What does literary-parallax-skill do?
Parallax (Literary Critical Lens Method): A Claude/Agent Skill that applies nine critical lenses plus a questioning engine to critique and interpret mainstream narrative works. A multi-lens critical-reading Agent Skill for narrative works.
What is Parallax?
Parallax is a skill that enables an AI agent to perform deep, structured literary criticism using nine distinct theoretical lenses. Each lens corresponds to a major school of literary or cultural critique—such as Marxist, Feminist, Postcolonial, Psychoanalytic, Structuralist, Reader-Response, New Historicist, Queer Theory, and Ecocritical. The skill also includes a questioning engine that generates specific, probing questions for each lens to guide analysis.
How It Works
- Select a Work: The user names any narrative work (novel, film, series, game, etc.).
- Choose Lenses: The agent asks the user to pick one or more lenses from the available nine.
- Apply Questions: The questioning engine produces a set of lens-specific questions for the agent to answer.
- Synthesize: The agent generates a critical interpretation based on the questions, synthesizing insights into a final report.
Example Lenses
- Marxist Lens: Questions about class struggle, economic power, and material conditions.
- Feminist Lens: Questions about gender roles, patriarchy, and female agency.
- Postcolonial Lens: Questions about colonial history, cultural identity, and resistance.
- Psychoanalytic Lens: Questions about unconscious desires, repression, and symbolism.
Use Cases
- Education: Teachers can use Parallax to guide students through structured literary analysis.
- Creative Writing: Writers can explore their own works from critical perspectives to deepen themes.
- Content Analysis: Critics can produce rigorous, multi-perspective reviews.
Getting Started
- Copy the full markdown of this skill into your agent's skill configuration.
- Invoke the skill by saying "Use Parallax on [work name]" or similar.
- Follow the prompts to select lenses and answer questions.
Note
This skill is designed to work with any AI agent that supports custom skills (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, etc.). It does not require external APIs or data sources—only the agent's reasoning capabilities.
License
MIT