Genre - Answers kind or type of writing
Structure - Answers Action, background, development, climax (peak moment of drama, usually a point
when at least one character commits a significant act, experiences a significant change, makes a
significant discovery, learns a significant lesson or all of the above), and ending
Repetition - Answers common organizational device in short stories
Setting - Answers in short stories it may be very well defined (a particular room in a named town on a
certain date), or barely indicated (daytime, somewhere with people).
Imagery - Answers a means to convey meaning, usually appealing to the readers visual sense but may
include other senses, including the use of symbols, metaphors or other figures of speech.
Theme - Answers one or more than one, may be related to title, can be stated as either observation or
recommendation, midlevel generalization
New Criticism - Answers sometimes called "close reading," is the belief that the work itself is all one
needs to understand it—nothing outside of it. The emphasis is on literary language, and the ways that
these concepts reinforce meaning.
Reader Response Criticism - Answers Texts get their meaning from the engagement with active readers;
the reader (both as individual and community) is privileged over both author and text, gaining meaning
from elsewhere.
New Historian Criticism - Answers history is not just a background for understanding text, but texts of all
sorts lead to an understanding of an era.
Marxist Criticism - Answers based on political and economic theories of Karl Marx, author of the"
Communist Manifesto." It is largely interested in class differences and who benefits (from work, laws,
the text, etc.)
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
Deconstruction. - Answers made famous by Jacques Derrida, main idea is that the world has been
divided into binary opposites in Western culture. The goal is to show that the oppositions in the text are
not absolutely opposed, and that meaning is fluid.
Postcolonial criticism - Answers looks for the ways a dominant culture becomes the norm (Hegemony),
and those without power are portrayed as inferior. Writers from the powerless class have been called
subaltern.
Hegemony - Answers domination. Preponderant influence or authority over others
subaltern - Answers subordinate Classes not in control of a culture's ideology.