Poole examines the American concept of Satan as well as Satan’s imagery in other countries. According to Poole, it is widely believed in the United States that Satan exists. That belief is owed to religious propaganda and pop culture. In Europe, Satan has been used as a figure for radicalism and scapegoating. This theory suggests that the devil is merely a facade that has been used throughout history in order to prevent diversion from religion and suppress sexual freedom. 

Triangular desire, or sacrificial desire, examines the act of being drawn to a beloved not because we love them, but rather, we desire to possess them and objectify them. In doing so, it brings us esteem from our rivals. Thus, we are constantly motivated by triangular desires. After a while, the competition inherent in triangular desire instigates rivalry that threatens to destroy cohesion of a community. At that point, we will scapegoat a vulnerable member and exile or kill them. That brings back cohesion. Satan instantiates the need for law and punishment and becomes a scapegoat for problems.

Homo sacer (Latin for "the sacred man" or "the accursed man") is a figure of Roman law: a person who is banned and may be killed by anybody, but may not be sacrificed in a religious ritual. Inspired by this logic, Agamben’s theory poses the idea that you cannot create a law until you have first figured out how it can be broken and who can break it, and that in any society, you cannot have one without the other; i.e. there must always be someone to sacrifice (even if imaginary) to ensure the security and liberty of a community. Satan is that someone to sacrifice. 

Linda Hutcheon’s theory is to go beyond the idea of plagiarism and to think more about hybridity. Furthermore, seeing that adaptation of a text as a hybrid, due to the fact that, when a text is adapted it goes through a process of reinterpretation. Finally, this invokes the idea of evolutionary theory. Examples of this theory include the retelling of Genesis and the fall of man and in the comic Lucifer, where Lucifer has issues with his father - God.

The concept of Carnival/Carnivalesque allows for people, regardless of class or rank, to join together as equals for a moment in time where anything is a possibility. The Carnivalesque puts emphasis on revelry, humor, and absurdity. Licensed to disrupt authority, where the lowest class gets to rule for a day. The carnivalesque subverts order and authority and is evident in Dogma, as well as The Master and Margarita. Dogma portrays it in its absurdity, satire, and the chaotic scenes in which characters of multiple classes interact in hilarious antics. The Master and Margarita portrays it in multiple humorous moments, like one character’s death by streetcar and Woland’s ball near the end of the book. In this book, characters of different classes come together to have fun or have funny, unfortunate events happen to them.

Stephen Greenblatt reimagined the hermeneutic triangle as a square, with each corner representing one of the following: the text, the author, reader, and the context a piece was written in. Additionally, his argument was made in the early 1980’s. Furthermore, Greenblatt’s argument focused on looking at how one text should be compared with another and allowed readers to begin to see literature as an artifact. Later, seeing a piece of literature as an artifact gave rise to cultural studies.

The idea here is to look beyond the mundane life or the human centric species and to imagine what comes after life. For instance, looking at the significance of angels and demons and the idea of looking into whether humans can become angels. Additionally, this theory looks at decentering humans from life and what differentiates an angel from a demon. 

Marxist theory was derived from Karl Marx, who wrote The Communist Manifesto. Marxism focuses on where we are in a system in society which we cannot escape from. Furthermore, this theory presents the idea that we are trapped in a larger system of oppression which limits our autonomy. This theory helped us understand the problem of theodicy, and the question of how an individual can have free will if God is all-powerful and all-knowing.