Introduction to Literary Theory

A. It suggests that the suppression of women is part of a historical climate that will naturally fade away.
B. It suggests that gender roles are conditioned by the possession of money and power.
C. It suggests that gender has power over class.
D. It suggests that education, rather than money, is needed for the liberation of women.

A. refuses maternal bonds.
B. is able to separate the “I” from the “Other.”
C. looks into a mirror for the first time.
D. first engages with speech.

A. The ability of a text to contain truth
B. The “undecidability” and essentially unstable nature of a text
C. The idea that a text has a specific meaning that can be understood through a process of deconstruction
D. Jacques Derrida’s style of writing

A. It contains secret instincts and desires that are repressed.
B. It has little impact on human behavior.
C. It is the only significant aspect of the human psyche.
D. It can never be accessed.

B. Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author”
C. Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology
D. Jacques Lacan’s “The Mirror Stage …”

A. The reader fills in the gaps imposed by an author’s intention.
B. The reader is sublimated beneath the author.
C. The reader is less important than the author’s context.
D. The reader is totally subject to the author’s intention.

A. mirrors our physical evolution as human beings.
B. prevents us from communicating through writing or speech.
C. involves a constant process of deferred meaning.
D. evolved exclusively as a function of our individual psyche.

A. texts are always heterogeneous.
B. the instability of a text is actually evident in the text itself.
C. any system for the production of meaning is inevitably bound by context, yet also limitless.
D. All of the above.

A. Hélène Cixous
B. Judith Butler
C. Lucy Irigaray
D. Mary Wollstonecraft

A. Literary criticism is concerned only with the meaning of a literary work, while literary theory is concerned only with the structure of a literary work.
B. Literary criticism draws upon research derived from sources outside literature, while literary theory draws upon sources within a text.
C. Literary criticism is concerned with how characters in a text act, while literary theory is concerned with why characters act.
D. Literary theory is concerned with the method used to interpret a work, while literary criticism is the application of literary theory.