Genre Criticism

Example:

God's Garden by Robert Frost (Poem)

God made a beatous garden
With lovely flowers strown,
But one straight, narrow pathway
That was not overgrown.
And to this beauteous garden
He brought mankind to live,
And said: "To you, my children,
These lovely flowers I give.
Prune ye my vines and fig trees,
With care my flowerets tend,
But keep the pathway open
Your home is at the end."

Then came another master,
Who did not love mankind,
And planted on the pathway
Gold flowers for them to find.
And mankind saw the bright flowers,
That, glitt'ring in the sun,
Quite hid the thorns of av'rice
That poison blood and bone;
And far off many wandered,
And when life's night came on,
They still were seeking gold flowers,
Lost, helpless and alone.


O, cease to heed the glamour
That blinds your foolish eyes,
Look upward to the glitter
Of stars in God's clear skies.
Their ways are pure and harmless
And will not lead astray,
Bid aid your erring footsteps
To keep the narrow way.
And when the sun shines brightly
Tend flowers that God has given
And keep the pathway open
That leads you on to heaven.

Analysis:

Genre Criticism focuses obviously to the genre of the literary work. God's garden fits to Genre Criticism because it is a poem which has the characteristics of a poem. It has rhyme, 36 lines and 3 stanzas.

Darwinism

Example:

Galapagos (Novel)

Synopsis:

Galápagos is the story of a small band of mismatched humans who are shipwrecked on the fictional island of Santa Rosalia in the Galápagos Islands after a global financial crisis cripples the world's economy. Shortly thereafter, a disease renders all humans on Earth infertile, with the exception of the people on Santa Rosalia, making them the last specimens of humankind. Over the next million years, their descendants, the only fertile humans left on the planet, eventually evolve into a furry species resembling seals: though possibly still able to walk upright (it is not explicitly mentioned, but it is stated that they occasionally catch land animals), they have a snout with teeth adapted for catching fish, a streamlined skull and flipper-like hands with rudimentary fingers (described as "nubbins").

The story's narrator is a spirit who has been watching over humans for the last million years. This particular ghost is the immortal spirit of Leon Trotsky Trout, son of Vonnegut's recurring character Kilgore Trout. Leon is a Vietnam War veteran who is affected by the massacres in Vietnam. He goes AWOL and settles in Sweden, where he works as a shipbuilder and dies during the construction of the ship, the Bahía de Darwin.This ship is used for the "Nature Cruise of the Century". Planned as a celebrity cruise, it was in limbo due to the economic downturn, and due to a chain of unconnected events the ship ended up in allowing humans to reach and survive in the Galápagos.

Kilgore Trout—deceased—makes four appearances in the novel, urging his son to enter the "blue tunnel" that leads to the afterlife. When Leon refuses for the fourth time, Kilgore pledges that he, and the blue tunnel, will not return for one million years, which leaves Leon to observe the slow process of evolution that transforms the humans into aquatic mammals. The process begins when a Japanese woman on the island, the granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor, gives birth to a fur-covered daughter.

Trout maintains that all the sorrows of humankind were caused by "the only true villain in my story: the oversized human brain". Fortunately, natural selection eliminates this problem, since the humans best fitted to Santa Rosalia were those who could swim best, which required a streamlined head, which in turn required a smaller brain.

Analysis:

Darwinism is a branch of literary criticism that studies literature in the context of evolution by means of natural selection, including gene-culture coevolution. This novel fits to Darwinism because it talks about by which time humanity has evolved to become like seals.

Archetypal

Example:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Short Story

Synopsis:

A beautiful girl, Snow White, takes refuge in the forest in the house of seven dwarfs to hide from her stepmother, the wicked Queen. The Queen is jealous because she wants to be known as "the fairest in the land," and Snow White's beauty surpasses her own. The dwarfs grow to love their unexpected visitor, who cleans their house and cooks their meals. But one day while the dwarfs are at their diamond mine, the Queen arrives at the cottage disguised as an old peddler woman and persuades Snow White to bite into a poisoned apple. The dwarfs, warned by the forest animals, rush home to chase the witch away, but they are too late to save Snow White from the poisoned apple. They place her in a glass coffin in the woods and mourn for her. The Prince, who has fallen in love with Snow White, happens by and awakens her from the wicked Queen's deathlike spell with "love's first kiss."


Interpretation:
Snow White can be viewed under Achetypal because this theory focuses on some figments of imaginations which the story of Snow White has. This theory also focuses on symbols, narratives and images. The best archetypal pattern is any symbol with deep roots in a culture's mythology, such as the forbidden fruit in Genesis or even the poison apple in Snow White.

Cultural Studies

Example:

A Thousand Splendid Suns (Novel)

Synopsis:

Mariam lives in a kolba on the outskirts of Herat with her embittered mother. Jalil, her father, is a wealthy man who lives in town with three wives and nine children. Because Mariam is his illegitimate daughter, she cannot live with them, but Jalil visits her every Thursday. On her fifteenth birthday, Mariam wants her father to take her to see Pinocchio at his movie theater. When he does not show up, she hikes into town and goes to his house. He refuses to see her, and she ends up sleeping on the porch. In the morning, Mariam returns home to find that her mother has committed suicide out of fear that her daughter has deserted her. Mariam is then taken to live in her father's house. Jalil arranges for her to be married to Rasheed, a shoemaker from Kabul who is thirty years her senior. In Kabul, Mariam becomes pregnant seven successive times, but is never able to carry a child to term, and Rasheed gradually becomes more abusive.

A girl named Laila and a boy named Tariq, who are close friends and aware of social boundaries, live in the same neighborhood. War comes to Afghanistan, and Kabul is bombarded by rocket attacks. Tariq's family decides to leave the city, and the emotional farewell between Laila and Tariq ends with them making love. Laila's family also decides to leave Kabul, but as they are packing a rocket destroys the house, kills her parents, and severely injures Laila. Laila is taken in by Rasheed and Mariam.

After recovering from her injuries, Laila discovers that she is pregnant with Tariq's child. After learning that Tariq is dead, she agrees to marry Rasheed, who is eager to have a young and attractive second wife, and hopes to have a child with her. When Laila gives birth to a daughter, Aziza, Rasheed is displeased and suspicious, and he soon becomes abusive toward Laila. Mariam and Laila eventually become confidantes and best friends. They plan to run away from Rasheed and leave Kabul, but they are caught at the bus station. Rasheed beats them and deprives them of water for several days, almost killing Aziza.

A few years later, Laila gives birth to Zalmai, Rasheed's son. The Taliban has risen to power, and there is a drought, and living conditions in Kabul become poor. Rasheed's workshop burns down, and he is forced to take jobs for which he is ill-suited. Rasheed sends Aziza to an orphanage. Then one day, Tariq appears outside the house. He and Laila are reunited, and their passions flare anew. When Rasheed returns home from work, Zalmai tells his father about the visitor. Rasheed starts to savagely beat Laila. He nearly strangles her, but Mariam intervenes and kills Rasheed with a shovel. Afterwards, Mariam confesses to killing Rasheed, in order to draw attention away from Laila and Tariq, and is executed, while Laila and Tariq leave for Pakistan with Aziza and Zalmai.

After the fall of the Taliban, Laila and Tariq return to Afghanistan. They stop in the village where Mariam was raised, and discover a package that Mariam's father left behind for her: a videotape ofPinocchio, a small pile of money and a letter. Laila reads the letter and discovers that Jalil regretted sending Mariam away. Laila and Tariq return to Kabul and fix up the orphanage, where Laila starts working as a teacher. Laila is pregnant with her third child, and if it is a girl, she will be named Mariam.

Analysis:
The novel centers around the friendship between Mariam and Laila. It is split into four parts, with a focus on Mariam in the first part, continuing Laila in the second and fourth, and the relationship between the two women in the third part. The book focuses on the tumultuous lives of two Afghan women and how their lives cross each other. It can be classified under Cultural Studies because it shows here the culture of Afghanistan an d how two friends never forget each other.

Post-Modernism

Example:

The Lime Twig - John Hawkes

Synposis:

This highly elliptical novel, set in England after World War II, deals with a sedate, bored lower-class couple—Michael and Margaret Banks—who are lured into fronting a racehorse scheme. Michael Banks is befriended by William Hencher, a well-meaning but lost soul who fell into association with a ruthless gang during the war. After his mother's death, Hencher wants to repay the Bankses for their allowing him to rent a room in their home, where he lived with his mother twenty years prior. Knowing Michael likes horses, Hencher invites him to the heist of the racehorse Rock Castle—which goes awry, leading to Hencher's death. The gang members then keep Michael under wraps. Realizing that Margaret is becoming suspicious of Michael's absence, they force Michael to call and tell her to meet him at a party. In order to ensure that Michael will front as the owner of the stolen stallion, they kidnap Margaret while distracting Michael with two women, both sexual predators. The heavy of the gang, Thick, beats Margaret mercilessly with a truncheon after she attempts to escape; then, Larry, the seemingly invincible kingpin of the gang who orchestrates the novel's events, slashes and rapes her. Meanwhile, in a brutally ironic contrast, Michael finds delirious pleasure in a femme fatale, Sybilline, the mistress of Larry—and two other women, as well. Having been badly beaten in a street fight with a constable, Michael attempts to redeem himself from both criminal activity and infidelity by thwarting the race, which has been set up in order to allow Larry to retire to America in comfort.

Plot, though, is decidedly subordinate in Hawkes' fiction to intense imagery and a nightmarish, hallucinatory atmosphere. Many details of the plot can only be inferred, and many narrative questions cannot easily be answered. The narrative parodies detective thrillers, particularly through the final presentation of two baffled detectives in bowler hats who, having discovered Hencher's corpse during a heavy rain, set out "separately on vacant streets to uncover the particulars of this crime." In some sense, these figures may be taken as representatives of the reader, who is left to make coherent sense out of the novel's fragments. Some readers have found the novel's events highly disturbing, but the ultimate meaning and value of the work are irreducible to incident; instead, they inhere in the vividly impressionistic style through which these sordid events are both presented and transfigured.

Analysis:

 The Lime Twig is a narration of Hencher which concerns his recollections of life with his mother during World War II. The other chapters are all presented in a third-person limited style with a focus on the banal inner lives of Michael and Margaret Banks. The style is one of broken, dreamlike sequences, which suspend time in a quintessentially postmodernfashion. It falls under post modernism because this theory is defined as a style or trend which emerged in the post–World War II era.

Eco-criticism

Example:

Horton Hears a Who!

Synopsis:

An imaginative elephant named Horton hears a faint cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. Although Horton doesn't know it yet, that speck houses an entire city named Who-ville, inhabited by the microscopic Whos, led by the Mayor. Despite being ridiculed and threatened by his neighbors, who think he has lost his mind, Horton is determined to save the particle--because "a person's a person, no matter how small." Horton's eight-word explanation for his actions embodies an idea both simple and profound, and which means so much, to so many. Horton explains to his skeptical friends: "If you were way out in space, and you looked down at where we live, we would look like a speck." Then there's Horton's code--his motto--that, "an elephant's faithful 100 percent"--pointing to his honesty and determination to never abandon his mission to find a new home for the speck that houses the incredible world of Who-ville. 

Intepretation:

Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including "green (cultural) studies", "ecopoetics", and "environmental literary criticism".The Horton hears a who can be viewed under eco-criticism because it's all about an elephant named Horton the Elephant who struggles to protect a microscopic community from his neighbors who refuse to believe it exists.

Moral Criticism

Example:

The Tortoise and the Hare (Short Story)

Summary:

In The Tortoise and the Hare, there is a Hare (kind of rabbit) and a tortoise (a large turtle). The hare and tortoise race, and the hare believes that since he is much faster than the tortoise, he can slow down and relax and take a nap and still win the race. However, he sleeps for too long and the tortoise eventually passes him, winning the race. The moral (lesson) of the story is that Slow and Steady Wins The Race.

Interpretation:

The Tortoise and the Hare is a children story and we can get moral lessons from it. And the lesson for this story is "Slow and steady wins the race." Though it's a children story, it still imparted lesson and that's what moral criticism criticize, it looks for the lesson in the literary works.

American Pragmatism

Example:

Burlesque (2010 Musical Film)

Summary:

Ali Rose (Aguilera) moves to Los Angeles after she quits her bar job when her boss refuses to pay her. Once in L.A., she tries and fails at every audition she does until one night, she finds herself unknowingly in a burlesque club when she hears the music on the street. She finds Tess (Cher) and the dancers performing “Welcome to Burlesque” and decides to pursue a career on stage once she meets Jack (Gigandet). Jack refers her to Tess for an audition, but is rejected instantly and ushered out by Sean (Tucci). Instead of leaving, Ali begins serving customers at the club as a waitress, while Tess and Sean observe with Jack asking Tess to give Ali a chance.

When Georgia (Hough) becomes pregnant, auditions are held to replace her. Ali begins her audition when everyone leaves, and after performing "Wagon Wheel Watusi", persuades Tess to allow her to become one of the club's dancers, much to the annoyance of Nikki (Bell), a performer who is always late and caught drinking before numbers. When Nikki appears drunk, Tess orders Ali to take her place. Behind the stage, Tess and her ex-husband/co-owner Vince (Gallagher) argue with Marcus (Dane), who wants to buy the club to save it from foreclosure.

Nikki is mad that Ali took her place, so in the middle of her performance, she cuts off the sound. Sean immediately tries to lower the curtain but Ali begins to sing the song without the music, a cappella, and the curtain is again raised. Everyone is impressed by her beautiful, strong voice and Tess excitedly announces that she will create a new show around the new lead singer and dancer, Ali. Sean, impressed by Ali, tells Jack that he should make a move on Ali before it's too late, even though Jack is already engaged. Kind of showing Jack's relationship is rocky. Despite the club's growing success, Tess is still unable to pay the bank.

One night after the club closes, Tess, worried with the club's economic prospects, sings "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me". A very jealous Nikki shows up drunk and picks a fight with Tess, calling Ali a "slut with mutant lungs". Tess, who has grown frustrated with Nikki, questions her gratitude for the help she has received. Angered, Nikki quits on the spot (before falsely confessing that she slept with Vince after his and Tess' honeymoon), and the altercation ends when Tess angrily retaliates by smashing the passenger side window on Nikki's convertible with a crowbar.

Tensions arise between Ali and Jack as Marcus grows increasingly infatuated with Ali, making Jack jealous. At Georgia's wedding, Jack appears to call off his engagement, getting drunk. That night, Ali and Jack sleep together, but the following morning Jack's fiancé, Natalie (Agron), returns unexpectedly from her play in New York and tells Ali that the engagement is still on. Jack denies this, and while trying to fix things, he asks Ali to leave. Feeling heartbroken and betrayed, Ali runs to Sean for support, who prompts her to go with Marcus after his phone call.

While spending time with Marcus, Ali finds out about "air rights", which refers to the empty space above a building and what can be done with it. Ali breaks things off with Marcus after she sees his plans to build a skyscraper on the property the club is on. Ali tells Tess, and together they inform the owner of the new million-dollar condos across the street; fearing the loss of business that would result from the obstruction of his prospective tenants' view, he purchases the air rights to the club's property. The resulting money is enough for Tess to buy out Vince's share, pay off the bank, and re-fashion the club to her own vision. She also makes up with Nikki and rehires her at the club. In the end Ali, having reunited with Jack and earned Nikki's respect, performs "Show Me How You Burlesque" with all of the dancers, a song which Jack wrote and finally finished.

Interpretation:

American Pragmatism talks about practicality or answers the question "which is the better?". This movie fits the American Pragmatism because the main character or the protagonist, Ali Rose, shows practicality in choosing what is right to do over her job where her boss refuses to pay her. She traveled to L.A and finds job at the burlesque club where first she became a waitress then she became a singer. Practicality was shown here when she pursue a career on stage to work.

Romanticism

Example:

Tarzan and Jane (film)

Summary:

As Tarzan and Jane's one-year wedding anniversary approaches, Jane searches the jungle for the perfect gift for Tarzan, even enlisting the help of Terk and Tantor. As they recall the many adventures they've shared so far, Jane realizes what an exciting year it's been in the jungle from encounters with old friends, outsmarting panthers to surfing the lava down an erupting volcano. But all of that is nothing compared to the surprise that Tarzan has in store for Jane.

Interpretation:

Tarzan and Jane can be considered under Romanticism because it's a story about a couple who lived in a jungle. Jade loves Tarzan so much and on their wedding anniversary, she wants to get something special for Tarzan to mark the occasion.  But Jane has a hard time deciding just what the special gift should be.  As it turns out, it's Tarzan who has the big surprise for Jane, as he plans something special to show how he's come to understand the life she left behind to be with him. You can feel their extreme emotion which is the love for each other in the story. The film tells a lot about how love affects our lives that you even sacrifice the life you have just for the one you love and you'll do anything for him/her.

Territorialism

Example:

Conan the Barbarian (2011) - Film

Summary:

Conan is the son of Corin (Ron Perlman), chief of a barbarian tribe. The youth (Leo Howard) is a skilled but violent warrior, who his father believes is not ready to wield his own sword. One day, their village is attacked by the forces of Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), a warlord who wishes to reunite the pieces of the Mask of Acheron in order to revive his dead wife and conquer Hyboria. Thousands of years ago, the Mask, crafted by a group of sorcerers and used to subjugate the world, was broken into many pieces, which were scattered among the barbarian tribes. After locating Corin's piece of the mask, and murdering the entire village, Zym leaves. Conan is the only survivor, and swears revenge.

Years later, Conan (Jason Momoa) has become a pirate, but still seeks revenge. He encounters a slave colony and frees it, killing all of the slave handlers in the process. In the city of Messantia, he encounters Ela-Shan (Saïd Taghmaoui), a thief being chased by a man whom Conan recognizes as Lucius (Steven O'Donnell), one of Zym's soldiers from years before. He allows himself to be captured alongside Ela-Shan. Conan escapes imprisonment, kills several of the guards, and confronts Lucius, forcing him to reveal that Zym seeks the pure-blood descendant of the sorcerers of Acheron; sacrificing the descendant will unleash the mask's power. Conan helps the rest of the prisoners to escape, and, in gratitude, Ela-Shan tells Conan that, if he ever needs him, Conan will find him at the City of Thieves, Argalon. Lucius is then killed by the prisoners.

Zym and his daughter, the sorceress Marique (Rose McGowan) attack a monastery where they hope to find the pure-blood descendant. Sensing something is wrong, Fassir (Raad Rawi), an elderly monk, tells one of his students, Tamara (Rachel Nichols), to run away and return to her birthplace. When Fassir refuses to reveal his knowledge of the descendant, Zym kills him. Marique also slays several of the priestesses. Tamara's carriage is chased by Zym's men, but Conan rescues her, kills three of her pursuers, and also captures one of Zym's men, Remo (Milton Welsh). After forcing him to reveal Tamara's importance as the pure-blood, Conan catapults Remo into Zym's nearby camp, killing him.

Zym and Marique confront Conan, who pretends to be interested in exchanging Tamara for gold. Conan attacks Zym, but Marique saves her father by invoking soldiers made of sand ( some of which Conan manages to kill ) and then poisoning Conan with a poison-laced boomerang sword. Tamara rescues him and they return to Conan's ship, stationed nearby, where his friend Artus (Nonso Anozie) helps Conan recover. The boat is attacked by Zym's men, and, although they kill several of Conan's men, they are defeated. Conan orders Artus to return to Messantia with Tamara and departs to confront Zym in his kingdom. Artus tells Tamara that Conan left a map behind and she follows him, meeting with him in a cave, where they make love. The next day, as she is returning to the boat, Zym's men and daughter capture her.

Conan learns of Tamara's capture and departs to Argalon, where he asks Ela-Shan to help him break into Zym's castle unnoticed. Zym prepares to drain Tamara's blood, mending the mask. After confronting an octopus-like monster that guards the dungeons and killing its four handlers, Conan infiltrates Zym's followers, kills a guard and steals his robe, and watches as Zym puts on the empowered mask. Conan releases Tamara, and she escapes as he battles Zym with the castle falling around them. Marique attacks Tamara, but Conan hears Tamara's scream and defeats Marique, cutting off her hand. Tamara kicks her into a pit, where she is impaled on a large spike. Zym comes and, finding his daughter's corpse, he swears revenge upon Conan.

Conan and Tamara become trapped on an unstable bridge as Zym attacks them. He uses the mask's power to call forth the spirit of his dead wife, Maliva, a powerful sorceress who was executed by the monks from Tamara's monastery for attempting to unleash occult forces to destroy Hyborea, and Maliva's spirit begins to possess Tamara. She begs Conan to let her fall, but he refuses, and instead stabs the bridge before jumping to safety with Tamara. The bridge collapses, taking Zym along. The power-hungry ruler falls to the lava below the immense precipice screaming the name of his wife, implying his demise.

Conan and Tamara escape and he returns her to her birthplace, telling her that they'll meet again. He then returns to Corin's village and tells the memory of his father that he has avenged his death and recovered the sword Zym stole from him, restoring his honor.

Interpretation:

This theory discusses how an individual tries to protect his/her possessions. It is creating a specific boundaries or markers on certain things.

It shows here how Conan is an vengeful barbarian who sets off to get his revenge on the evil warlord who attacked his village and murdered his father when he was a boy. The film suits for Territorialism because Conan protect himself and their properties against the warlord.

Post Colonialism

Example:

Viajero - F. Sionil Jose (Filipino Novel)

Summary:

Viajero is a novel of history of the Philippine Islands and their people long before the Spaniards came. It is also the story of the Filipino diaspora as seen by an orphan who is brought by an American captain to the United States in 1945. Through the eyes of Salvador dela Raza unfolds the epic voyage of the Filipino, from the earliest contact with China through Magellan's tragedy in Mactan, onto the heroic voyage of the galleons across the Pacific. The VIAJERO story concludes with the movement of Filipino workers to the Middle East, and the travail of Filipino women in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo

Interpretation:

The Post-Colonialism used to examines the cultures, literatures, politics, and histories of former colonies.

Viajero can be viewed under Post-Colonialism because the novel is all about Philippine history including the colonization of America to our country. This novel also shows that our country experienced "colonial oppression". Viajero an allegorical reinforcement of "ideological interdependence" and reaffirmation of "American colonial tutelage", which was contrary to the goal of contemporary Filipino nationalists. Such goal was to define and diffentiate the Filipino view of nationalism from the American form of nationalism.

Structuralism

Example:

The Time Traveler's Wife (Novel)

"It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays."

—Clare

Synopsis:

Using alternating first-person perspectives, the novel tells the stories of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and his wife, Clare Anne Abshire (born 1971), an artist who makes paper sculptures. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, which comes to be known as Chrono-Displacement, that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the Newberry Library in 1991 at the opening of the novel, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life.

Henry begins time traveling at the age of six, jumping forward and backward relative to his own timeline. When he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trips will last are all beyond his control. His destinations are tied to his subconscious—he most often travels to places and times related to his own history. Certain stimuli such as stress can trigger Henry's time traveling; he often goes jogging to keep calm and remain in the present. He also searches out pharmaceuticals in the future that may be able to help control his time traveling. He also seeks the advice of a geneticist, Dr. Kendrick. Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past; he always arrives naked and then struggles to find clothing, shelter, and food. He amasses a number of survival skills including lock-picking, self-defense, and pickpocketing. Much of this he learns from older versions of himself.

Clare and Henry marry, but Clare has trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of the genetic anomaly Henry may presumably be passing on to the fetus. After six miscarriages, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy. However a version of Henry from the past visits Clare one night and they make love; she subsequently gives birth to a daughter, Alba. Alba is diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement as well but, unlike Henry, she has some control over her destinations when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip and learns that he died when she is five years old.Once their timelines converge "naturally" at the library—their first meeting in his chronology—Henry starts to travel to Clare's childhood and adolescence in South Haven, Michigan, beginning in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits (from her perspective), Henry gives her a list of the dates he will appear and she writes them in a diary so she will remember to provide him with clothes and food when he arrives. During another visit, he inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. Over time they develop a close relationship. At one point, Henry helps Clare frighten and humiliate a boy who abused her. Clare is last visited in her youth by Henry in 1989, on her eighteenth birthday, during which they make love for the first time. They are then separated for two years until their meeting at the library.

When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia andfrostbite he suffers, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present. Henry and Clare both know that without the ability to escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year's Eve 2006 Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Clare's brother, a scene foreshadowed earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare's arms.

Clare is devastated by Henry's death. She later finds a letter from Henry asking her to "stop waiting" for him, but which describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The last scene in the book takes place when Clare is 82 years old and Henry is 43. She is waiting for Henry, as she has done most of her life. A subtle detail is that the previous scene, when Henry sees Clare, takes place after the final scene, in which Clare is waiting for Henry, not knowing when he will come.

Interpretation:

The time traveler's wife can be viewed under Structuralism  Theory because based on how the story was made it has a unique concept on conveying the meaning of the story. The author made it easy for the readers to understand well the novel. He used different techniques that gives the story to move from one story to another which makes structuralism so useful. The story is told in tight third person, interleaving scenes told from Clare's and Henry's perspective and putting the reader in both of their heads. The author gives the reader a clear biography of both of the main characters which I think the most impressive part of the book. Though the story is about love or romance, it still falls under structuralism because on how the context was form, it doesn't only assessing its quality alone.

Autobiographical Theory

Example:

We, the living (1936)- Novel

Summary:

The story takes place from 1922 to 1925, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the protagonist of the story, is the younger daughter of abourgeois family. An independent spirit with a will to match, she rejects any attempt by her family or the nascent Soviet State to cast her into a mold. At the beginning of the story, Kira returns to Petrograd along with her family, after a prolonged exile due to the assault of the revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which had been seized and nationalized. The family, having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the emphatic victories of the Red Army in the last four years, is resigned to their fate, as they return to the city in search of livelihood. They find, to their dismay, that their home has likewise been seized, and converted to living quarters for several families. Left with nowhere to go, the family moves into Kira's aunt Marussia's apartment.

The severity of life in the newly Socialist Russia is biting and cruel, especially for the people belonging to the now-stigmatized middle class. Kira's uncle Vasili has also lost his family business to the state, and has been forced to sell off his possessions, one at a time, for money (which has lost much of its value owing to steep inflation). Private enterprises have been strictly controlled, and licenses to run them allotted only to those "enjoying the trust" of the proletariat. Food is rationed. Only laborers of nationalized businesses and students in state-run educational institutions have access to ration cards. The family of five survives on the ration cards allotted to the two younger members of the family, who are students.

After a brief stay at Vasili's home, Kira's family manages to find living quarters. Kira's father also manages to get a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times. Rand portrays the bleak scenarios by vivid descriptions of long queues, weary citizens and low standards of living. (Everyone regularly cooks on a kerosene camp stove, usually a Swedish Primus stove, and the typical main course is millet, or whatever can be blended together.)

With some effort, Kira manages to register with the State and obtain her Labor Book (which permits her to study and work). Kira also manages to enroll in the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer. She plans to storm the male bastion of engineers, and show her prowess by building structures like a lightweight aluminum bridge. Kira's strength of resolve to fulfill her dream is asserted at various points in the storyline. Becoming a highly competent engineer would be Kira's carving for herself a niche in a society that has become characterless and anonymous, and whose primary purpose in life has been reduced to subsistence rather than excellence. At the Institute, Kira meets Andrei Taganov, a co-student, an idealistic Communist, and an officer in the G.P.U., the secret police of the Soviet Union. The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs. Andrei and Kira develop a friendship that endures until the end of the story.

We the Living, Centennial edition.

In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. Leo is an extremely attractive man with a free spirit matched only by Kira's. It's love at first sight for Kira, and she unflinchingly throws herself at Leo. Leo, who initially takes her to be a prostitute, is also strongly attracted to her and promises to meet her again. Kira and Leo are shown to be united by their desperate lives, and their lofty beliefs that ran counter to what were being thrust on them by the State. After a couple of meetings, when they share their deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape together from the land, on a clandestine mission operated by secret ships.

The novel, from this point on, slowly cascades into a series of catastrophes for Kira and Leo. They are caught while attempting to flee the country, but escape imprisonment due to the generosity of a G.P.U. official, Stepan Timoshenko, who had fought under the command of Leo's father before the revolution. Kira leaves her parents' apartment and moves into Leo's. The relationship between Kira and Leo, intense and passionate in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the weight of their hardships, and because of their different reactions to these hardships. Kira, who is an idealistic realist, keeps her ideas and aspirations alive, but decides to go with the system anyway, until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. Soon the state decides to expel anyone of a bourgeois background. On the verge of starvation, Kira finds work with the help of Andrei, enough to retain her ration card. Leo, however, burdened by his class background, and without any communist friend to help him, fails to find work, and sinks slowly into indifference and depression. He contracts tuberculosis and is prescribed treatment and recuperation in a sanatorium in Crimea in the South. Kira's efforts to finance his treatment fail, and her passionate appeals to the authorities to get State help for his stay at the sanatorium fall on deaf ears.

Andrei, an equally important person in Kira's life, is portrayed by Rand as a man of character, resolve, and an unassailable loyalty to his party and ideology. Despite his political beliefs, Kira finds him to be the one person she could trust, and with whom she could discuss her most intimate thoughts and views. Not even Leo could fulfill that role for her. Andrei's affection and respect for Kira knows no bounds, and it slowly turns into love. Worried what this might do to their "beautiful and rare" friendship, he starts avoiding Kira. Kira misses him, and needs his help. Eventually when she confronts him in his house, Andrei explains his avoidance of her and confesses his love for her. Kira is dismayed at first, but recovers to find in it a way to finance Leo's treatment. Reluctant, but in desperation, she feigns love for Andrei, and agrees to become his mistress in return for the promise of complete secrecy about their relationship. Kira is never comfortable with what she was doing with her body, but is even more frightened by "what she was doing to another man's soul".

The narrative reaches a climactic pace when Leo returns from Crimea, cured of tuberculosis and healthy, but a changed man. Ignoring Kira's protests, he opens a food store with the help of hismorally bankrupt and rich friends, and a corrupt member of the Communist Party. The store is but a facade for illegal speculation and trade. Andrei is tipped off about this venture by Stepan Timoshenko, who commits suicide in despair at what is happening to his Soviet Union, but only after depositing a key piece of evidence with Andrei. Ignoring Kira's pleas, and unaware of her love for Leo, Andrei starts investigating Leo's store. After a search at his house, he arrests Leo for crimes against the State, which could carry a death sentence. In the process, he finds out about Kira's relationship with Leo. The ensuing confrontation between Andrei and Kira is perhaps the most poignant scene in the story. In the end, both realize what they had done to each other and how their passion and pretension had led them to the destruction of what each had held in "the highest reverence". Andrei decides to redress the situation, at least for Kira, and moves to restore Leo to her, risking his own standing in the Party.

After Leo's release from the prison at Andrei's behest, the story ends in tragedy for all the three. Andrei loses his position in the Party, and shortly thereafter commits suicide. Kira, perhaps the only genuine mourner at his State funeral, wonders if she had killed him. Having lost any moral sense that he may have left, Leo leaves Kira to begin a new life as a gigolo, fulfilling the earlier portrayal of him as such by Kira's perceptive cousin Irina (who has been sentenced to a long prison term for associating with counter-revolutionaries). After Leo's departure, Kira makes a final attempt to cross the border. When she is almost in sight of freedom and liberation from her hellish life, she is shot by a border guard and soon dies. Kira remains loyal to her love for Leo until the end, and says at one point, "When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one?"

Interpretation:

Autobiographical theory focuses on how the author's life relates to his/her literary works. In this novel, it shows how the story is similar to the author's life. The novel’s portrayal of the destructive effects of collectivism reflects Ayn Rand’s focus in her early philosophic thinking on moral and political issues. At her very young age, she finally encountered an revolution in their country. And this revolution disrupted the comfortable life the family had previously enjoyed. She narrated her life through Kira who also experienced revolution in their country. The story talks about the struggle of the individual against the state. 

New Historicism

Example:

Fidel's last days by Roland Merullo

Summary:

Former CIA agent Carolina Perez has spent five years working deep undercover for a very secret and very powerful organization. Their mission is to bring down Castro and free Cuba from the grip of his long and troubled regime. She believes in her heart that the cause she works for is just, even though it means lying to her wealthy and influential ex pat uncle, Roberto Anzar. What she doesn't know is how deep the deception goes and how intricate the web of lies and contradictions truly is.

In Cuba, Carlos Gutierrez, the embattled and disillusioned minister of health, faces his own demons and is at great risk as he undertakes his role in the plot to rid the island nation of her communist restraints. From the hot, roiling streets and glittering beaches of Miami to the crumbling and faded elegance of Old Havana, Fidel's Last Days is a dynamic and explosive thriller that leads readers on a breathless journey into the heart of a nation longing for change.

Interpretation:

Fidel's last day can be viewed under New Historicism Theory because Throughout “Fidel’s Last Days,” Merullo portrays Cuba as a country stifled by fear and an oppressive secret police — a nation ripe, even desperate, for revolution. Perhaps Americans will soon have the chance to find out for themselves if he’s right. New historicism is a theory in literary criticism that suggests literature must be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. It acknowledges that any criticism of a work is colored by the critic’s beliefs, social status, and other factors. I think what happened to Cuba that time had a great influenced to the author that's why he come up we this story.

Existentialism

Example:

The schockwave rider by John Brunner (Novel, Science Fiction)

Summary:

The novel is set in the weeks following Nick's recapture after several years on the run, alternating between moral arguments with his interrogator, who is trying to discover why the program's star pupil had absconded, and flashbacks of his career. The interrogator is Paul Freeman, a graduate of another secret installation known as "Electric Skillet", which focuses on weapons and defense strategy.

Although he initially felt at home at Tarnover, Nick eventually becomes aware of experiments in genetic engineering being performed there. These produce monstrous deformed children who are disposed of when they are no longer needed for study. At this point Nick becomes determined to escape. He studies data processing, steals a personal ID code intended for privileged individuals who wish to live their lives without surveillance, and goes on the run. He uses the stolen computer access code to cover his data trails and create new identities for himself, easily adopting entire new personas. One is the pastor of a popular church, another is an idle playboy gigolo.

In this last role, calling himself Sandy Locke, he becomes the lover of Ina Grierson, a top executive at Ground to Space Industries, a powerful "hypercorp" known to all as G2S. Intending to use the computer facilities at G2S to ensure that his code is still valid after the six years he has been away, he signs on as a "systems rationalizer" with the company. This brings him into contact with Ina's daughter, Kate, who attracts him despite her plain appearance and simple lifestyle. At the age of 22, Nick's age when he left Tarnover, Kate is a perpetual student at "UMKC". She is perceptive enough to penetrate Nick's adopted persona, deeply disturbing him even though she fascinates him. He visits her at home, helping her to clean out some of her possessions, and meeting her tame cougar, Bagheera. Bagheera is the product of her late father's genetic research into intelligence. He died shortly after abandoning the research because the government was using it to produce animals for military uses.

The 21st-century lifestyle produces a symptom called "overload" in many people, and most, including Nick, take tranquilizers to some degree. However Nick collapses completely when told that a representative from Tarnover is coming to meet him at G2S. He returns to Kate and confesses that he is not what he seems, asking for her help. She conducts him to one of the "paid avoidance areas" in California, where people are paid to do without the full panoply of modern technology, as an alternative to spending billions to rebuild infrastructure after the earthquake. After Nick risks exposure yet again in one of these places, they move to the least known one, a town called Precipice.

Precipice turns out to be a Utopian community of a few thousand people. The nearest comparison would be an agrarian, cottage industry community designed by William Morris. Precipice is also the home of "Hearing Aid", an anonymous telephone confession service accessible to anyone in the country. Hearing Aid is also known as the "Ten Nines", after the phone number used to call it: 999-999-9999. People call the service and simply talk. Some rant, others seek sympathy, still others commit suicide while on the phone. Hearing Aid's promise is that nobody else, not even the government, will hear the call. The only response Hearing Aid gives to a caller is "Only I heard that, I hope it helped."

Nick and Kate settle into the community. The inhabitants include intelligent dogs that escaped from the projects that Kate's father worked on. These act as companions, guards, nannies, and even lie detectors, using their sense of smell. Nick rewrites the "computer tapeworm" that prevents the calls to Hearing Aid being monitored. While at G2S he became aware of massive backups of data being performed, clearly in anticipation of a major network outage. The Hearing Aid worm is designed to scramble network traffic if attacked, but Nick realizes that it could be destroyed if the authorities were prepared for the effects and ready to recover from them. His new worm, which he calls a "phage", cannot be removed without dismantling the entire network.

Possibly encouraged by the government, local gangs and tribes raid Precipice, burning down Nick and Kate's house before being overwhelmed by the dogs. Nick, suffering another overload, blames Kate for the incident, since she, following Hearing Aid policy, cut off a call from someone attempting to warn Precipice. He hits her, and then, filled with remorse, leaves the town. He finally reveals his location to the authorities when, encountering one of the "Roman circus" operations which broadcast live fights and other bloody exhibitions to the country, he responds to an "all comers" challenge by the father of the leader of one of the gangs, and cripples him in front of a nationwide audience.

At Tarnover, Paul Freeman takes charge of the interrogation. He was the representative whom Nick, as Sandy Locke, was supposed to meet at G2S. Freeman, a tall gaunt African-American, gradually comes to realize that he has more sympathy with Nick's views than his employer's, and eventually absconds himself, giving Nick computer access so that Nick can make his own escape. The precipitating event in this case is Kate's abduction by government agents, who bring her to Tarnover for further questioning and to threaten Nick.

With the code he gets from Freeman, he sets up an identity as an Army Major, with Kate as his prisoner. Once clear of Tarnover, they disappear together. This time around, Nick has another plan, and rather than running and hiding, he and Kate spend a number of months traveling the country, aided by an "invisible college'" of academics who are allies or former residents of Precipice. He creates a new "worm" which is designed to destroy all secrecy. (Brunner invented the term "worm" for this program, as a self-replicating program that propagates across a computer network - the term "worm" was later adopted by computer researchers as the name for this type of program.)

The worm is eventually activated, and the details of all the government's dark secrets (clandestine genetic experimentation that produces crippled children, bribes and kickbacks from corporations, concealed crimes of high public officials) now become accessible from anywhere on the network - in fact, those most affected by a particular crime of a government official are emailed the full details. In place of the old system, Nick has designed the worm to enforce a kind of utilitarian socialism, with people's worth being defined by their roles in society, not their connections in high places. In effect, the network becomes the entire government and financial system, policing income for illegal money, freezing the accounts of criminals, while making sure money (or credit) flows to places where people are in need. This will only happen fully if the results of a plebiscite, again conducted over the network, allow it.

In a final atavistic attempt at revenge, the government orders a nuclear strike by a single aircraft from a local Air Force base. Warned by Hearing Aid, Nick is able to penetrate the military computers and manufacture a counter-order to stop the plane just before it reaches the town. The book ends optimistically, with there being no more privileged hiding of information, no more secret conspiracies of the rich and powerful.

Interpretation:

Existentialism defines the need for one to make decisions to better one's life- and that a person is who they are determined to be. In the story, it shows how the protagonist made a decision to better one's life. He wants to help the children who became an experiment in genetic engineering. You can clearly see here what is the role of Nick in the story which can be considered as Existentialism. At the end, Nick is able to penetrate the military computers and manufacture a counter-order to stop the plane just before it reaches the town. The book ends optimistically, with there being no more privileged hiding of information, no more secret conspiracies of the rich and powerful. Freedom is what Nick wants to achieve and because of his choice, which is to change his identity and to reveal the illegal doings of Paul Freeman, the interrogator,.to the children, he finally made it because he is determined to do it. And this novel can be viewed under Existentialism because the novel shows freedom and choice and the importance of the protagonist which this theory is all about.