Feminist

Approach
 Feminist
Approach
For the feminist approach, the focus is on the
portrayal of characters in the text, mainly but not
limited to, the female characters

It highlights the awareness that in society, there exists

economic, political, social, and psychological oppression
against women and established gender stereotypes that are
harmful to both men and women.

When analyzing a text under the lens of the feminist

approach, we look at how a work uses its elements to either
reinforce or undermine the oppression against women and
these harmful gender stereotypes.
Feminist Approach
How does the text portray the women in it?

Are they depicted as oppressed?

Are they able to rise above it?

Does the portrayal of women in the text

propagate a patriarchal depiction of them?

Or does the author portray them as being

equal to men?
 Feminist Approach

Also, how does the work portray and

treat men?

Is the depiction of men patriarchal?

Or are they allowed to be vulnerable

and affectionate toward other
characters?
 Feminist Approach

Feminism is also concerned with the context of the work.

For example, what was the political climate when the work
was written? In what ways were women undermined by the
patriarchy at the time? What gender stereotypes were
prevalent and even enforced?
 Feminist Approach
Again, this changes how a text is viewed, analyzed, and
critiqued. What might be a good text when viewed with a
formalist lens might not be a good text in a feminist
perspective and vice versa. When writing a critique with the
feminist approach, the useful texts are those that are able
to subvert the patriarchal standards and show a positive
portrayal of men and women.
EXAMPLES
 Example 1

Take a look at another excerpt from the

short story “The Happy Prince”. This time,
look at it with a feminist lens and find what
could be important to the feminist critical
approach.

Source: “The Happy Prince” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/902/902-h/902-h.htm#page1​)

Example 1
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind
now,” he said, “so I will stay with you always.”

“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go

away to Egypt.”

“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept
at the Prince’s feet.

The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he

would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked
up crumbs outside the baker’s door when the baker was not
looking and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his
wings.
Example 1
But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just
strength to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more.
“Good-bye, dear Prince!” he murmured, “will you let me kiss
your hand?

“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little

Swallow,” said the Prince, “you have stayed too long here;
but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.”

“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am

going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep,
is he not?”
Example 1

And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down
dead at his feet.

At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue,

as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart
had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard
frost.

Source: “The Happy Prince” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/902/902-h/902-h.htm#page1​)

Example 2

Let us go back to the short story, “The Gift of the

Magi” by O. Henry. This time, read the excerpt with a
feminist perspective.

Source: “The Gift of the Magi” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm​)

Example 2

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very
serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a
family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail.
His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she
could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor
disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared
for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

Source: “The Gift of the Magi” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm​)

Example 2
“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and
sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a
present. It’ll grow out again—you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My
hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You
don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that
patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m
me without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
Source: “The Gift of the Magi” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm​)
Example 2
“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s
Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my
head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but
nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance, Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten
seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the
other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference?
A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought
valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be
illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table

Source: “The Gift of the Magi” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm​)

Example 2

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s
anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me
like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you
had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic
scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and
wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of
the lord of the flat.

Source: “The Gift of the Magi” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm​)

Example 2

For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had
worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell,
with jewelled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They
were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned
over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but
the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

Source: “The Gift of the Magi” (​http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm​)

 Example 3

Let us take another look at

“The Story of an Hour.” This time, read
the excerpt through the lens of the
feminist critical approach.

Source: “The Story of an Hour” (​https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/​)

 Example 3
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A
clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands
folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed
and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession
of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and
spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for
herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence
with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will
upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem
no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

Source: “The Story of an Hour” (​https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/​)

 Example 3
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!
What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession
of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of
her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold,
imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will
make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the
door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life
through that open window.

Source: “The Story of an Hour” (​https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/​)

 Example 3

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and
summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a
quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with
a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There
was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a
goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended
the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Source: “The Story of an Hour” (​https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/​)

 Example 3

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard
who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and
umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even
know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at
Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that
kills

Source: “The Story of an Hour” (​https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/​)

Thank
You!!