Analysis Of How To Read Literature Like A Professor By Thomas C. Foster

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, he outlines the five elements of a quest. The elements that are needed for a quest to occur is a quester, a place to go, reason to go, challenges and trials, and a real reason to go there. In The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins the main character, Katniss Everdeen, goes on a quest that tests her courage, bravery, and will to survive. The quester, Katniss Everdeen is a sixteen year old girl who has a younger sibling Primrose who is 12 years old. The government where Katniss lives is run from the capitol. Every year the capitol holds the hunger games which is a punishment placed on the districts after an uprising that failed. There is a public reaping

In Thomas Foster’s book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” readers learn how to look past the surface of a literary work to find a deeper or hidden meaning. Writers use devices, such as symbolism, imagery, foreshadowing, irony and allusion to reveal these meanings. If these are overlooked, important aspects of the story can be lost. One literary device that Foster emphasizes in his book is allusion. Every story has elements of another story, and Foster devotes Chapters Four through Seven explaining the meaning of allusion in works by Shakespeare, the Bible, and fairy tales.

1. In chapter eleven of his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster examines violence in literature, and particularly the way violence functions on multiple levels. Foster identifies two different kinds of violence in literature, and discusses how those two different kinds create different literal and literary meanings. By examining Foster's categories of violence in more detail, one can see how violence in literature serves as an important link between the internal events of a story and the story itself.

In Chapter 1 the author explains the symbolic reasoning of why a character takes a trip. They don't just take a trip they take a quest. Structurally a quest has a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials en route, and a reason to go there. Quests usually involve characters such as a knight, a dangerous road, a Holy Grail, a dragon, an evil knight, and a princess. The quest also involves the character to gain self-knowledge out of taking the adventure to the stated place where he or she is going.

In the twelfth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster provides various information on how to identify symbols throughout literature. The chapter stressed the individuality of identifying symbols, Foster mentions multiple times that “every reader’s experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to different degrees” (110). After learning this and also having read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, one thing that stood out was that the main character, Oskar, only has and only wears white clothes. Not only does Oskar often reference his various white clothes, including the white scarf that Grandma knitted

In the novel “How to Read Literature like a Professor” the author, Thomas Foster, analyzed and broke down many literary techniques and reoccurring themes in literature. One of the most widely used literary techniques as shown in the novel was Symbolism. Symbolism is heavily used in literature from precipitation and weather to politics, almost everything we read in literature is a form of symbolism.

In the book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” by Thomas C. Foster, many elements are brought to the reader’s attention. Three of these elements, happen to connect with the novel, “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” written by Mark Haddon.

Foster discusses the idea that when two characters eat together, that moment acts as a bonding experience and causes the characters to come together. I had never noticed the significance of a meal between characters before. After reading this chapter, I can think of so many moments in stories when the characters share a meal together to form friendships or come to a peace. In one of my favorite novels, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, Picoult writes that “Emma Alexis- who was one of the cool, beautiful girls…she rolled her wheelchair right beside Justin. She’d asked him if she could have half of his donut” (367). Splitting the donut between one of the popular girls and one of the quieter, nerdier boys was a representation of the deformation of the high school social classes. After reading this chapter, I could recall the significance of meals together in so many novels and movies but I never noticed this pattern before.

Authors tend to get very political in between the lines of their stories. In “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” by Thomas C. Foster, there is a chapter that discusses about how almost every author gets political with their writing. “Nearly all writing is political on some level.” (“How to Read Literature Like a Professor” 118.) “Animal Farm,” “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave,” and “Nature” are some examples that’ll be used to prove this point.

To be a vampire, you have to take something from someone else to benefit yourself, whether that be anything from blood to money. Vampires weren’t always what we see today in “Twilight. Vampirism does not always have to do with vampires but selfishness, exploitation, and refusal to respect.

The five aspects of the quest are the quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials on the way, and the real reason to go there. When I read The Secret Life Of the Bees the quester was Lily, she was looking to go to Tiburon to find out more information about her mother and the past. On her journey she runs away from her father, falls in love, and becomes a part of a family. The real reason behind her journey is to get away from her father and feel connected with a family.

Foster breaks down the aspects of a journey to describe the quester, the destination, the stated reason, the challenges, and the real reason. The character who embarks on the journey, also known as the quester, has a defined reason to do so, whether it is to obtain an object, save one from the lurking dangers, or acquire life-saving knowledge. Along their way to reach their destination, they may encounter various challenges such as a physical barrier, a challenger/defender, or a personal obstacle they must face. Through whatever form it takes, these barriers force the quester to challenge their abilities and beliefs, which ultimately leads to them discovering personal knowledge previously unknown about themselves. Though the quester may have accomplished their stated goal of their journey, they return from their voyage often as a changed person as the real reason for their quest was to gain self-knowledge. After they finish their conquest, the quester realizes that the journey was more important than the destination whether they built upon their relationships with another, conquered a personal fear, or gained new found knowledge about themselves, altering their personality and their identity. Foster believes that every trip is a quest, and the quest is a revelation about one’s

In the skillful novel, "How To Read Literature Like A Professor" by Thomas C. Foster, there is neither a protagonist nor antagonist. As a whole, the novel gives insights on how to pick up signs of symbolism, irony, and many other hidden details that are buried within the words of literature. Foster refers to many classis novels by classic authors to demonstrate the use of logic in writing. The novel is extremely educational, leaving many insightful questions and interpretations to the reader's opinion.

-Flight is freedom. When a character has the ability to fly they are free from the burdens of everyday life.

A Quest consists of five elements: 1. a quester, so to speak, or the person who is on a quest. 2. a place to go. 3. a stated reason to actually go there. 4. challenges and trials on the way. 5. a real reason to go there.