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Prater Violet And Eagleton's Literary Theory Often, Essay

Prater Violet and Eagleton's Literary Theory Often, when writing a literary work, authors are focused so much on their personal views and intentions with the story that no literary theory comes to mind. Furthermore, writers are seldom concerned with adhering to or promoting any specific theory. Nevertheless, it is the nature of readers and critics to want to impose theories upon literary works. Much like life, literary works present themselves in an unstructured way. It is human nature, especially on the side of critics and readers, to wish to impose order where no such order is apparent. Indeed, this is the nature of critical reading and even human life in general. In Prater Violet by Isherwood (2001), for example, one might imposed various paths towards the literary theories explicated by Eagleton (2008), as followed...

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According to this theory, all the reader needs to analyze the text presented, without any concern with the historical, social, or personal context involved.
One good example of a character that can be analyzed in this way is Sandy Ashmeade, the story editor (p. 21-22). Sandy is graceful, and also known as the "poet," being a star of the Marlowe Society. All these elements give specific clues about the character without any concern about how the author might feel about the existing social or political context of his writing. Sandy is a perfectly English gentleman, with romanticism and semiotics presented as his main reasons for living. His "slim" and "perfectly rolled" umbrella, for example, offers him as a perfectly sculpted character for the context of the novel itself, without any concern for the author's specific personal or social context.

Hence, to analyze this character, the New Criticism adherent would have to sever him from both author and reader.…

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Eagleton, T. (2008). Using Literary Theory. An Introduction. Minnesota Press.

Isherwood, C. (2001). Prater Violet. Minnesota Press.
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