New Historicism and "Death of the Author"

New Historicism and "Death of the Author"

Open Ended

What is Filipino-Chinese literature?What is its contribution to Philippine Literature and to world literature?

New Historicism

•  New Historicists look at literature alongside other cultural products of a particular historical period to illustrate how concepts, attitudes, and ideologies operated across a broader cultural spectrum that is not exclusively literary.

• New Historicists also acknowledge that their own criticism contains biases that derive from their historical position and ideology.

• New Historicists attempt to situate artistic texts both as products of a historical context and as the means to understand cultural and intellectual history.

Open Ended

If you were to apply this theory to the selection of Banyaga,what does it reveal about the plight of the Filipino-Chinese back before the Americans came to the Philippines?

"Death of the Author"

• Ronald Barthes argues against looking at the author's identity and the context in which the author lives to understand the author's literary text.

• If you allow the author to intervene in the text or if you give the text an author, the view and interpretation may be limited.

• When the author dies, the text becomes limitless. Instead of a voice behind each character, the reader is able to create histories and as a result able to imprint the text with his own life.

Open Ended

Which of the two theories-new historicism or "death of the author"--do you prefer?

Things Fall Apart--Chinua Achebe

• Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, professor and critic who rose to critical acclaim when he published his magnum opus "Things Fall Apart".

• Born in Nigeria in 1930 and growing up in the Igbo town of Ogidi

•  Margaret Wrong Memorial Prize in 1959

• more than thirty honorary doctorates

About the Author:

• Achebe was born in the Igbo (formerly spelled Ibo) town of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria on November 16, 1930

• the fifth child of Isaiah Okafor Achebe and Janet Iloegbunam Acheb

• At the university, he dropped his English name "Albert" in favor of the Igbo name "Chinua," short for Chinualumogo.

• He believes that "any good story, any good novel, should have a message, should have a purpose."

• Achebe died on March 21, 2013. He was 82.

• The novel challenges Western notions of historical truth and prods readers into questioning our perception of pre-colonial and colonial Africa.

• More than half the novel is devoted to a depiction of Igbo culture, artfully drawn as we follow the rise to eminence of the protagonist.

Group Activity

• Setting(Group 1)

• Characters(Group 2)

• Theme(Group 3)

• Plot(Group 4 and 5)

Point of View

• third-person omniscient perspective

•  ethnographic perspective- the narrator inserts commentary to explain certain elements of Igbo culture.

• Example: when the skilled orator Okoye asks Unoka to repay a debt:

• “Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.” 

Tone

• objective- the narrator presents a clear and straightforward account of events.

•  invites readers to make their own judgments about the characters and their actions. 

Symbols:

• Okonkwo The name implies male pride and stubbornness.

• Unoka Okonkwo's father's name; its translation, home is supreme, implies a tendency to stay home and loaf instead of achieve fame and heroism.

• Okoye an everyman name comparable to John Doe in English. Okoye represents all the people to whom Unoka owes money.

• Mbaino This community name means four settlements.

• Idemili title This title, named after the river god Idemili, is the third-level title of honor in Umuofia.