Entry #1 Why I Chose This Lens

For this project I have decided to look at the book Beloved through the New Historicism critical lens. I am interested in this lens because I like history. I like learning about history and I feel like I would enjoy finding the historical elements in the story. A New Historicism lens means looking at a book and connecting it to the time period it was produced in. Then we can identify cultural and political movements of the time that are present in the text. I am hoping to get a better understanding of the author and the characters by looking at the time period. The book itself is a historical fiction book. This means that the plot of the book has a setting in the past. So the time period of the book is around 1873. But the author, Toni Morrison was born in 1931 and she wrote the book in 1987. Because the author was raised in a different time period, she will be seeing things in a different way and that will be shown in his book.

Entry #1- Why I chose this lense

The three topics id, ego, and superego are extremely prevalent in the high school social scene. Every highschooler has subconsciously been exposed to these three aspects of the psychoanalytic lens. High schoolers are at the age where they are easily influenced by their friends and the world around them.

I considered the historical lens as I love the history of that time period. It really saddens me to see the grief and hardship that the African American race went through for over 300 years. In some sense, I see some similarities to what happened in the United States with African Americans and what is happening with women in India. Rape and gang rape is so common that is has caused world shock. Women are considered less than men and the hardship women go through is extremely disheartening. I am sure, this was the case for women in that time.

Out of this project, I am hoping to get a better view on how to analyze a character and his/her motives. This is a vital skill not only for the AP test but for college as well. It is, in many cases, a skill that I lack so hopefully this project will help be build upon and better this skill.

Entry 1: Why I Chose This Lens

I have decided that I will read the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison through a feminist lens. The feminist lens explores women through their roles in society, how they are portrayed, and their behavior. Usually women do not have a big role and are usually left in the shadows because their opinion doesn't matter to men. This really upsets me because I am a woman going into the field of engineering and that is not something very common due to the fact that society was taught that engineering is a male profession. Gender equality has been a big controversy for a long time and people believe that there are jobs only for men and jobs only for women. Some even think that women don’t even deserve to work and their place is in the kitchen where they cook and clean and live the life of a stay-at-home mom. I am really excited to see what the daily life of a woman is in the novel Beloved. I hope this project allows me to read a novel and really analyze one aspect and interpretation of the book in order to get a deeper understanding of what I’m reading.

Entry #1: "Why I Chose This Lens"_ Halemah Shuman

While analyzing the book Beloved by Toni Morrison I will be looking at it through a Psychoanalytic lens. I mainly chose this lens because I am fascinated by how people react and what sticks with them in their mind. When reading the description of the book and listening to my teacher explain the book’s characters and plots, I immediately thought of this lens. The author delves into frightening and complex ideas in this book, and these thoughts are used to explain the hardships of slavery in the mid 1800's.

So I mainly chose to analyze this book through this lens because of the complex thoughts all the characters would have can be analyzed in different ways depending on who reads it. This lens will allow me to think more deeply about why characters are committing their actions or responding to another character in a certain way. Compared to other lenses, I think this lens will help me focus on the characters motives, thoughts, and pasts that haunt them and make them react the way they do. I want to analyze what makes them tick, cry, or laugh. These are the things I feel are important to understanding the story on another level, and understanding maybe what the author was thinking when she wrote this novel.

I was debating on analyzing this book through a Marxist lens, because I felt it would allow me to dig deeply into how the characters felt about their situations in slavery and their lives when they were free. I decided not to use this lens because I know I can get more out of the psychoanalytic lens, like the things I explained above.

During my first blogging experience I hope to get my thought out there and receive comments that let me and the commentator fully develop thoughts on my topic. So comment away!

-Halemah Shuman