Developing your Line of Inquiry (DP IB English A: Literature: HL): Revision Note

Concept

Line of Inquiry

Identity

How does Ralph Ellison, in his novel Invisible Man, succeed in making his narrator a convincing spokesperson for the concerns of African-Americans in the 20th century?

Culture

How does Chinua Achebe present the cultural collision between Igbo society and European colonisers in Things Fall Apart?

Creativity

How does Carol Ann Duffy reimagine canonical female figures through dramatic monologue in The World's Wife?

Communication

How does Harold Pinter use silence and the pause to convey what cannot be spoken in The Birthday Party?

Transformation

In what ways does Jean Rhys reframe Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre through the prequel narrative of Wide Sargasso Sea?

Perspective

How does Mary Shelley’s protagonist in Frankenstein use the motif of dangerous knowledge to show the perspective of fear and anxiety of excesses in scientific enterprise in early 19th-century Europe? 

Representation

Through what means does Juan Rulfo successfully convey the representation of realistic and non-realistic characters and situations in Pedro Páramo? 

Concept

Text or work: Persepolis – Satrapi

Identity

• Highlights tension between personal beliefs and imposed religious and national identities

• Examines gender identity within a patriarchal and politically restrictive society 

Culture

• Depicts Iranian culture before and after the Islamic Revolution 

• Challenges Western stereotypes about Iran through personal storytelling

Creativity 

• Uses the graphic memoir form to combine visual and verbal narrative

• Uses stark black-and-white imagery to symbolise moral and political contrast 

Communication

• Portrays censorship and restricted freedom

Perspective

• Narrated through Marji’s childhood viewpoint

• Adult retrospective narration conveys reflection

Transformation 

• Examines personal transformation shaped by war and exile

Representation 

• Challenges simplified Western media portrayals of Iran

• Humanises political conflict through personal narrative

Critical lens

Primary focus

Historical/cultural theory

• Interprets a text in relation to the historical period in which it was produced

• Explores how the text reflects, reinforces or challenges the dominant ideologies of its time

• Encourages analysis of how readers from different time periods might interpret the text differently

Feminist theory

• Examines how ideas of femininity and masculinity are socially and culturally constructed 

• Considers whether female characters are given autonomy and complexity or are marginalised and stereotyped

• Explores themes such as patriarchy, oppression, identity and resistance

Marxist theory

• Explores how literature reflects, reinforces or challenges class structures and economic systems

• Focuses on conflict between social classes, particularly the ruling class and the working class

• Examines themes such as exploitation, alienation, consumerism and ideology

Reader-response theory

• Suggests that meaning is created through the interaction between the text and the reader

• Recognises that different readers may produce different, yet valid, interpretations of the same text

Race/post-colonial theory

• Explores how race, ethnicity and colonial context shape literary representation 

• Analyses how colonised cultures are represented, particularly in Western literature

• Examines how writers challenge dominant narratives and reconstruct suppressed narratives

Critical lens

Focus

Examples

Historical/cultural theory

• Explores context of the 1920s: American Dream, post-war disillusionment

How does F. Scott Fitzgerald foreshadow how Gatsby’s unnatural attachment to the past causes his downfall in The Great Gatsby?

Marxist theory

• Directly references class structures, wealth inequality and power dynamics

In what ways would Marxist theory about the stratification of wealth and power explain the violence that runs through the action of the novel A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez? 

Reader-response theory

• The extent of ‘influence’ depends on interpretation and comparison by the reader 

To what extent was the characterisation of the protagonist in Patrick Süskind´s Perfume influenced by Franz Kafka´s The Metamorphosis?

Critical lens

Ideas

Feminist lens

• Sophocles portrays Antigone as a woman who challenges patriarchal authority within the expectations of Ancient Greek society

Marxist lens

• The play explores the concentration of power in the ruling elite through Creon’s authoritarian rule

Reader-response lens

• Modern audiences may interpret Antigone as a heroic martyr though others may view her as stubborn and self-destructive 

Lines of inquiry

Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: How epistolary framing and the Historical Notes destabilise narrative authority

Camus' The Stranger: How Camus highlights existentialist themes through the character of Meursault

Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire: How plastic theatre illustrates Blanche’s descent into madness

Satrapi’s Persepolis: How child-centred perspective and visual simplicity critique political extremism