Critical Approaches To "The Road" By Matt Kunz

"The Road" is a novel that tells the story of a young boy and father as they fight to live in a desolate world. The book covers many heavy subjects, including the value of life and the drive to survive. I first read this book a year ago and found it very re-readable. I think that the complexity of it and the heavy themes lends itself to be analyzed. 

[Biographical] 
I would like to know how McCarthy's life played a role in the writing of the "The Road." For example, I know that he has a very close connection with his son, so it would be interesting to write about some conclusions that could be based off that relationship. In the book, the mother commits suicide so I would be curious if the women in McCarthy's life influenced the mother figure in this book. 
[Christian Lit]
Looking at "The Road" from the Christian perspective could really bring out some interesting ideas. For example, the ending of the book brings up some interesting ideas about God. Comparing those ideas with who God is in Christianity could bring about some interesting conclusions and how they affect the book. 
[Ecocriticism]
The disaster that affects "The Road" is unnamed. All we know is that there is a lack of food and an inability to grow food. I think this could very easily be a good way to look at the book. There is obviously a relation to climate change here and looking at this book through an environmental lens could shape the way this book could be viewed. The people in this book are generally viewed as bad, so maybe it could be viewed that the people are the bad guys and the earth is the good guy trying to get rid of them. 
[Psychoanalytical] 
Viewing this book as a "collective unconscious" type would make for some interesting subjects. The father shares some memories before the disaster happened. These memories are generally happy and revolve around the family. I think however, this could be taken a step farther and say that they were not his memories but memories from his ancestors and he has an innate desire to experience those memories in this horrible world. 

Critical Approaches To "Uncle Tom's Cabin" By Estephanie C.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, the play, was about a slave (Uncle Tom) who is depicted as a good man with a big heart. Even through his trials, he still showed everyone kindness. Tom was promised his freedom, but he never received it, and died. I had originally read Uncle Tom's Cabin, the play and was fascinated by the history behind it. I was curious to discover how the inspiration of this story came to fruition.

• [Critical Race Theory] - In Uncle Tom's Cabin, you can see how race, poverty, and civil rights move the story along. I feel that the way African American people are portrayed in the book and play caused a very big impact in abolishing slavery. Because the play and book make Uncle Tom (the slave) the protagonist, it affected the view people had on slavery. Also seeing the way African Americans' lived during this time (poverty and terrible living conditions), it also affected the way people connected with the story.
•  [Feminism] - In Uncle Tom's Cabin there are a lot of strong women. They are powerful, but still maintain "traditional" gender roles. For example, a character that does this is Mrs. Shelby. She is a strong woman that is fighting against slavery, but still does many things that are considered "traditional" for a woman living during that time. 
• [Biographical Theory] - Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by a white woman who was an abolitionist. She was alive during the time slavery was still being heavily used. She remembers when she was younger how her family employed an African American woman. This made me think about how this could have impacted the view of how  the story is portrayed. It also made me wonder whether her race affected the selling of the book, and who purchased it. 
• [Christian Criticism] - In Uncle Tom's Cabin, there are several instances in the book and play that eludes to Christian beliefs.  I remember when Uncle Tom tried to get the Prue to become a Christian. I also remember, while reading the play, there was a scene where Uncle Tom is with Eva in Heaven. I feel like these little snippets created an impact on the reader/audience. 
• [Psychological] - The story, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written to persuade others that slavery should be abolished. The author, Harriet B. Stowe used Christianity and her personal views to write this story to create an impact in the way people viewed slavery. How she portrays certain characters can manipulate the mind and cause you to view things in a different perspective, which is what Harriet B. Stowe was trying to do. She wanted to show how terrible slavery is. 

Critical Approaches to "Death Fugue" by Paul Celan

"Death Fugue" is a poem that was written by a Holocaust survivor, Paul Celan, and gives readers a different understanding of the horrors of concentration camps. This poem is exceptional among literature that explores that the Holocaust because of its form, its use of irony, of allusions, of style, there are really just so many different elements to unpack and explore.

• [Biographical] I want to look at the way that Paul Celan's experience with literature shows up in the poem (he was very well read), also the ways that the poem reflects his own experience in concentration camps and the Holocaust and his conflicted relationship with Germany. Celan was very well educated before the war and it shows in his style. I think taking a Biographical approach would help to breakdown his technique, his allusions, and the type of descriptions/scenes he relies on. 
• [Source Studies] I have already looked into this some in the past because of the lines " your golden hair Margarete your ashen hair Shulamite" which alludes to both the Bible and the German legend of Faust. I think between these and obviously the Holocaust as a source there is a lot of very interesting material to tie together. I really want to know why this line is repeated, what its significance is!
• [Christian Lit] This is another literary theory that would could be traced between the Shulamite line, the mention of serpents, and the roles of Jews in the poem and in the Bible. Also just exploring death from this theory inside the poem what be something worth looking at. 
• [Archetypal] I think this would be a really intriguing way to look at the poem because its got a postmodern feel, it doesn't have a hero. I think that there is a lot of symbolism to break down and I think it would also be interesting to trace the experience of death throughout the poem but it definitely plays against archetypes in a lot of plays so it would be a lot of fun to look at it from this angle. 

Critical Approaches to the Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a fun, yet mysterious novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. It has wild tales of the roaring 20's and it delves into the hidden, yet publicized lives of the rich and wealthy of Long Island, New York.

Psychoanalytical Criticism
At first glance it can be observed that Gatsby has an obsession with Daisy and with the idea of marrying her, despite her legal status of being currently wed. This makes the reader wonder about Gatsby's childhood and if his parents respected and were faithful to each other of if they viewed marriage with less boundaries. After thinking this however, it led me to wonder if Fitzgerald had divorced parents or frequently cheating parents because I feel like this ideal of mindlessly cheating on your spouse was not an incredibly common one in the 1920's.

Source Studies 
It's very probable that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the Great Gatsby as an interpretation of an autobiography of his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald was raised in a normal, moderate household where he then went on to join an important societal club in New Jersey as a young adult. He lusted after a young woman named Zelda but she didn't reciprocate the feelings. He earned her love at some point but then after he become a drunkard she broke it off again. This sounds eerily similar to the lifestyle of Gatsby; a young man from a moderate household who earned a place in the high society for himself and who lusted after a young woman he couldn't have, all while being a drunkard.

Feminist Criticism
Although the Great Gatsby takes place two years after women are legally allowed to vote, there are still many signs of their assumed place in society and the roles they were expected to maintain. The majority of the women in Great Gatsby are either married, or very sensual flirtatious women. Men are constantly being described by their possessions in the novel, whereas women are solely described by their physical attributes, jewelry, clothing, and spouses. While their freedoms are improving at this time, the Great Gatsby makes it evident to the readers that women are still seen mainly as objects and fragile creatures.

Critical Disabilities Criticism
In the Great Gatsby they cast a sense of "normalcy" across all of their characters. At the beginning of the novel they portray everyone as wealthy, happy, and emotionally healthy, however as the novel progresses we begin to see signs point otherwise. We learn that Gatsby is a pathological liar, and that the vast majority of the characters are unhappy with their fake lives of perfection but have no outlets to express their emotions which explains the consistent drinking throughout the novel. Gatsby is the perfect example of how anyone can have problems with their mental and emotional health that may not be visible to the eye.

Critical Approaches to "Hamlet" by Ariel H.

Hamlet is a classic Shakespeare play about an emo Danish prince who wants to get revenge on his uncle/stepdad because he killed his father, and acts crazy along the way. I chose this text because it’s one that I’ve loved since senior year of high school, and one of the only classics I brought to BYU in print form.

[Christian criticism]

• Hamlet has a Protestant point of view when he witnesses the presumed ghost of his father, who portrays himself the way a Catholic would perceive a ghost. This leads me to believe that not only is there conflict between this aspect of the story’s theology, but could mean there are many other symbols and attitudes that could identify the religious affiliations of all the characters. The way Laertes and Hamlet wrestle in the grave, how Ophelia is slut-shamed but Hamlet doesn’t get in trouble for adultery, how Claudius feels forgiven for murder by just confessing it out-loud to himself and calling it good, etc.

[Critical race]

• The play takes place in Denmark and follows the privileged characters around, but were lower-class characters (or characters never mentioned that would have existed if Hamlet was a real story) people of color? Yorick was a jester (a humiliating job), the gravedigger had a dirty job, the travelling performers sound like gypsies, and in any story involving the wealthy there would have had serfs/servants/slaves of some variety; any of them could technically have been less than “pure” Danish. 

[Archetypal]

• Hamlet always seemed to me to be a self-centered angsty teen with an anti-climatic death. But he does get revenge for his father in a way, he might have faked crazy to try to protect Ophelia (which fails, of course), and he does have great concern about the wellbeing of his nuclear family and the people of Denmark. He could actually have been a tragic hero archetype.

[New historicism]

• If Hamlet’s name shares a striking resemblance to Shakespeare’s son, and deals with death and grief, what else about the play reflected the context Shakespeare was living in? The aspects of Protestantism and Catholicism in Hamlet can be seen as Shakespeare’s internal struggle to find a true religion, the subtle reference to a pirate kidnapping Hamlet could have been mundane in his era and that’s why it’s briefly mentioned, etc.

[Queer theory] 

• There have been speculations about Shakespeare's sexual preferences, and Hamlet could be arguably homosexual or bisexual. He bashes Ophelia's feelings for him and women in general like he's not attracted to them, he's very much close to Horatio and could have romantic interest never pursued, and we know he's full of internal conflict but don't know if it's just because of Claudius or if there's more he's keeping bottled up... This one might be a stretch but it could be a fun adventure to defend.

Critical Approaches to "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I chose to research "The Yellow Wallpaper", a text that focuses on the descent into delirium by a woman who's suffering from post-partum depression. Her husband is a physician and recommends that she refrain from any sort of intellectual exhaustion, and moves them together to a new house for three weeks to help her recover. Here, while not being able to do anything besides sit in a bedroom all day and sleep, the main character is driven crazy--- supposedly by the ugly yellow wallpaper. I chose to research this text because although it was originally written for mental illness awareness, it has been reduced to merely feminist themes and ideas. I feel like the text has meaning that goes beyond those ideas, and I want to explore it through this assignment.

[Disability Studies]
I thought I could focus on ableism in the text, where instead of focusing on her mental fatigue, focusing on her desire to write. How of all the activities she needs to refrain from, it appears that writing is one she is most worried of being caught doing. To her, intellectual rest is not what she needs, but instead writing makes her feel better. All the while, her husband and sister-in-law see it as what drove her to madness. Writing seems to be the cause of prejudice from her family.

[New Historicism]
I want to look into the diagnosis of women with illnesses at the time, as well as mental illness. Charlotte Gilman was diagnosed with mental illness and that was her stated reason for writing the text, however I would like to look more into the cultural stigma of the diagnosis, and how the patients were treated. I think in understanding the stigma behind these illnesses, as well as the way they were understood then, would help me to then analyze how it influenced the way Gilman presented the text, or the way others then would interpret the text-- especially in regards to her illness being a state of mind and something to think away, or more of a physical illness. This would go back to exploring the original purpose of the text stated by Gilman.

[Archetypal Criticism]
I would like to look into the different character archetypes embedded within the text, and how they begin to stray from the archetype and morph into new ones. The main character, who remains unnamed, starts out as the hero and protagonist, however slowly becomes what seems like an antagonist throughout the text. The wallpaper itself, as well as the journal she's writing in, also morph into crucial characters within the text. I want to look into the shadow character archetypes to see what meaning can be pulled from both the main character, the wallpaper, and the journal, all existing as the shadow character at some point in the text.

[Psychoanalytical Criticism]
This theory is wildly overused on this text, however I want to take what is hopefully a new approach. I want to focus on the aspect of "collective unconscious" for this piece. The main character seems to have an innate desire and need to write, which I feel like is connected to an ancestral memory of recording history. I want to connect it to evidences of cave art, and our earliest known hero epics, and how the writings in the journal resemble those themes of recorded stories, but also of a hero's journey, or a hero's downfall that could be compared to the character development of our main character.

Critical Approaches to The Handmaid's Tale

Recently, I've tried to upgrade my usual personal reading list of courtroom thrillers and young adult novels to critically acclaimed fiction. One of these added books was The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I read this in the beginning of the semester and absolutely loved it, and the fact that the novel holds literary recognition inspired me to do my own literary analysis on it.

• Ecocriticism: I can look at the way The Colonies (a toxic wasteland where "Unwomen" are sent to labor) reflects contemporary climate change today. The Colonies perhaps represent what will happen to our Earth if climate change is not mitigated, and the nonchalance and inevitability with which The Colonies are viewed in Gilead may warn against the idea that climate change is not a man-made disaster. 
• Feminism: I would hope to do an intersection between ecocriticism and feminism by looking at the ways that women are compared to nature: young girls are repeatedly told that they are fruit, flowers, or similar natural resources in The Handmaid's Tale. This characterization could reflect how man views women as the next fertile resource to use up after they destroyed the natural environment.
• Marxism: Even in the dystopian world of The Handmaid's Tale, class conflicts permeate the totalitarian culture. I could compare the social status of Commander's wives, Aunts, the Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives, and Unwomen. 
• Psychological: Using Freud's or Jung's ideas of the collective unconscious, I could view the experiences of the Handmaidens through a psychological lens and analyze the psychological impact of their treatment. 
• Christian Lit: The Handmaid's Tale has many Christian themes, especially relating to the function of women and the sanctity of life. It also has some interesting (and critical) descriptions of religion in the dystopian Republic of Gilead, which could pose an interesting comparison to Christianity. 

Critical Approaches to Dr. Faustus

Dr. Faustus is a play by Christopher Marlowe, written around the same time as Shakespeare was writing his plays. It follows an accomplished doctor, Faustus, who desires greater power and influence, and makes a pact with the devil to achieve these ends. When I read Dr. Faustus the first time, I was fascinated by the discussion about the realities of heaven and hell, and whether we ourselves are responsible for our damnation or salvation.

Postcolonialism: At the time that Marlowe wrote Dr. Faustus, Europe was eagerly looking for new territories to conquer, and countries like Spain and England had already sent men across the Atlantic in search for resources that would enrich their kingdoms. In Dr. Faustus, the same obsession over gaining riches and power infects Faustus. Although he obtains his object, Faustus eventually has a tragic and hellish fall into the realm of the devil, losing all material things he had acquired.

Source Studies: By reading a few versions of the original Faust myth, I may see how Marlowe remained faithful to the original tales and how he changed some details to better appeal to his English audience. With this comparison, I may also draw some conclusions about the cultural perceptions of magic and morality in Germany and England.

Marxism: There is a lot of power play in Dr. Faustus: the power Faustus believes he has over the spirits of hell; how Faustus uses his magic to scare and toy with the uneducated; the power the uneducated class wants to obtain through magic; and the power that Lucifer holds over Faustus. How does each group view and use the power they have to achieve their own ends?

Christian Criticism: In a play that discusses so openly belief and unbelief, I would be remiss if I did not look at the characters’ relationships with religion and how their beliefs affect their actions. In particular, I could look at Faustus’ constant wavering between faith and doubt in God and the devil and how his uncertainty leads to his downfall. How was this received in a protestant audience?

Critical Approaches to A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennesee Williams in 1947. The play follows the life of Blanche DuBios, a seemingly Southern belle who seekes refuge with her sister during trying times. She moves to New Orleans and lives there with her sister and her brother in-law where she is soon found to be hiding many of the things that happened in her past. 

Gender/Queer Studies: 

Tennessee Williams uses illusions to commentate on the greater society’s attitudes towards homosexuals. Homosexuals were forced to present themselves in illusory manners to be accepted within society. There is a short scene in the play where Blanche remembers the struggle and eventual suicide of a certain homosexual. To convey this message Williams uses different metaphors to show the struggle of staying hidden and in "the closet." 

Psychoanalytical:  

Blanche, the main character finds herself trying to balance between her vanity  (id/carnal desires) ,and her ego, her need to be viewed as proper by society. Because of this balancing act, Blanche becomes unstable and irrational, often leaning heavily towards one area or the other. 

Marxist Criticism

Through this lens one can view Blanche as representing an upper social class, as she was wealthy and Stanley (her sisters husband) as the lower class. Yet Blanche’s life, although deceitfully glamorous has many hidden faults. Despite this, she still tries to hold power over Stanley, as the upper class has done to the lower class. As the play progresses, one can see that the lower class eventually overcomes the upper class, a demonstration of the conflict and changes in America’s class system in the 1940’s. 

Critical Disability Theory: 

Blanche has many disabilities that she struggles with throughout the play, yet she often tries to hide them to create a perfect facade. One could analyze the disabilities that she has, such as denial, and why she perceives her disability as something that needs to be kept from society and the disability that this hiding brings her to. 

Critical Approaches to A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

I chose to research A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is a text that means a lot to me because of the memories I have reading and performing it in high school with people from all different walks of life, who I would not have been performing with otherwise. When I read and performed it in high school, I only delved into very certain parts of the play, specifically parts I had to perform, so I wanted to research the play as a whole and see what more I could learn about it.

- [psychoanalytical] I could look at the lovers, the rude mechanicals, and the fairies as three different parts of the human mind, even dividing them specifically into id, ego, and superego, and explore the chaos that ensues when they all meet in the woods. What could the woods represent? It would be interesting to explore the effect that the fairies have on the lovers and the mechanicals and how that is representative on how one part of our subconscious might affect other parts of us.

- [ecocriticism] Titania, queen of the fairies, has a very famous monologue towards the beginning of the play where she talks about how things go awry in nature if the fairies are distracted, and, as consequence, not doing their job correctly. That speech could be alluding to the fact that for the rest of the play, the fairies are incredibly distracted, and in every instance it is because the humans were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This might be looked at as a commentary about humans and their corruption of nature, because nature, if left to its own devices, would flourish and thrive.

- [critical disabilities] Helena and Nick Bottom are portrayed as two characters that are estranged and disrespected by their respective worlds and, interestingly enough, they are also the two characters that become the chosen targets for the fairies' magic. It might be interesting to look at what makes the two outcasts the ones who are most susceptible to the fairies, and even, at times, the most pitied and the most dote upon.

- [translation] There are many interpretations of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and not just in the form of theatrical performances. There is a ballet, a foreign film, and even episodes of famous TV shows that portray the original play in a different ways and put different themes in different lights. How the ballet uses movement, the movie uses spanish, and the TV show uses modern language and laugh tracks to put on the play differently would be interesting to explore.

Critical Approaches to The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle has been highly awarded in the past 15 years, even being adapted into a movie. It is a memoir by Jeannette Walls about her wild life growing up. From being constantly on the run in the desert to abuse and family connection, this story resonates with me on a deep level. The positive elements in the novel remind me of my own childhood, and the negative elements parallel with my mother’s upbringing. 

• Feminist: I studied the examples of assault against women as a feminist approach to The Glass Castle. Billy, the older neighbor kid, molests Jeanette as a child. As a teenager, Jeanette is sexually assaulted in a room above a roadside bar. Rex Walls frequently uses domestic violence against his wife in front of the children. Additionally, the mother teaches Jeanette that sexual assault is a crime of perception: that if she doesn’t believe she’s been hurt, she isn’t. 
• Critical Race Theory: When Jeanette and her family move to West Virginia, Jeanette befriends a black girl named Dinitia. One day after school, she brings her home to play. When her grandmother and uncle meet Dinitia, they warn Jeanette of her choice of friends and worry that people will think she is a n****r lover. Even though the Walls were self-described “the poorest of all the white trash”, they still viewed black people as lesser than themselves. 
• Biographical: Jeanette decided to write a memoir, instead of an autobiography of her life. This allowed her to add in details that were much more poignant and personal. Because she is still living, it also allowed her to write in detail about her childhood and upbringing instead of the birth - death as the typical biography contains. It follows a more narrow timeline that provides a closer look into what her life was really like. 
• Ecocriticism: The Glass Castle describes a very unique relationship between the family and nature. Rex Walls likes to live out in the open desert, teaching his children how to rely on the land for food and shelter. The children love the openness of the desert. The mother makes Rex pull over so she can paint an exceptional joshua tree they pass. Rex “gives” each child their very own star for Christmas. When they move to West Virginia, the earth they once cherished and protected becomes a trash dump as Rex falls into deeper alcoholism and other addictions. The way the family interacts with the earth could be symbolic of their relationships with one another, falling apart with time and neglect.

Critical Approaches to "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery

The Little Prince is the surreal story of a pilot who crashes in the desert and meets a boy from another planet. I love the book because it is simple, encasing themes of love and death within the form of a fairytale-like narrative.

• New historicism: Since the Little Prince was written during world war II, I could claim that the text is escapist, meant to contrast with the atrocities of war. Alternatively, I could analyze the men that the prince meets and examine how they might represent personality traits of world leaders during the war.

• Ecocriticism: I could make an argument about the delicate balance between man and nature, and the way that each is always trying to subdue/conquer the other (examples: the baobab trees, extinct volcanoes, ownership of stars). Alternative: focus on scene, compare the stark desert to the loneliness of the other planets.>

• Psychoanalytical: Based on Freudian psychology, I could discuss how the entire story is shaped by the pilot's childhood experiences described in the first chapter. The prince's function is to allow the pilot to uncover everything that his adulthood has caused him to repress.

• Biographical: Saint Exupery was a pilot as well as a writer. It would be interesting to view The Little Prince as a sort of imaginative autobiography, possibly reflecting the way that he viewed death.

Critical Approaches to Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was the world's first science fiction novel, so it holds immediate value for me because I am interested in writing in the genre of science fiction. My real interest in the book lies, however, in the dark themes it explores in regards to humanity, monstrosity, look-ism, and evil. The reason I chose this book is, quite frankly, because I love it.

• Critical Disabilities Theory: this one is fairly obvious. The monster's physical appearance is a disability to him. Using this theory, I could examine: how does the monster's physical disability affect him? Does the author use the disability to symbolize something about the character of the monster, or does the disability itself affect the character? Does Shelley approach the relationship between the character and the physical body inside-out or outside-in? Why?
• Archetypal Criticism: this theory could be used to examine both Victor Frankenstein and his monster. Does the archetype of the classic "monster" fit the creature? What parts of the monster fit into the archetype, and what parts deviate? Are there any archetypes that fit Frankenstein himself?
• Critical Race Studies: this one is a bit of a stretch, but a very interesting stretch. When Frankenstein considers creating a bride for his monster, he rejects the idea based on assumptions he makes about the "race" of the monster based on its behaviors (he actually uses the word "race.") Are Frankenstein's assumptions about the monster's "race" valid? Is it possible that Shelley was using Victor's views of the monster as a way to examine the white man's views on other races in general? 
• Ecocriticism: As both a Romanticist author and the world's first science fiction author, Shelley had a complex relationship with the natural world. How is the natural world portrayed in Frankenstein? Positives? Negatives? What is the relationship of the monster (a very unnatural thing) to nature? What sorts of value statements does this story make about civilization and nature? 

Critical Approaches to The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner was published in 1929. The story centers around the Compson family as it begins to deteriorate and fall into obscurity. The family follows three members of the family and their housekeeper as the family slowly implodes on itself until they are left penniless and devoid of any good reputation.

• (biographical) An easy connection to make is to Faulkner's own life. He grew up in the South in the late 19th century and also attended Oxford, settings appear frequently in his novels. This idea of the Old South aristocracy and the reverberations of the Civil War on the Old South are largely explored in the novel and played out in real time in his own life.
• (feminist) One of the central characters to the book is Caddy Compson, the sister and mother figure for most of the family. She is integral to the decay of the family's reputation and both her and her daughter are both key players in the family's fall. They are portrayed as promiscuous and irresponsible. Quentin, her brother, also attempts to take it upon himself to protect her, for which he fails.
• (source studies) The title of the book is derived from the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. When one looks at the actual soliloquy from which the title comes from, you can see that many of the themes in the novel are also reflected in the passage. More themes can be explored when the piece is seen in conjunction with the novel.
• (critical race theory) One of Faulkner's most interesting characters is Dilsey, the black housekeeper for the Compson family. Her perspective comes last and is perhaps the clearest of them all. Her position in a Southern family should lend her very little respect in the family, and yet she is the primary caregiver for most of the children and is respected by nearly all of the characters. This inversion of the expectation for her position and race can serve as an interesting perspective and launching point.

Critical Approaches to Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

I have always loved Robert Frost's work.  I find this one especially important today because of the popularity of "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George Martin.  I think there is an interesting parallel between the two and my liking to the latter has renewed my interest in the former.   I am hoping one of these theories will help me connect the two. 

• Archetypal: I went over how Frost used fire and ice as symbolism vs. what else they could be symbolizing.  Fire is used as desire, destruction, and hatred.  The world burns because of it.  Ice is also hatred, but can see stubbornness and also calm.  Either way the world is going to end - it's just if it will be fire or ice.  
• Source Study: He uses the poem as an analysis as the life that one lives - so the world is individual.  HE wrote this poem as a self reflection of his own work.  Is he going to die in fire, having obsession rule over him or ice and have hatred be his demise? 
• Biographical: Frost left Harvard before finishing his degree.  Then he moved to New Hampshire with his family.  He wrote a lot during this time, but he lost two children.  Since his poem is about him viewing himself as dying in fire or ice, I think this connects well with his familial situation because he was worried that his career and schooling would take time away from what is important, like his family.   
• New Historicism: It was published in 1920.  This was a tumultuous time in America, after thee war, during the roaring 20s and right before even more arduous events.  Frost was looking at people and their life choices, like he was worried about their souls.  It was his call to people to not let their desires or obsessions cloud what is really important.