The House on Mango Street Pathfinder
Enduring Understandings
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Students Will
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Books
Topics
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Marxist Lens/Theory
Based on the theories of Karl Marx, class differences, economic and otherwise, as well as the capitalist system: "Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience" (Tyson 277). Marxist theorists are interested in answering whom does it [the work, the effort, the policy, the road, etc.] benefit? The elite? The middle class? Marxists critics are also interested in how the lower or working classes are oppressed - in everyday life and in literature.
Typical questions:
Typical questions:
- Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
- What is the social class of the author?
- Which class does the work claim to represent?
- What values does it reinforce?
- What values does it subvert?
- What conflict can be seen between the values the work champions and those it portrays?
- What social classes do the characters represent?
- How do characters from different classes interact or conflict?
Feminist Lens/Theory
There are several assumptions and concepts held in common by most feminist critics.
1. Many civilizations are pervasively patriarchal.
2. Concepts of "gender" are largely, if not entirely, cultural constructs, affected by the patriarchal biases of civilization.
3. Patriarchal ideology pervades writings that have been considered great literature. Such works lack autonomous female role models, are implicitly addressed to male readers, and leave the woman reader an alien outsider or else solicit her to identify against herself by assuming male values and ways of perceiving, feeling, and acting.
Typical questions:
1. Many civilizations are pervasively patriarchal.
2. Concepts of "gender" are largely, if not entirely, cultural constructs, affected by the patriarchal biases of civilization.
3. Patriarchal ideology pervades writings that have been considered great literature. Such works lack autonomous female role models, are implicitly addressed to male readers, and leave the woman reader an alien outsider or else solicit her to identify against herself by assuming male values and ways of perceiving, feeling, and acting.
Typical questions:
- How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
- What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles)?
- How are male and female roles defined?
- What constitutes masculinity and femininity? How do characters embody these traits?
- Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others’ reactions to them?
- What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy?
- What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
- What does the work say about women's creativity?
- What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy?
- What role does the work play in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition?