Motherhood is:

1. Consider the two images below. What mood does each image create? Which evidence supports the mood? Although there is a theme that ties both objects together, the mood that is evoked is different, based on how we interpret the information.

2. The way that a photographer portrays an image is intentional. It is similar to the way that writers approach their subject matter. *Record the two definitions that we develop in your notebooks. Motherhood is: Motherhood is: The way that we interpret images is partly based on the photographer’s intent and partly on what we bring to an experience. That is one way that meaning takes shape.

3. When we understand an author’s intent, we can better understand a story. Our own personal “lenses” also help us to understand. Consider the two images below. What is the common theme being represented in each? How is the theme presented differently in each image? *Record your notes Our own “lenses” or ideologies help us to come to conclusions about what we read.

4. The way that we personally view the world is our own IDEOLOGY. But what is IDEOLOGY? “An ideology determines what you think is important in life, what categories you put people into, how you see male and female roles in life, and a host of other things. You can visualize your ideology as a grid, or a set of glasses, through which you can see the world” (Bonnycastle). What could make up an ideology? Your gender Your community Your family and upbringing Your culture Your experiences “Although everyone sees the world differently, ideology is generally a social and political construct, that can shape society and culture” (Deborah Appleman).

5. Ideologies are like schemas • How can ideologies be harmful? When are our schemas restrictive rather than helpful? • Can you think of a time when the shorthand didn’t work—or the lens was too restrictive?

6. When we view a text the way that someone else would, and try to understand it from a new point of view, we are dabbling in literary theory. Some critical “lenses” – New Criticism Reader-Response Deconstruction New Historical Psychoanalytical Marxist Feminist “Queer” Criticism Postcolonial

7. Karl Marx • Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, in what is now Germany. He studied law and philosophy. • Wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848 and published Das Kapital in 1867 • He established terms and definitions we use today to describe the economy. He defined a commodity as a useful object that is produced for exchange. • Commodities have use-value and exchange-value—or price. The price depends on a thing’s material cost plus the labor put into it, says Marx. • Capitalism depends on not just exchanging commodities but generating a profit by making commodities that can get higher prices than their raw materials alone. • Marx says profit is generated through exploitation of the worker. Labor is the only commodity that can produce more value than it is worth, says Marx.

8. Marxist criticism • Retains the idea that class conflict is ubiquitous: it is everywhere. • Retains the idea that man’s needs must be satisfied before his wants. • Asks how individuals play out the roles assigned to them by society • Asks who has power over whom

9. Sigmund Freud • Born in 1856, raised in Vienna, where he lived until 1938, as a doctor who began to take note of female patients suffering from “hysteria.” • Began the practice of “free association” to look for trauma in the past. • Developed the psychoanalytic theory of the id, ego, and superego. The id is based on primal urges present from birth. Id lives on the pleasure principle. • The superego is our internalized sense of morality. • The ego deals with reality. It tries to gratify the id in socially appropriate ways. • Freud thought of the mind as operating at three levels: conscious, preconscious (memory), unconscious (urges and desires). “Freudian slips” are when unconscious desires reveal themselves in language.

10. Psychoanalytical criticism • Relies on the idea that actions are often motivated by unconscious desires • These desires are often revealed in linguistic choices and slips. • Sees most social interaction as sublimation—pushing the id’s primal urges and pleasure-seeking drive into socially acceptable forms

11. Feminism • The belief that men and women should have equal rights. • Is generally referred to as having three waves: first, second, and third wave feminism. • 19th century: The first focused on political action and the vote • 1960s: The second wave focused on the domestic sphere and social issues such as beauty standards and household equality • 1990s: The third wave took on the motto that true freedom is choice—which may mean choosing to be an object.

12. Feminist criticism • Notices how power is applied along gendered lines • Distinguishes between gender-one’s social role-and sex, which is chromosomal or biological • Asks how characters are restricted or liberated based on gender roles and expectations

13. What does putting on a new lens allow us to do? • Empathize with people different from ourselves • Better understand the various ways power works in society • Understand how we hold or do not hold power in any social interaction • Evaluate the truism that those who hold power never relinquish it willingly

14. View this piece of media and interpret it through a feminist lens. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VprIbx4QkPcandhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRYfouuHPvs I. Take notes on the following: List some social expectations for women in the early 1960’s. Why is it so important to the wife to get it right? Which social “norms” presented in the commercial would be challenged today? II. Write your thoughts up in a short paragraph that critiques the commercials from a feminist point of view. What other lenses could we apply?