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A Structuralist Analysis of a Poster Ad

Hotel Camino Real

At first glance, this poster ad reveals to the audience a door attached to a rock-solid wall. the poster ad comes with a caption that says: "Too many stories in every corner." The viewer might only see - through its denotative meaning - a wall, and a simple, yet age-old passage to somewhere that is unknown. But looking at its connotative meaning, this ad wishes to convey to the audience that staying in this particular hotel is like living through time. Thus, the "too many stories in every corner."

HANDS by Sherwood Anderson

A Psychological Analysis

The story centers on a man nicknamed Wing Biddlebaum who was once an esteemed professor in a city university; but a tragic event has made him flee the city and his students to live a life in seclusion in a small town where no one else might recognize his face except his aunt. The people of that wee town had come to know  Biddlebaum as a man with restless hands. They marvel at his seemingly tireless hands that were capable of completing a great number of tasks like picking forty quarts of strawberries a day when he doesn't beat them on wood or keep them hidden in his pants' pockets.

Using the Psychological approach to analyzing this literary piece by Sherwood Anderson, Biddlebaum's behavior is explained. The narrator mentions him as a man who shows his emotions through the movement and sweep of his hands. When the protagonist was still a professor, he used to caress his students - who were all male - whenever he imparts them with a great chunk of knowledge and wisdom. This way, he also showed them his love for teaching and for them: as his students. His hands wold travel, rather unconsciously, to tousle his student's hair, rub his back, etc. But his behavior was later on misunderstood by parents and soon, by the his co-teacher and students to be a sexual act. This tells the reader that Biddlebaum's hands might have found their way to his students' private parts to ensue the 'caressing'.

Because of this tragic incident that Biddlebaum decided to live an anonymous life in a seemingly anonymous little town. Psychologically speaking, his decision to get away is a form of 'isolation'. And deciding to keep his past to himself and to never let anyone see his hands nor allow himself to get lost in the moment and caress someone, is a form of 'repression'.

'Design' by Robert Frost

A Deconstruction Analysis

"I found a dimpled spider; fat and white,On a white heal-all, holding up a mothLike a white piece of rigid satin cloth --Assorted characters of death and blightMixed ready to begin the morning right,A snow-drop spider; a flower like a froth,Like ingredients of a witches' broth--And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What brought the kindred spider to that height,What had that flower to do with being white,The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?If design govern in a thing so small,Then steered the white mother thither in the night?What but design of darkness to appall?"

One of the most celebrated poets in America, Robert Frost often questions and meditates - through his poems - universal themes and this poem, Design, is no different.

'Design' might have opened in a subtle scene where a spider, a flower, and a moth are its central characters. The picture that the poem brings to the mind's eye of the reader is that of the beauty and intricacy of creation - and to appreciate it. He even suggests, quite explicitly, to the reader that such beauty is designed and that a 'creator', whose wisdom exceeds man, owned the hands that wove such intricate, special, and individual designs to every creation: from the biggest and incomprehensible down to the microscopic. Later on, however, a dark cloud descended upon this bright observation. The speaker of the poem then questions the role of the 'creator' in the doom of the 'creations'.

Analyzing the poem using the Deconstruction approach, we can see these binary oppositions in an implicit manner: life and death/ creation and destruction; light and darkness; predator and prey.

Fantastic Approach

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

The Fantastic Approach to analyzing literature is used when analyzing literary works set in a world where the occurring events have no logical explanation. Todorov is a prominent critic of the said approach. Fantasy –which is a genre– was made famous by prominent writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis; and the Fantastic Approach looks upon the elements of this particular genre.

Hotel Transylvania is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated comedy, fantasy film by Sony Pictures Animation set in a modern age where Count Dracula and his family of ghosts and monsters are considered nothing but myths.  But, in the movie, the Count and his band of merry and once terrifying creatures are dwelling in secrecy, from the townsfolk, in the vampire’s castle in Transylvania. The once fun and peaceful leadership and “living” of Dracula is disturbed when a human has stumbled upon his palace-turned-hotel.

The Fantastic Approach has two major classifications: marvelous and uncanny. Each of the two is branching out into different types. Hotel Transylvania, the movie being criticized here, belongs to the Pure Marvelous type. As the word ‘fantasy/fantastic’ was defined, the events in the film can be nothing but truly fantastic – they have no logical explanation. The character of Dracula first winked into existence on a classic novel written by Brahm Stoker in the late 1700s. The viewer knows by critical thinking that vampires, the Boogey Man, werewolves and the likes, cannot simply exist in reality.

Postcolonial Analysis

'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe

Reporters: Shaira Jane Delina and Madhelle Manzo :)

Formalist Analysis of Henry Reed's 'Naming of Parts'

Today, we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,

Today we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,

And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And

This is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,

When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,

Which in your case you have not got. The branches

Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,

Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released

With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me

See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy

If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms

Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see

Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this

Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it

Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this

Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards

The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:

They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy

If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,

And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,

Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom

Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,

For today we have naming of parts.

The poem started with the line, "Today, we have naming of parts" which appears repeatedly like a refrain in a song; reminding the 'audience' of the 'speaker' of their only task at hand (which is the naming of parts). But parts of what? The parts pointed out by the speaker in lines 7-9, 13, 19, and 20 are: the lower sling swivel, the upper sling swivel, the piling swing swivel, the safety catch, the bolt, and the breech, respectively. This, then, gives us the idea that the speaker names the parts of a gun. But the speaker reminds his audience that the parts he points to are objects that "[they] have not got". This tells the reader that the speaker is the sole authority with a gun in hand; thus, conjuring the image of an instructor in front of a class.

However, there seem to be two voices present in the poem although the 'instructor' appears to be the only one giving out instructions. The sudden shift of thoughts - from the identification of the mechanical parts of the gun to a seemingly nostalgic reminiscence of a more subtle environment than the presumable 'classroom' - hints us with whose voices are present. The shifting of thoughts can be found at the end of every stanza; this one for example: "Japonica/ Glistens like corals in all of the neighboring gardens/ And today we have naming of parts" (lines 4-6). This constant shift from a  'gray' or 'dull' present to a refreshing thought of 'greenery' or 'garden' shows to the reader that at every beginning of each stanza, the speaker is the 'gun instructor' while the mingling of nostalgic reminiscence of beauty and youth at the end of each stanza introduces the 'young students' of the instructor. They are young for their thoughts are refreshing; they are young novices who are yet to be introduced to the arts of violence or 'war'.