Literature analysis websites.

May 29, 2006 12:58 PM

I'm looking for literature analysis websites. Are there any suggestions for worthwhile sources? I've found a bunch of essay websites, but they seem conflicting or written by students. I'm looking for accurate information that will give me some new perspectives in a wide variety of literature. In time I would like to be able to teach more about hidden symbolism to other people including students. Right now I'm looking specifically for interpretations of Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" and George Orwell's "1984". Thanks in advance if anyone has any advice or tips.
posted by Knigel to education (12 comments total)

In addition: Someone has stated that near the ending of 1984, the language changes out of Newspeak which means that the dictatorship fell. They said that this means that it is incorrect to think that Winston was brainwashed into loving Big Brother. Can anyone help verify this with more information or concretely dispute it?
posted by Knigel at 1:04 PM on May 29, 2006

I've never heard that interpretation of 1984 and if my copy weren't boxed up at the moment I'd pull it out to definitively disprove it. It's news to Wikipedia and SparkNotes too.
posted by BackwardsCity at 2:03 PM on May 29, 2006

It's something I've heard relatively often, although I couldn't say exactly where. The basic idea is that because the appendix section about Newspeak is written in past tense and not in Newspeak, it supposedly must have been written by some kind of scholar after the fall of the Ingsoc regime. I don't buy it, though -- seems to me like a silly way of turning a sad ending into a happy one.
posted by reklaw at 2:08 PM on May 29, 2006

May I suggest checking out an actual library? They will have access to databases like Jstor, which will let you search for and read peer-reviewed articles, written by academics and other professional critics -- and the librarians can also help point you towards interesting sources in print. Non-academic journals like the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books would also be good places to look (also easier to do from a library).

Google Scholar is better for the sciences, I find, than the humanities, but you can do google-style searches there of a lot of academic publications, though often you'll discover that you don't have access to the full articles from home. On a university network or from many public libraries, however, you will have access to the necessary electronic subscriptions.
posted by redfoxtail at 2:41 PM on May 29, 2006

SparkNotes has write-ups on both 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale. I'm not sure if it's quite what you're looking for, but they're pretty good at hitting basic solid interpretations and each has a section on "Themes, Motifs, and Symbols." (I used to know a bunch of people who worked for them, and they were all smart trustworthy people!)

I've never seen a place that has lots of scholarly criticism on different works, though Google Scholar lists many separate articles for 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale. You may just need to wade through them and use your own judgment -- it's not like there's a "right" interpretation for most lit, just well-supported ones.
posted by occhiblu at 2:45 PM on May 29, 2006

(Or, what redfoxtail said. And yeah, I remember lots and lots of bound volumes of criticism on library shelves for big-name authors, usually right next to their fiction.)
posted by occhiblu at 2:46 PM on May 29, 2006

reklaw: But surely the eventual fall of the Big Brother regime -- which seems like a reasonable reading of the appendix, though not a necessary one -- has no bearing on whether or not Winston was fully brainwashed at the end?
posted by BackwardsCity at 2:54 PM on May 29, 2006

I have lots of theories about Offred in the Handmaid's Tale. Her name is Of Fred, which (as we know) suggests that Commander Fred owns her. But, as a 17-year-old reading it for the first time, I had extra theories about the name. For example, she was rebellious, so she was an "off red", meaning she was a rebellious handmaid (red suit). She also wanted to be pregnant and not having cycles, putting her "off red" again. The bricks of Harvard, where they hung rebels, were also red, representing the Establishment. She wasn't pro-Establishment, so she was "off red" again.

However, that was many years ago and I haven't gone back to see if those theories would still hold up. But I wouldn't put it past Atwood, who once wrote the memorable lines, "You fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fish hook, an open eye."
posted by acoutu at 3:41 PM on May 29, 2006

SparkNotes is a fine resource, but it contains mainly college term papers that got good grades.

Use it for insights, but for heaven's sake don't use it as a guide to writing style. The writing is mostly dreadful. Bright college students usually try to sound like professors. They imagine that using big words and contorted syntax is the way to do it. Actually, good academic writing is just good writing.

OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS.
posted by KRS at 4:21 PM on May 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Does your public library have any of the following databases?

NoveList
Literature Resource Center
MagillOnLiterature
Scribner Writers Series
What Do I Read Next?

Of these, I think NoveList is the best and most thorough. It has book discussion guides and teaching guides that are much more insightful than anything that might be available on Sparknotes.
posted by foxinthesnow at 7:48 PM on May 29, 2006

Academic Resource Center has served me best. It is a database available at most libraries.
posted by Aghast. at 10:33 PM on May 29, 2006

redfoxtail and occhiblu have the best advice on this one. Any university library and most any public library will give you access to research databases (online but not open to just anyone) suitable for doing literary research. If you have privileges at a university library, you may also have access to interlibrary loan, which means you can get books and photocopies of articles that are not available on site.

The particular DBs I've found most useful lately are JStor and EBSCO Host. It may be worth taking a class at a local community college (or make friends with someone who is) if you need regular access to these resources.

Keep in mind, the opinions you find, even in peer-reviewed journals, are apt to be conflicting. That's the nature of literary research. You'll have to decide for yourself which interpretations are well justified and supported by the text. You're never going to find the once-and-for-all correct view of any work.
posted by wheat at 5:21 AM on May 30, 2006