In class, we practiced steps we can take to apply theoretical lenses to a text. We read Sharon Old’s poem titled “On the Subway” through a number of lenses in order to select the most relevant and thought-provoking details for analysis. For this post, I’d like to see you continue the discussion by analyzing a quote or two through one lens, and commenting on at least two students’ posts.
Quick-Review of the Steps for Applying Theoretical Lenses:
1) Select your lens and then write out the language of the lens
2) Re-read the poem and find words, phrases, lines that best match up with the lens language
3) Write about these lines to unlock a deeper meaning to the poem by connecting the lines to the lens language.
Remember—choose only one lens! (Lacan’s mirror stage theory, Freud’s memory theory, W.E.B. DuBois’s double-consciousness theory, Homi Bhabha’s hybridity theory, Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory).
If it’s helpful, you can select one of the following sentence starters to begin. There is no right or wrong way, and these are just a few of a million ways to do it! The only rule is to avoid simply summarizing the plot.
- Lacan would have much to say about Sharon Old’s narrator in the poem “On the Subway.”
- A post-colonial reading of Sharon Old’s “On the Subway” reveals ____________.
- An interesting way to read Sharon Old’s “On the Subway” is through Homi Bhabha’s hybridity theory.
- A close look at the poem “On the Subway” through Lacan’s mirror stage theory exposes ____________.
- Sharon Old’s train in “On the Subway” is a literal representation of ___________.
- Sharon Old’s poem titled “On the Subway” is about ____________.
BRING YOUR MEMOIR TO NEXT CLASS!
