Critical approaches to literature reveal how or why a particular work is constructed and what its social and cultural implications are. Understanding critical perspectives will help you to see and appreciate a literary work as a multilayered construct of meaning. Reading literary criticism will inspire you to reread, rethink, and respond. Soon you will be a full participant in an endless and enriching conversation about literature.

Critical Approaches Interactive Exercises for “Girl”

Linked below are exercises on how to interpret “Girl” from different critical approaches. Responses to the exercises can be added to your notebook—this will be collated so that you can print or e-mail your work when you are finished.

>Structuralism
>Formalism
>Feminist Criticism
>Psychoanalytic Criticism
>Postcolonial Criticism
>Reader-Response Criticism

For a model essay about “Girl” written from a particular critical approach, select the link below:

> Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”: A Marxist Reading (PDF)

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