism evaluates a literary
piece in the cultural, economic,and political
context that explores the linkage between the
author and his society.
The critic scrutinizes the author’s society to
grasp a better understanding about the
masterpiece.
Marxist criticism is an example of sociological
criticism that highlights
on the economic and political elements of art
focusing on the ideological content of
literature. Marxist criticism believes that all
art is political. It is either challenging or
endorsing the status quo. It is evaluative and
judgmental.
5. Moral/Philosophical Approach
focuses on themes, views of the world,
morality, philosophies of the author and
the like for this approach establishes its
purpose of teaching morality and
investigating philosophical issues.
Using this approach in critiquing, the writer may consider the following
questions:
What view of life does the story present? Which character best
articulates this viewpoint?
According to this work’s view of life, what is mankind’s relationship
to God? To the universe?
What moral statement, if any, does this story make? Is it explicit or
implicit?
What is the author’s attitude toward his world? Toward fate?
Toward God?
What is the author’s conception of good and evil?
What does the work say about the nature of good or evil?
What does the work say about human nature?
6. Mythological Criticism emphasizes “the recurrent
universal patterns underlying most literary works.”
Combining the insights from anthropology, psychology,
history, and comparative religion, mythological criticism
“explores the artist’s common humanity by tracing how the
individual imagination uses myths and symbols common to
different cultures and epochs.” One key concept in
mythological criticism is the archetype, “a symbol,
character, situation, or image that evokes a deep universal
response.”
According to Jung, all individuals share a
“‘collective unconscious,’ a set of primal
memories common to the human race,
existing below each person’s conscious
mind”—often deriving from primordial
phenomena such as the sun, moon, fire,
night,and blood, archetypes according to Jung
“trigger the collective unconscious.”
Another critic, Northrop Frye, defined archetypes in
a more limited way as “a symbol, usually an image,
which recurs often enough in literature to be
recognizable as an element of one’s literary
experience as a whole.” Regardless of the definition
of archetype they use, mythological critics tend to
view literary works in the broader context of works
sharing a similar pattern.
Several books have given suggestions on
how to write a critique paper.
The following are the ones the author
finds practical and functional in an
academic set-up:
1) Read to understand the literary piece or any
text provided for you to critique. When it is
necessary, re-read the text to have an
understanding of the material.
2) Determine the author’s purpose of writing.
Looking for the thesis statement or the theme of
the piece can help you identify the motivation of
the writer in the material.
3) Analyze each segment or section very well.
When needed, you may write the summary in
each segment.
4) Decide which among the approaches in
literary criticism you will be using to critique
the text. After you have read the material,
you focus on the specific elements or
features of the material that you want to
discuss.
5) Compose your introduction, body and
conclusion sensibly. Your introduction
may have the author’s name, the book’s
title, your source and the thesis
statement.

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CRITICAL APPROACHES IN

 Paradox, ambiguity, and irony in the work

 Unity in the work

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