For this semester, I am taking a class about “Women and/in Literature”, and I had to read this small booklet. I will say that if you are interested in literary analysis more than just reviewing and rambling about books, this is a great place to start.

This handbook, besides giving a quick background on how literature has been dominated by men and their ideas and denouncing how women have been mistreated and neglected by the patriarchy, is a great introduction to all the old school approaches for literary analysis.

For analyzing literature, it is important to always know which elements to look for in a text, characteristics shared by other texts, and what certain elements in the story refer to or might connect to. There are so many approaches that if you handle them correctly can add a lot of value to the reading of your novel or favorite book. So, if you need certain guidance on what to study or where to start, this is the right handbook to start.

Besides all the general information regarding approaches, this handbook is amazing for the feminist approach or point of view when analyzing a text. To be honest, I have learned a few things that I did not know. The handbook will ask you questions at certain points of the reading that will help you comprehend how the patriarchy is by default in our brains and how things that we find “normal” are just a simple refection of the damage that we have suffered as part of this social system.

While reading this handbook, I will recommend you to try to remember any novel or any story that you know that have any kind of feminist discourse, and you might even find more out of that reading than before. I will recommend you for example to read first “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and then to read this text. All those questions on the handbook will open so many doors that you passed by while reading this short story.

We have to open our minds to study better literature, and we have to leave all our prejudice behind. One great professor told us to always analyze what we say, how we act,  and be self-conscious when we act and talk because we will be able to see all those little scars left by patriarchy.

You can get this title at Amazon.com in kindle version for just $2.99, and I will totally recommend it! Those few dollars are well worth spending!

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Feminist Literary Theory: An Introductory Handbook

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