module 10

Module 10: Lesson and Notes

 

Historical and Cultural Context as a Critical Approach

 Why is the historical or cultural context important?

Knowing a story's historical or cultural context can give insight and meaning to a text. We can learn things about different eras and different cultural beliefs based on the literature produced from those places, or even about those places. Literature helps to keep record of certain cultural traditions and customs that had only previously been passed down orally. 

A story can reveal important elements about a culture in two ways:

· It can reveal the society or culture of the author.

· Because an author is immersed within a specific cultural or historical context while they are writing, they intentionally, or unintentionally, embed elements and clues of that time and culture into their works. 

· It can be set in another time or culture different from the author's own. 

· Author's of historical fiction often do incredible amounts of research in order to adequately portray the culture and society of the people in the story. 

· Author's of contemporary fiction that write about other cultures often consult individuals within that culture or society, also to adequately portray those individuals.  

Determining Historical and Cultural Context

· Look at the author's biography:

· Where are they from?

· When were they living and where, or are they living still?

· Did they have a passionate political stance or did they activate for social issues?

· Look at the setting:

· What era is the story set in? Is it modern? Is it from the 18th century? Ancient?

· What is the geographical setting?:

· The mountains of Montana? The coast of Greece? Big city or small town? Jamaican fishing village? All of these give clues to the over all purpose of the story.

· What is the time of day? Is it important culturally that things happen at certain times of day?

· Is it a time of war or peace?

· Look at the characters within the story:

· Are they from different places?

· How do they interact with each other? 

· Is there a "stranger" in a "strange land"? This is a useful took used by author's to examine a culture through the eyes of someone outside of that culture.

· Look at the message of the text:

· Is it exposing some sort of social injustice?

· Is it spreading a political message?

· What is the text's theme? It could be love, war, loss of innocence, the quest, etc.