Hi All

My past experiences with Literary Criticism are few and far between. I took Persuasive Strategies at Emmanuel and a class that resembled it at my former college. While I understand the basis and objective of most of the viewpoints, I often feel like they take their initiative a bit too far and in doing so, lose sight of any semblance of reason a piece may have contained. In this blog, I hope to gain a better understanding of just what is accomplished by deconstructing a piece to such levels and a greater appreciation for doing so. When reading for pleasure, I sometimes try to deconstruct a work with a certain criticism, just to see if it holds any weight when I do it for myself. While helpful on occasion, usually the only thing I end up deconstructing is my pleasure. While I can not fully relay the genius that Will Hunting is, I do hope to gain an iota of his swagger and intellect through blogging- while throwing in a few humorous anecdotes or quotes from Good Will Hunting.

While reading Barry’s background of liberal humanism, I found myself saying “duh” almost every time I turned a page. Yes, good literature is timeless. Yes, human nature is a constant. There are always certain reactions and behaviors that are foreseeable. Yes, a good author displays his points through actions instead of just telling his audience things. All these are valid points, and seemed rather obvious to me when reading them. However, upon a few moments reflection, I realized how many books there are that I’ve read where the author did just tell us things or misrepresented human nature. After realizing this, I was more concerned with the number of authors who don’t conform to these seemingly simplistic points. Thus, it made sense as to why theory is used to deconstruct works and analyze what they actually represent. Hopefully I will now be able to do so in this blog.