A literary theory becomes useful when it is used as a method of reading. A critic does not simply attach a label such as “Marxist” or “Feminist” to a text. Instead, the critic asks particular questions, identifies patterns, examines relationships of power, and interprets how the text represents or challenges social assumptions.
Critical Lens| What does the critic look for?| What does the critic DO?| Illustration| Question the critic asks
Marxist Criticism| A Marxist critic looks for class divisions, economic inequality, labour, wealth, property, ideology, class struggle, and power relations. The critic examines how material and economic conditions influence characters and events. Concepts such as ideology, hegemony, capitalism, and cultural materialism are important. The critic also considers whether a text reinforces or challenges dominant class structures.| The critic examines the economic and historical conditions represented in the text. The critic identifies different social classes and compares their access to wealth, power, education, and opportunities. The critic uncovers ideological assumptions that make an unequal social order appear normal or natural. The critic questions whose interests are served by the existing system and interprets whether the text reinforces or resists dominant ideology.| In Dickens’s Hard Times, a Marxist critic may examine the contrast between factory owners and workers. Stephen Blackpool’s difficult working conditions reveal the vulnerability of the working class, while Coketown represents an industrial capitalist society. Gradgrind’s emphasis on “facts” can also be examined in relation to a system that values usefulness, productivity, and economic calculation. Thus, the critic connects individual experiences with larger class and economic structures.| How does the economic and class structure represented in the text shape the lives, choices, and relationships of its characters?
Feminist/Gender Criticism| A Feminist/Gender critic looks for patriarchy, gender inequality, representation of women, gender roles, agency, marginalization, and the construction of femininity and masculinity. The critic asks whether gender identities are presented as natural or socially constructed. The critic also examines who has authority over women’s bodies, education, voices, choices, and work.| The critic examines how characters are represented according to gender. The critic identifies patriarchal assumptions and questions traditional ideas about femininity and masculinity. The critic compares the power and agency available to different genders, exposes forms of marginalization, and challenges representations that treat women as passive or subordinate. The critic may also reinterpret a female character’s actions from the perspective of autonomy and agency rather than accepting patriarchal judgments about her.| In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, a feminist critic may examine how the narrator’s husband controls her treatment, movement, and intellectual activity. Her prescribed isolation limits her autonomy and prevents her from exercising authority over her own life. The wallpaper can therefore be interpreted in relation to her experience of confinement and resistance. The reading connects her individual experience with wider patriarchal structures rather than treating it only as a personal psychological problem.| How does the text construct gender roles, and who gains or loses power because of those constructions?
Ecocriticism| An ecocritic looks for representations of nature, environment, animals, landscape, ecological relationships, environmental exploitation, and the relationship between human and non-human life. The critic questions anthropocentrism, or the assumption that human interests should always dominate. The critic may also examine the relationship between environmental harm and social inequalities.| The critic examines how nature is represented and identifies assumptions about humanity’s relationship with the non-human world. The critic questions anthropocentric attitudes and interrogates the division between nature and culture. The critic uncovers representations of exploitation or ecological imbalance and compares human interests with the interests of the wider environment. The critic may also reinterpret scientific progress, development, or human ambition by considering their environmental consequences.| In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, an ecocritic may examine Victor Frankenstein’s desire to overcome natural limits through scientific creation. His attempt to control the processes of life can be read in relation to a larger question about human domination of nature. The Creature’s relationship with the natural world also complicates the boundary between human and non-human existence. The novel can therefore be examined as a text that raises questions about human ambition, natural limits, responsibility, and the consequences of attempting to control nature.| How does the text represent the relationship between human beings and the natural or non-human world?
Queer Criticism| A Queer critic looks for heteronormativity, sexuality, gender identity, gender fluidity, homoerotic subtext, repression, and assumptions about “normal” relationships and identities. The critic questions fixed categories of gender and sexuality. The concept of gender performativity, associated especially with Judith Butler, is important: gender can be understood as something repeatedly produced through social acts and norms rather than simply an unchanging essence.| The critic examines how the text defines or assumes “normal” sexuality and gender. The critic identifies heteronormative assumptions and questions fixed boundaries between masculine/feminine and heterosexual/non-heterosexual identities. The critic may uncover coded or homoerotic meanings, interrogate moments of secrecy and repression, and reinterpret characters whose identities do not fit dominant categories. The critic also asks whether the text reinforces or destabilizes conventional gender and sexual norms.| In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a queer critic may examine the homoerotic dimension of Dorian’s relationship with Basil Hallward. The intensity of their relationship can be considered alongside the Victorian social pressures surrounding same-sex desire. The critic may also examine secrecy, repression, identity, and the conflict between private desire and public conformity. Rather than assuming heterosexuality as the only interpretive framework, the critic investigates how the novel represents and manages non-normative desire.| How does the text reinforce, conceal, question, or disrupt conventional ideas about gender and sexuality?
The Four Methods in Simple Terms
A Marxist critic asks: What economic and class structures are operating here?
A Feminist/Gender critic asks: How are gender and power constructed here?
An Ecocritic asks: How does the text imagine the relationship between humans and the natural world?
A Queer critic asks: What does the text assume about “normal” gender and sexuality, and does it challenge those assumptions?
The important point is that the critic does not automatically decide that a text is “capitalist,” “patriarchal,” “anti-nature,” or “queer.” Instead, the critic investigates textual evidence and develops an interpretation through a particular theoretical framework.
What Is the Method of Literary Criticism? — About 150 Words
The method of literary criticism is a systematic way of reading a literary text through a particular theoretical lens. A critic begins by identifying what the chosen theory makes important. A Marxist critic, for example, examines class and economic power, while a feminist critic investigates gender and patriarchy. The critic then closely reads characters, narrative, language, symbols, relationships, settings, and conflicts to find textual evidence. Next, the critic connects these details with larger social, cultural, economic, environmental, or ideological structures. The critic questions assumptions, identifies power relations, compares perspectives, exposes contradictions, and develops an interpretation. Therefore, criticism is not simply saying what a text “means.” It is asking how the text produces meaning and what structures or assumptions shape that meaning. Different theories may produce different interpretations of the same literary work because each lens directs attention towards different aspects of the text.
A useful formula for your exam
Theory → Question → Textual Evidence → Analysis → Interpretation
For example:
Feminist theory → Who has gendered power? → The narrator’s confinement → Analysis of patriarchal control → Interpretation of female agency.
This is the key difference between knowing a theory and actually using a theory.
Absolutely. For Step 3, we need to choose the text to apply the four lenses to. Since your worksheet/source uses Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a key example, I’ll use that text unless you want a different one.
Applying Four Critical Lenses to Frankenstein
The important point is that the four critics are not simply giving four summaries of the novel. Each critic notices different features because each theoretical lens asks different questions about power, identity, society, nature, and human relationships.
Critical Reading 1. Textual Evidence 2. Critical Concept 3. How the Concept Deepens the Interpretation
Critic 1 – Marxist Victor belongs to a socially privileged background and has access to education, scientific knowledge, and resources. The Creature, in contrast, has no property, social status, or recognized place in society. His attempts to enter human society repeatedly fail because he is judged by his appearance and social position. Class, ideology, social exclusion, power, material conditions A Marxist reading moves beyond the idea that the Creature is simply a “monster.” It asks how social structures determine who is accepted and who is excluded. The Creature's lack of social belonging can therefore be connected to material and social inequalities. The reading also questions the assumption that scientific knowledge and social privilege are equally available to everyone.
Critic 2 – Feminist/Gender Women such as Elizabeth, Caroline, and Justine occupy important emotional and social roles, but they generally have less control over major decisions than the male characters. Victor's scientific project is also based on creating life without female reproduction. Patriarchy, gender roles, agency, gendered power A feminist critic may notice that the novel repeatedly places men in positions of intellectual and social authority while women are often associated with care, family, and domestic life. Victor's attempt to create life without a woman can also be examined as a symbolic challenge to traditional reproductive roles. This does not mean that the novel has only one feminist meaning; rather, the lens makes questions of female agency and male authority more visible.
Critic 3 – Ecocritic Natural landscapes are repeatedly described in the novel: mountains, glaciers, forests, lakes, and other environments become important spaces for the characters. Victor also attempts to penetrate the secrets of nature through scientific experimentation and create life artificially. Anthropocentrism, human–nature relations, scientific control, ecological responsibility An ecocritical reading asks what happens when human beings attempt to treat nature as something that can simply be mastered or controlled. Victor's scientific ambition can therefore be examined in relation to the limits of human power. Nature is not merely background scenery: it frequently affects the characters emotionally and narratively. The reading makes the relationship between human ambition, natural limits, and responsibility more significant.
Critic 4 – Queer Critic The novel contains unusually intense relationships between men, particularly Victor's relationships with Henry Clerval and Robert Walton. Victor and the Creature are also connected through an intimate and obsessive relationship of creation, rejection, pursuit, and dependence. The novel was written within a nineteenth-century culture with strong expectations about gender and social relationships. Heteronormativity, gender norms, non-normative relationships, identity A queer reading does not simply claim that a character has a particular sexual identity without evidence. Instead, it examines how the novel constructs masculinity, intimacy, friendship, family, and socially acceptable relationships. The intense emotional bonds between male characters can therefore be examined alongside the novel's relatively limited representation of conventional romantic relationships. This lens makes questions about intimacy and gender expectations more visible.
1. The Marxist Critic: What might another reader overlook?
A conventional reading might concentrate on Victor's scientific ambition and the Creature's suffering.
A Marxist critic looks additionally at who possesses knowledge, education, resources, and social power. Victor has access to education and scientific institutions, whereas the Creature begins without property, family, education, or social recognition. When the Creature tries to enter human society, appearance and social acceptance become barriers.
The important shift is from:
“Why does the Creature become an outsider?”
to:
“What social structures determine who is allowed to belong?”
The Marxist lens therefore makes social exclusion and unequal access to power more visible.
2. The Feminist/Gender Critic: What might another reader overlook?
A reader may focus primarily on Victor as the scientist and the Creature as his creation. A feminist/gender critic also asks:
Where are the women, and how much agency do they possess?
Elizabeth, Caroline, Justine, and other female characters are strongly connected with family, affection, care, and domestic relationships. Their lives are also deeply affected by decisions made by men.
Victor's attempt to create life without female reproduction provides another important point for analysis. The critic can question the gender implications of a male scientist attempting to take control of a process traditionally associated with women's reproductive bodies.
The lens therefore shifts attention from simply “science versus nature” to questions of gender, reproduction, patriarchy, and agency.
3. The Ecocritic: What might another reader overlook?
A reader might treat the novel's mountains, glaciers, forests, and lakes simply as beautiful Romantic scenery.
An ecocritic asks us to take these environments seriously.
Nature repeatedly becomes a significant presence in the novel. Victor encounters natural landscapes during moments of emotional crisis, while the Creature also experiences the natural world directly. At the same time, Victor's scientific ambition involves attempting to penetrate what he understands as the secrets of life.
The ecocritical question therefore becomes:
What are the consequences of assuming that human beings can master nature completely?
This makes human–nature relations, anthropocentrism, natural limits, and responsibility central to the interpretation.
4. The Queer Critic: What might another reader overlook?
A queer critic does not automatically label Victor, Walton, Henry, or the Creature according to a modern sexual identity. Instead, the critic examines how the novel constructs gender, intimacy, friendship, desire, and social norms.
For example, Walton's letters to his sister contain strong emotional expressions about his desire for companionship, while Victor develops an intense emotional bond with Henry Clerval. Victor and the Creature are also locked into an unusually intense relationship in which creation, rejection, pursuit, dependence, and identity become intertwined.
A queer reading therefore asks what kinds of relationships the novel makes visible, invisible, acceptable, or threatening.
The important concept here is heteronormativity: the assumption that heterosexual relationships and conventional gender roles are the normal or expected framework for human relationships.
Why the Four Readings Are Different
The same event can become meaningful in different ways depending on the critical lens.
For example, consider Victor creating the Creature:
Marxist critic: Who possesses scientific knowledge and social power?
Feminist/Gender critic: What happens when a man attempts to control reproduction?
Ecocritic: What happens when humanity attempts to master natural processes?
Queer critic: How does the creation disrupt conventional ideas about identity, embodiment, family, and relationships?
None of these questions has to replace the others.
Instead, each lens makes something different visible.
The basic method
Textual evidence → Critical concept → Analytical question → Interpretation
And an important academic rule is:
> Evidence comes first; interpretation comes after.
A critic should not force a theory onto the novel. The critic should identify something actually present in the text and then use the theoretical concept to explain why that feature matters.
Final Question
What becomes visible when the same literary text is viewed through four different critical lenses?
When Frankenstein is viewed through four different lenses, the novel becomes more complex. The Marxist lens makes social power, privilege, and exclusion visible. The Feminist/Gender lens draws attention to patriarchy, reproduction, and women's agency. The Ecocritical lens highlights the relationship between human ambition and the natural world. The Queer lens makes us question conventional assumptions about gender, identity, intimacy, and socially accepted relationships. Thus, literary theory does not simply provide four different labels for the same novel. It changes what we notice, which questions we ask, and how we interpret the evidence already present in the text.
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