Leanne and I were laughing as we were walking to poetry workshop, having just discussed Marxist criticism. Particularly the essays saying that literature and education are formed to keep us locked inside the class structure that we already have. Education and high-level reading/analysis is made by the rich, for the rich, to create more rich.

At this point we look at each other and go "WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE RICH." Because we're English majors. "I wonder what Marxists would say to THAT."

Marxists would say, perhaps, "why do you think they are trying to remove the study of English and the humanities and the arts from high school and general education?"

...bam.

I'm handing to Marxists: they have it down when they talk about class. They are not concerned with literature and writing outside that realm. They look at how class functions in the study of literature, not what literature should do or what readers should do, but how class is perpetuated through it.

Though I would like them to read some postcolonial literature, some "Foe" and "House of Spirits" and "Paradise," and see if their concern/belief widens or changes or if they would not write about it at all.

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I have found that asking questions is SO much more helpful when coming up with a topic than making statements! This is the kind of thing I'm disappointed I haven't figured out already, but I am humbly excited about how much more helpful it is.

Questions I want to explore.

1. Do people who read for leisure have a responsibility to (I haven't thought this second part through) analyze

what the literature does to them
what the literature communicates
the experience of the literature


Responses that popped into my mind, especially thinking about the first part...

Leisure has no responsibilities.
People who think have responsibilities.
Reading is done on the honors system (it is preferable but not required to analyze; it is respectful to the author)


2. Do people who write need to read, and if so, what things do they need to read (how closely must the reading correlate with what they hope to write about)?


3. Something involving people writing with the intention of manipulating into believing false things; or more blatantly, writing something they know is false. (this needs to be more specific, I know)