Lois Tyson lays out the purpose and structure of Critical Theory Today. It begins with an acknowledgement that critical theory is a difficult, jargon-filled mode of engagement with literature. The goal of the textbook is to demystify critical theory and provide an introductory framework for applying the theory to literary works. Each chapter addresses a different domain of critical theory in roughly the order in which it was broadly adopted in American academia. Each chapter defines one subset of critical theory and the ideas of its major theorists, presents an example of how that theory applies to The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and provides questions and resources for further exploration.

The chapter then introduces some key definitions. Literary criticism is the practice of explaining and evaluating literary works. This doesn’t “necessarily imply finding fault with literary works” (5). Critical theory “explain[s] the assumptions and values upon which various forms of literary criticism rest” (5). For instance, “a Marxist analysis of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye” is an example of literary criticism that applies Marxist critical theory (5). 

Works can be read either with or “against the grain.” Reading with the grain of the text means to analyze what the work is explicitly stating, whereas reading against the grain means analyzing the work based on its implicit messaging, which may go unacknowledged by the text itself.