Literary criticism is a broad term used to define the different theories in which a reader can critique literary works. It began with formalism in the 1920's and has evolved into many different theories that cover gender studies, historicism, deconstruction, ... denial, a psychological defense to help him repress the memory of his real past. His claim that his invented family all died and he came into a good deal of money, becomes a metaphor for his desire to psychologically kill the parents whose wounding influence still inhabits his own psyche and receive from those parents the psychologic...

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