Monday, 21 September 2026

Literary Criticism and GenAI: Reading The Great Gatsby Through Four Critical Lenses

The Great Gatsby: Critical Lenses

Applying Marxist, Feminist, Ecocritical & Queer Approaches

This blog is a part of the Thinking Activity on Cultural Studies assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir, where I have selected F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby rather than Frankenstein. The novel is particularly useful for this experiment because it contains questions of wealth, class, gender, social power, the American Dream, relationships between humans and the environment, and forms of identity.

Videographic Description

Introduction

Literary criticism is not simply the process of attaching a theoretical label to a literary text. A theory becomes meaningful when it changes the questions we ask about a text and directs our attention towards aspects that may remain invisible in an ordinary reading. The worksheet Literary Criticism | GenAI Activity therefore asks us to understand what a critic actually does when applying Marxist, Feminist/Gender, Ecocritical, and Queer approaches rather than merely memorising their definitions.

The theoretical distinctions in this table are grounded primarily in Barad's discussion. His Marxist section identifies class struggle, ideology, historical context, authorial social class, hegemony, and cultural materialism as important areas of investigation. His Feminist section focuses on patriarchy, representation, women's marginalisation, the canon, and gender as a social construction.

The Ecocritical framework comes from Barad's emphasis on environmental representation, human–nature relationships, anthropocentrism, sustainability, and the unequal effects of ecological damage. The Queer framework draws on his discussion of heteronormativity, queer representation, gender performativity, fluid identity, and challenges to conventional gender and sexual boundaries.

The specific applications to The Great Gatsby are my analytical synthesis rather than examples directly provided in Barad's article.

01 Marxist Reading

A Marxist reading begins by asking how economic structures, class divisions, wealth, ideology, and material conditions shape the world of the novel. Barad explains that Marxist criticism understands literature in relation to the economic and historical structures from which it emerges.

Textual Evidence

The social world of The Great Gatsby is sharply divided between old money, new money, and those excluded from wealth. Tom and Daisy possess inherited wealth and occupy the socially privileged world of East Egg. Gatsby has acquired his fortune rather than inheriting it. The Valley of Ashes provides another important piece of evidence, where George and Myrtle live in a materially deprived environment.

Class & Ideology

The Marxist critic asks how the economic system structures their relationships and possibilities. Gatsby believes that wealth can enable him to recreate his identity. A Marxist reading can therefore investigate the ideology of the American Dream. The dream suggests that individuals can rise through ambition, but the novel exposes the tension between economic mobility and entrenched social privilege.

What Becomes Visible?

Through this lens, Gatsby's tragedy is not merely a personal failure in love. His story can also be examined in relation to a society where money, property, inheritance, and social status determine relationships and opportunities.

02 Feminist / Gender Reading

A Feminist/Gender critic examines how literary texts construct gender relations and how patriarchal structures influence the representation and treatment of characters. Barad particularly emphasises patriarchy, women's representation, and gender as a social construction.

Textual Evidence

Daisy Buchanan occupies an interesting position. She is wealthy, but her identity is strongly connected to expectations surrounding marriage, femininity, and social respectability. Her relationship with Tom demonstrates the unequal structure of her marriage. Myrtle attempts to escape her economically restricted marriage through Tom, leaving her vulnerable.

Gender Construction & Patriarchy

A Feminist reading asks whether these behaviours reflect broader social expectations concerning men and women. Women's social mobility is represented as considerably more complicated than men's. The critic examines how the entire social system defines acceptable masculine and feminine behaviour.

What Becomes Visible?

The novel becomes a study of gendered power. Men possess considerable freedom to exercise economic, sexual, and social authority, while women's choices are frequently tied to marriage, reputation, wealth, and male protection. It investigates the structures and assumptions through which gender relations are organised.

03 Ecocritical Reading

Ecocriticism is particularly interesting here because The Great Gatsby is not normally approached primarily as an environmental novel. Barad explains that Ecocriticism investigates environmental representation, anthropocentrism, and the effects of human activity on the environment.

The Valley of Ashes

The clearest environmental space in the novel is the Valley of Ashes. It is an industrial wasteland located between the wealthy suburban communities and New York City. The landscape is associated with ash, dust, industrial activity, waste, and human degradation.

Anthropocentrism

The Valley of Ashes can be examined as evidence of a world in which human economic activity transforms the physical environment. This creates an important relationship between class and environment. Environmental degradation is not distributed equally. Those with wealth distance themselves, while economically vulnerable people live closer to spaces marked by industrial waste.

What Becomes Visible?

An ecocritical reading expands the meaning of the Valley of Ashes. It is simultaneously:

Environmental Space
Industrial Landscape
Social Space
Classed Environment

The ecocritical approach demonstrates that nature in literature does not have to mean beautiful forests, rivers, or animals. A polluted or damaged landscape can be equally important.

04 Queer Reading

Queer criticism examines literature's assumptions about sexuality and gender and questions apparently fixed categories of identity. Barad identifies heteronormativity, gender performativity, fluidity, and challenges to traditional sexual boundaries.

Textual Evidence

Nick Carraway narrates the story and develops an unusually intense fascination with Gatsby. A queer critic might examine the emotional intensity of Nick's relationship to Gatsby and ask whether the narrative creates spaces of intimacy that cannot be fully explained through conventional heterosexual relationships. However: the novel does not explicitly identify Nick as queer.

Heteronormativity

The queer critic can investigate how the novel constructs masculinity and heterosexual relationships as socially expected forms. The point is not to "prove" that Nick is secretly homosexual. The point is to examine how identity, masculinity, intimacy, and social expectations interact.

What Becomes Visible?

The queer lens makes us more attentive to the spaces between explicit identity and implied identity. It asks us to consider whether literary texts always provide straightforward categories of sexuality and whether cultural expectations influence how characters understand and express themselves.

What Becomes Visible Across Four Lenses?

The same novel changes considerably depending on the questions we bring to it.

Through Marxism

We notice wealth, class, economic power, social mobility, and ideology.

Through Feminist Criticism

We notice patriarchy, gender roles, women's agency, masculinity, and unequal relationships.

Through Ecocriticism

We notice industrialisation, environmental degradation, anthropocentrism, and unequal distribution of consequences.

Through Queer Criticism

We notice heteronormative assumptions, masculine performance, ambiguity, and the instability of fixed identities.

The important insight is that these interpretations do not necessarily cancel one another out. A single feature can become meaningful from several perspectives.

Knowing vs. Using Critical Theory

Knowing a critical theory means understanding its vocabulary, major thinkers, concepts, and general principles. Barad's article establishes these broad areas of investigation.

Actually using a critical theory requires moving from definition to investigation. The critic asks particular questions, locates evidence in the text, identifies a relevant concept, and explains how that concept changes the interpretation.

Theory provides the lens, while criticism is the act of looking through that lens. The quality of a critical reading depends on the connection between theoretical concept, textual evidence, and interpretation.

Part III: Human Verification

The worksheet requires the student to verify the AI response rather than accept it automatically.

Q1. Is the explanation consistent with the source?

Yes. The four approaches have been used according to the major concerns outlined by Barad: class and ideology for Marxism, patriarchy and gender construction for Feminist criticism, human–nature relations and anthropocentrism for Ecocriticism, and heteronormativity and gender/sexual identity for Queer criticism.

Q2. Has Feminist criticism been reduced to a discussion of women?

No. The analysis considers gender relations, patriarchy, masculinity, femininity, agency, and social expectations, rather than simply listing female characters.

Q3. Has Marxism been reduced to "rich versus poor"?

No. The reading considers economic ideology, social mobility, inherited wealth, class structures, and the American Dream.

Q4. Has Ecocriticism been reduced to nature description?

No. The Valley of Ashes is examined through industrialisation, environmental degradation, economic activity, anthropocentrism, and social inequality.

Q5. Has the queer reading been forced?

This is the point requiring the greatest caution. The queer interpretation of Nick and Gatsby is presented as an interpretive possibility, not as proof of Nick's sexual identity. The absence of explicit confirmation means the critic should distinguish between textual suggestion and established fact.

Q6. Is there textual evidence?

The readings refer to identifiable elements of the novel: East Egg and West Egg, Gatsby's wealth and parties, the Buchanan marriage, Myrtle and George Wilson, Tom's behaviour, the Valley of Ashes, and Nick's relationship with Gatsby.

Q7. Has anything been invented?

The interpretations should not be treated as facts about authorial intention. They are critical readings based on features of the novel. This distinction is especially important for the queer reading.

Reflection on AI & Literary Theory

This activity helped me understand that knowing a literary theory and actually applying it are two different things. Before working through the four approaches, it was easy to remember Marxism as the study of class, Feminism as the study of women and patriarchy, Ecocriticism as the study of nature, and Queer Criticism as the study of sexuality. However, applying these approaches to The Great Gatsby showed me that criticism requires much more than remembering definitions. Each theory changes the questions I ask about the same text.

One important insight I learned is that the four critics can look at the same literary detail but discover different meanings. The Valley of Ashes, for example, can be understood not only as a symbol of social decay but also as an environmental space connected to industrialisation and economic inequality.

The point I had to question was the queer interpretation of Nick and Gatsby. It would be easy to turn emotional intensity into a definite statement about Nick's sexuality, but that would go beyond the textual evidence. I learned that a critic must distinguish possibility, interpretation, and textual fact.

Overall, GenAI helped me understand that literary theory is not a ready-made answer; it is a method for asking better questions of a text.

References

Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, 2002.
Althusser, Louis. For Marx. Verso, 2005.
Barad, Dilip. "Literary Criticism and Gen AI." ResearchGate, Sept. 2026, doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.29601.36964.
Barad, Dilip. "On Marxist, Feminist, Ecocritical, and Queer Criticism." ResearchGate, Nov. 2024, doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.16827.02082.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester University Press, 2002.
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. Routledge, 2017.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Pearson Education, 2011.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.
Green, Keith, and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook. Routledge, 2006.
Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Cornell University Press, 1981.
Klarer, Mario. An Introduction to Literary Studies. Routledge, 2013.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press, 1949.
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing. Princeton University Press, 1977.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Routledge, 2015.
Vice, Sue, et al. Essential Study Skills for Arts and Humanities Students. SAGE Publications, 2008.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. Hogarth Press, 1929.

Frankenstein Beyond the Monster: Revolution, Otherness, Science, and Popular Culture

A Cultural Studies Thinking Activity on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

This Blog is a part of Thinking Activity on Cultural Studies assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir where I will ponder up my thoughts regarding Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus .

VIDEOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF MY BLOG-

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is often remembered through a familiar image: a scientist, a laboratory, a monstrous creature, and the disastrous consequences of creating life. Yet reducing the novel to a story about a “monster” and a scientist means overlooking the cultural questions that make Frankenstein remarkably relevant even today.

The Cultural Studies approach allows us to move beyond the traditional question—“Who is the monster?”—and ask more difficult questions: Who has the power to create? Who has the power to define another person as an outsider? What happens when society produces the very violence it later fears? And how do changing cultures continuously remake Frankenstein according to their own anxieties?

The thinking activity on Frankenstein approaches the novel through two interconnected ideas: “Revolutionary Births” and “The Frankenpheme in Popular Culture.” The first examines the novel in relation to class, race, empire, science, and technological change; the second investigates how Frankensteinian ideas continue to circulate through films, literature, political discourse, biotechnology, and popular culture.

1. Frankenstein as a Revolutionary Text

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a period marked by political and intellectual upheaval. The thinking activity therefore encourages us to see the novel not simply as Gothic fiction but as a text engaging with revolutionary ideas and anxieties surrounding science, philosophy, society, and politics.

The most interesting aspect of this approach is that creation itself becomes political.

Victor Frankenstein wants to create life, but his creation immediately raises questions of responsibility, authority, and power. He possesses the knowledge and resources necessary to create, while the Creature is left without social status, family, or protection.

This makes the Creature more than an individual character. He can be read as a figure through whom the novel explores the experiences of those excluded from the structures of society.

2. The Creature as Proletarian: The Monster and the Oppressed

One of the most provocative questions in the thinking activity is whether the Creature can be understood as a proletarian figure.

The Creature begins life without an established social position. He has no wealth, family, community, or recognised identity. His appearance causes people to fear and reject him before they understand him.

This creates a significant paradox.

The Creature is initially capable of sympathy, learning, observation, and emotional attachment. Yet repeated rejection contributes to his transformation into a vengeful figure. The activity specifically asks us to consider the Creature's paradoxical nature as both “an innocent and a vengeful force” and to connect this contradiction with social fears of revolution and sympathy for suffering masses.

This raises a larger Cultural Studies question:

Does society create the “monster” it later claims to fear?

The Creature's violence cannot simply be excused. At the same time, the circumstances surrounding his development cannot be ignored.

His story demonstrates how exclusion can become a cycle:

Creation → Rejection → Isolation → Anger → Violence → Further Rejection

The Creature therefore becomes a cultural symbol of the oppressed subject whose exclusion is simultaneously a personal tragedy and a social problem.

His story can be connected to broader questions of class and social inequality. A society that determines someone's value according to appearance, status, origin, or usefulness can create its own forms of “monstrosity.”

3. “A Race of Devils”: Otherness, Race, and Empire

Another important dimension of the activity is the Creature's position as the Other.

The concept of the “Other” is central to Cultural Studies. Societies frequently construct identities by distinguishing between “us” and “them.” The person who does not fit the dominant image of normality becomes strange, threatening, foreign, or inferior.

The Creature embodies this process.

He is not given the opportunity to define himself before others define him. His physical difference becomes the basis on which society judges his moral character.

The thinking activity extends this question towards race and imperialism, asking students to consider how the novel engages with ideas of race, empire, privilege, and the colonial mindset.

This makes Victor's relationship with the Creature particularly significant.

Victor creates a being who is radically different from himself but refuses to accept responsibility for that difference. Creation therefore becomes associated with power without responsibility.

From a postcolonial perspective, this opens a difficult but productive question:

What happens when the powerful create, classify, and control the “Other,” but refuse to recognise the humanity of what they have created?

The Creature's experience reminds us that Otherness is not simply a natural condition. It is also produced through social perception.

Someone becomes an outsider partly because society decides that they are one.

4. From Natural Philosophy to the Cyborg

Perhaps the most obvious contemporary connection of Frankenstein lies in science and technology.

Victor Frankenstein's experiment belongs to an older world of natural philosophy, but the ethical question it raises has not disappeared. Instead, it has become increasingly relevant as scientific capabilities have expanded.

The activity explicitly connects Frankenstein with contemporary developments such as:

genetic engineering,
biotechnology,
cloning,
genetically modified births,
and artificial intelligence.

The important issue is not whether science itself is “good” or “bad.”

The deeper question is:

What responsibilities accompany technological power?

Victor's tragedy is not simply that he discovers something extraordinary. His problem is that his ability to create exceeds his willingness to take responsibility for what he has created.

This makes Frankenstein surprisingly relevant to discussions surrounding artificial intelligence.

An AI system, a genetically engineered organism, or another technological creation may be produced through human intelligence, but its existence immediately raises questions about responsibility, ethics, control, and consequences.

The novel therefore encourages us to distinguish between:

Can we create it?

and

Should we create it—and what responsibility will we have afterwards?

That distinction remains one of the most important questions in technological culture.

5. The Frankensteinian Anxiety in Artificial Intelligence

The connection between Frankenstein and artificial intelligence is especially fascinating because both involve the creation of something that potentially exceeds the intentions of its creator.

The analogy should not be taken literally: an AI system is not the Creature in Shelley's novel. Yet the cultural anxiety is comparable.

Frankenstein asks us to imagine what happens when human beings create something whose consequences they cannot fully control.

Contemporary discussions about AI similarly involve questions about:

human control,
responsibility,
unintended consequences,
technological dependence,
ethics,
and the boundaries of human creation.

Thus, Frankensteinian thinking has moved from the laboratory of Victor Frankenstein into the technological imagination of the twenty-first century.

The enduring question is not simply:

“Will our creations destroy us?”

It is also:

“What kind of society are we creating through the technologies we produce?”

That second question shifts the discussion from science fiction to Cultural Studies.

6. The Creature's Education: Knowledge as Liberation and Alienation

The Creature's intellectual development provides another fascinating cultural dimension.

Through his literary education, he gradually develops an understanding of language, society, human relationships, and himself. Education gives him a means of interpreting the world, but knowledge does not automatically bring him belonging.

This produces another paradox:

Knowledge empowers the Creature, but it also makes him increasingly conscious of his exclusion.

The more he understands human society, the more clearly he understands that he has been denied a place within it.

This raises an important question about education itself.

Education is often imagined as a path towards liberation. But what happens when knowledge reveals inequalities that cannot easily be overcome?

The Creature's literary education therefore becomes more than a plot device. It demonstrates that self-awareness can be both empowering and painful.

To understand society is also to understand one's position within society.

7. The Frankenpheme: When Frankenstein Leaves the Novel

The second major section of the thinking activity introduces an especially interesting concept: the “Frankenpheme.”

The term, associated in the activity with Timothy Morton, refers to cultural elements derived from Frankenstein that continue to be reproduced across different forms of culture.

This means that Frankenstein is no longer confined to Shelley's novel.

The idea of Frankenstein circulates through:

Literature → Film → Television → Political discourse → Popular culture → Scientific debates → Technology

A “Frankenstein” can now become a metaphor for something that humans create and later fear.

This is why we repeatedly encounter Frankensteinian language in discussions surrounding technological and scientific developments.

The original novel becomes a kind of cultural vocabulary through which society expresses its anxieties.

8. Frankenstein on the Screen: From Adaptation to Cultural Transformation

The history of Frankenstein adaptations demonstrates how cultural texts change when they enter new media.

The thinking activity asks students to consider the first cinematic adaptation and the enormous number of later films, parodies, and retellings inspired by the novel. It also asks why Frankenstein has maintained such a lasting cultural influence.

The answer may lie in the novel's adaptability.

Every historical period has its own anxieties.

The nineteenth century had anxieties about scientific experimentation and industrial and intellectual change. Later cultures could reinterpret Frankenstein through different fears involving technology, artificial life, social exclusion, and scientific power.

This is why adaptations do not simply reproduce Shelley.

They reinterpret Shelley.

The suggested films in the activity—Young Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Blade Runner—demonstrate the broad cultural afterlife of Frankensteinian ideas.

Even when a later work is not a direct adaptation, it can participate in the cultural conversation created by Shelley.

9. Why Does Frankenstein Continue to Survive?

Perhaps the most important question is why a novel published in 1818 continues to speak to contemporary audiences.

The answer lies partly in its openness.

Frankenstein does not belong exclusively to one historical moment.

It can be read as:

a Gothic novel,
a science-fiction precursor,
a story about isolation,
a critique of irresponsible creation,
a text about Otherness,
a reflection on class and exclusion,
a meditation on knowledge,
a text that can be examined through race and imperialism,
and a cultural source continually transformed through adaptation.

Its continued survival demonstrates that literary texts do not remain culturally fixed.

They acquire new meanings when different generations encounter them.

A contemporary reader may see AI where an earlier reader saw scientific experimentation. Another reader may focus on class, race, gender, colonialism, education, or social exclusion.

The novel remains culturally alive because its central questions remain unsettled.

10. From “Who Is the Monster?” to “Who Creates the Monster?”

The most valuable shift produced by a Cultural Studies reading is a change in the question itself.

A conventional reading might ask:

Who is the monster?

A Cultural Studies reading can ask:

Who has the power to decide who becomes a monster?

That question changes everything.

The Creature's body is treated as evidence of his supposed monstrosity. His difference becomes a justification for exclusion. Yet the novel also shows his capacity for learning, emotional attachment, and reflection.

Therefore, monstrosity is not only located in the Creature's body.

It can also emerge through social relationships, systems of exclusion, irresponsible authority, and the refusal to recognise another being's humanity.

Victor creates the Creature physically, but society participates in creating the conditions through which the Creature becomes increasingly alienated.

The monster, therefore, is not an isolated individual.

It can be understood as a cultural construction.

11. Frankenstein as a Mirror of Contemporary Culture

What makes Frankenstein powerful today is not simply its prediction of modern technology.

It is its ability to make us examine ourselves.

When we discuss artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, cloning, biotechnology, or other forms of scientific innovation, the Frankenstein metaphor often appears because it provides a familiar cultural language for discussing uncertainty.

But perhaps the deeper lesson is not that we should fear innovation.

Instead, Frankenstein asks us to consider responsibility alongside innovation.

Creation without responsibility produces consequences.

Knowledge without ethical reflection can become dangerous.

Power without accountability can create suffering.

And social exclusion can transform vulnerability into resentment.

These are not merely Gothic concerns. They are cultural concerns.

Conclusion: The Creature Still Lives

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has survived because the Creature has never remained confined to the laboratory.

He has entered our films, our metaphors, our scientific debates, our technological imagination, and our cultural vocabulary.

The concept of the Frankenpheme helps explain this extraordinary afterlife: Frankensteinian ideas continue to be reproduced and transformed as societies encounter new cultural anxieties.

The Creature can be read as the oppressed outsider, the Other, the rejected subject, the product of irresponsible creation, or the figure through which society confronts its own fears. None of these interpretations needs to completely replace the others.

Perhaps that is precisely why Frankenstein remains relevant.

The novel does not allow us to place monstrosity safely outside ourselves.

It asks us to look at the relationship between creator and creation, power and responsibility, society and outsider, knowledge and ethics, technology and humanity.

And that leaves us with a question that is perhaps more uncomfortable than “Who is the monster?”

If society helps create what it later fears, then what kinds of “monsters” are we creating today?

That question makes Frankenstein not merely a story from the nineteenth century, but a continuing cultural conversation about what it means to create, exclude, control, and ultimately take responsibility for the worlds we make.

Works Cited

Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th ed., Indian ed., Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 3–5, 311. “From Paradise Lost to Frank-N-Furter: The Creature Lives!”

Levine, George, and U. C. Knoepflmacher, editors. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley’s Novel. University of California Press, 1979.

Morton, Timothy. Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Routledge, 2002.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus. Project Gutenberg, 1993. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84.

Smith, Johanna M. “‘Cooped Up’ with ‘Sad Trash’: Domesticity and the Sciences in Frankenstein.” Frankenstein: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Contemporary Critical Perspectives, edited by Johanna M. Smith, Bedford Books, 2000, pp. 227–240.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 1, 1985, pp. 243–261.

Sunday, 20 September 2026

From Royal Pawns to Corporate Assets: Power, Marginalization, and the “Little People” in Shakespeare and Stoppard

Power Has Many Faces, But Who Gets Forgotten?

This Blog is a part of Thinking Activity on Cultural Studies assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir where I will ponder up my thoughts regarding analyzing the marginalization of minor characters in Hamlet and relate it to themes of power and systemic marginalization, drawing connections to modern-day corporate hierarchies.

Videographic Description of my Blog-

Introduction

Literature does not only tell stories about kings, heroes, and central characters. It also reveals what happens to those who exist on the margins of powerful systems. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead offer a particularly striking exploration of this idea through the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Although they occupy a relatively minor position in Shakespeare’s tragedy, their experiences reveal how individuals can become instruments within larger structures of political power.

A Cultural Studies approach allows us to look beyond the individual characters and examine the systems surrounding them. Power, hierarchy, ideology, social position, and economic structures influence who receives attention, who possesses authority, and who can be easily discarded. The study material specifically connects the marginalization of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with contemporary corporate structures, where ordinary workers may similarly be treated as expendable “assets.”

Stoppard takes Shakespeare’s marginal characters and places them at the centre of his own play. In doing so, he transforms their relatively limited role in Hamlet into an existential investigation of identity, purpose, uncertainty, and powerlessness. The two plays therefore provide an interesting connection between Renaissance political structures and modern experiences of institutional control.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: The Marginal Figures of Hamlet

In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are childhood acquaintances of Hamlet who are summoned to the Danish court by King Claudius and Queen Gertrude. Their position appears initially to be privileged because they have access to the royal court and are connected with the prince. However, their actual position is much weaker than it appears.

They do not control the political situation in which they become involved. Instead, they are used by those who possess greater authority. Claudius employs them to discover the reason behind Hamlet’s unusual behaviour and later sends them with Hamlet to England carrying the order for his execution.

Their marginalization becomes particularly significant through Hamlet’s description of Rosencrantz as a “sponge.” The image suggests an individual who absorbs what those in power give him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become instruments through which political authority operates rather than independent agents capable of determining their own fate. The study material specifically identifies their representation as marginal figures and asks us to consider how the metaphor of the “sponge” reveals their expendability within the power structure of the play.

Their eventual fate demonstrates the consequences of occupying such a position. They become caught between Hamlet and Claudius, two figures with very different forms of power. Ultimately, they are sacrificed by the political machinery surrounding the royal court.

Their importance, therefore, does not depend on how much authority they possess. Rather, their lack of authority becomes the point. They represent the “little people” whose lives can be manipulated by larger political and institutional structures.

Power and the Expendability of the Individual

Cultural Studies encourages us to examine literature in relation to the structures of society. Power is not restricted to kings, governments, or visibly powerful individuals. It can operate through institutions, relationships, language, ideology, and systems of social organization.

This perspective is particularly useful when examining Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are not the architects of the political conflict in Hamlet. Nevertheless, they become its casualties.

Claudius possesses institutional and political authority. Hamlet possesses the power associated with his position as prince, together with his ability to manipulate language and situations. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern possess considerably less power. Their proximity to authority does not give them genuine control.

This distinction between being close to power and actually possessing power is central to their marginalization.

The theoretical framework provided in the study material makes this connection even more significant. Louis Althusser’s discussion of ideology and state power can be used to understand how individuals function within larger structures. Michel Foucault’s work on power and knowledge provides another framework for examining how individuals can be controlled and manipulated through systems of authority. Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony similarly helps us think about how larger social forces shape the behaviour and position of individuals.

Thus, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be read not simply as comic or secondary characters but as figures through whom the operation of power becomes visible.

From the Royal Court to the Corporate World

One of the most striking aspects of the Cultural Studies approach in the study material is its connection between Shakespeare’s world and modern corporate structures.

The comparison is not based on the idea that a royal court and a corporation are identical. Instead, the parallel lies in the relationship between powerful institutions and individuals with limited control over their circumstances.

In contemporary workplaces, organizational decisions can affect employees who have little influence over those decisions. Downsizing, restructuring, relocation, and globalization can result in workers losing their positions even when the decisions are made far above them.

The study material explicitly asks students to consider how the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be compared with workers affected when multinational companies relocate or downsize.

This comparison changes the way we understand the two characters.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are useful to Claudius only as long as they can perform a particular function. Once that function is completed, their individual value within the political system becomes insignificant. Similarly, within highly hierarchical organizations, workers may sometimes experience themselves primarily through their institutional function rather than through their individual identity.

The important Cultural Studies question is therefore not simply “What happens to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?” but “What kind of system makes their fate possible?”

Stoppard’s Existential Reinterpretation

Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead radically changes the perspective by placing these marginal characters at the centre of the narrative.

In Shakespeare, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exist primarily within Hamlet’s story. In Stoppard, however, Hamlet becomes part of their story. This reversal itself is significant. Characters who were previously peripheral become central, while the supposedly central narrative becomes something they only partially understand.

Stoppard deepens their marginalization by exploring questions of existence, identity, purpose, and uncertainty. The study material identifies Stoppard’s play as a modern reinterpretation that frames the two characters within existentialist themes.

They frequently appear uncertain about where they are, what they are supposed to do, and why events are happening around them. Their inability to understand the larger narrative surrounding them becomes an important metaphor for human powerlessness.

They are characters who are inside the system but unable to understand the system.

This is what makes Stoppard’s reinterpretation particularly relevant to modern experiences of institutional life. An individual may participate in a workplace, university, bureaucracy, or other institution without having access to the larger mechanisms through which decisions are made.

The “Little People” and Invisible Power

The phrase “little people” becomes important because it draws attention to individuals who are overshadowed by larger political, economic, or institutional structures.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not completely powerless. They make decisions and attempt to respond to their circumstances. Yet their choices occur within conditions they did not create.

This is an important distinction in Cultural Studies: marginalization does not necessarily mean that an individual has no agency at all. Instead, agency may be restricted by structures that determine the possibilities available to that individual.

Their experience therefore encourages us to ask several questions:

Who makes the decisions?

Who benefits from those decisions?

Who carries the consequences?

Whose voices become visible, and whose disappear?

These questions can be applied not only to literature but also to contemporary social and institutional life.

From Political Marginalization to Economic Marginalization

The connection between Hamlet and modern corporate culture becomes even clearer when we consider the idea of the individual as a “dispensable asset.”

In the royal court, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are valuable because they can perform a task for the king. Their personal identities become secondary to their usefulness.

The same conceptual structure can appear in modern institutional environments when people are primarily understood according to their roles, productivity, or economic function.

The study material encourages students to reflect on this parallel and consider how the experience of being treated as a dispensable “asset” shapes our understanding of Cultural Studies and power dynamics.

The comparison is especially relevant in discussions of job insecurity. When organizational priorities change, individuals may discover that their position within a system is less secure than they believed.

Thus, the distance between Shakespeare’s court and the modern workplace may be historically enormous, yet the underlying question remains recognizable:

What happens to individuals when they become replaceable within a powerful system?

A Cultural Studies Reading of the Two Plays

A Cultural Studies reading brings together literature, history, politics, economics, ideology, and social structures. The study material provides several theoretical perspectives that can enrich this interpretation.

Louis Althusser helps us consider ideology and institutional power.

Michel Foucault allows us to examine the relationship between power, knowledge, and social structures.

Antonio Gramsci provides the concept of cultural hegemony and helps us consider how larger social forces influence individuals.

Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicism connects literary characters with the political and cultural forces of their historical moment.

Edward Said provides a broader framework for examining relationships between culture and power.

Raymond Williams helps us understand the relationship between cultural production and social structures.

These perspectives demonstrate that literature can function as a space where social power becomes visible and open to examination.

Why Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Matter

At first glance, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may appear to be relatively insignificant characters in Hamlet. Yet their marginal position makes them particularly valuable for Cultural Studies.

They reveal that a literary text is not only about its central hero. It is also about the people standing around that hero—the people who serve the powerful, follow instructions, perform necessary tasks, and sometimes disappear without receiving recognition.

Stoppard takes this idea even further. By making Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the protagonists of his play, he asks readers to look at the story from the perspective of those who were previously pushed to the margins.

This shift in perspective is itself a cultural and critical act.

It asks us to reconsider whose story deserves to be told.

Conclusion: From Shakespeare’s Court to the Modern World

The marginalization of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern demonstrates how literary characters can illuminate larger structures of power. In Hamlet, they are caught within the political machinery of the Danish court and ultimately become expendable figures. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard transforms their marginal position into an existential exploration of identity, uncertainty, and purpose.

Their story also opens a pathway towards understanding contemporary experiences of institutional and corporate power. The comparison with corporate downsizing, globalization, job insecurity, and organizational control encourages us to examine how individuals can become replaceable within systems larger than themselves.

The most important lesson of this Cultural Studies reading is that marginal characters are not necessarily marginal in meaning. Sometimes, those who stand at the edges of a narrative reveal the structure of the entire system more clearly than those who occupy its centre.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern therefore become more than two minor characters in Shakespeare. They become a lens through which we can examine power, hierarchy, ideology, marginalization, and the precarious position of the individual within larger social structures.

Their story ultimately reminds us that behind every powerful system are individuals who experience its decisions—and Cultural Studies gives us the critical tools to notice them.