Analysis Of The Novel 'How To Read Literature Like A Professor'

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

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 “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, chapter 18, Foster speaks on the topic of rebirth and renewal. He says that when a character's body is submerged into a body of water there is a symbolic meaning behind it. If the character arises from the watery depths ,then there has been some form of transformation whether it be internal or external. This is actually one of my favorite motifs to speak on, or think about. It shows the change and development of a character, how they grow, and their thought process has changed. This stage of rebirth in a literary work is the background, or building blocks, to the character's new persona/attitude.

In “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster there are three new concepts I took and analyzed at a deeper level when reading “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Foster tells us that in stories drownings or deaths that take place in water is serving a purpose whether it is to help the theme development, failure, guilt, or plot complication. In Crime and Punishment after Raskolnikov has committed the murder of his land lady. He begins to have suicidal thoughts of jumping off the bridge into the river. However, this idea does die quickly when a women standing right next to him decides to jump off the bridge. As he sees what has taken place he quickly snaps out of his guilt driven thoughts and the matter never comes up again. The water represents baptism. If ,Rasolnikov would've thrown himself into the river it would symbolize as a baptism to cleanse all his

Chapter 10 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor is called “Never Stand Next to the Hero.” This chapter claims that character’s deaths are important plot devices. Foster made a great point of saying how readers become emotionally attached to characters in books. He makes to point that characters aren't real people. “They’re not people because they have never existed. I mean, have you ever met one on the street?” Characters are simply an outline made by the author and the reader coloring in that outline to make the character what they want it to be. Foster also pushed the point across that the main character can’t ever die in the beginning or middle of the book. If the main character dies, what’s the point of the book

There are many ways for an author to utilize the literature around them to express their ideas. Such ways are explained in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster, a brilliant author who takes reader behind the scenes and into the world of literature. Reading the book is one thing, but using it to help provide insight on a book is another. In The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, Martel effectively uses symbolism and a parallel to enhance both the story and the reader’s insight of the book.

In chapter one of “How to Read Literature like a Professor” by Foster, we learn the key elements of a quest. Structurally a quest consists of (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials experienced on the way, and (e) a real reason to go there. According to Foster (pg 3), “The real reason for a quest never involves the stated reason”. The real reason for a quest is self-knowledge, which is why most questers are sheltered, immature, inexperienced, and young. We find this to be true in “Varjak Paw” by S.F Said and Dave McKean. Varjak Paw is a young Mesopotamian dark blue cat who is forced from his home into the streets in order to find a dog to aid him in saving his family. However in literature

Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, is a novel about a young boy, Pi, trapped with a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker who survive together in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days. The central theme of the novel is Pi’s faith in God, which proves to be a crucial part of his survival during the extreme situation. In the book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, the author talks about the importance of literary elements such as symbols, geography, and stories to a literary piece. These elements are used in Life of Pi to develop its compelling story about growing up.

Thomas Foster is an english professor from Michigan he his the author of How To Read literature like a professor. How To Read literature like a professor is a how to book. It guides readers to get better at reading non fiction books. Each chapter challenges its readers to look for different things in stories. The novel Insurgent written by Veronica Roth that has a few connections to How To Read literature like a professor. When reading Insurgent you `can Identify nice to eat with you, Or the bible and it all political.

* Communion is a way of saying, “I’m with you, I like you, and we form a community together.” People would only eat dinner with someone that they are comfortable with. That’s the importance about food. Any meal would represent sharing and peace. But at times, it could be considered a bad thing. An example I can come up with is when Snow White ate the apple a strange looking old woman just decided to give to her.

In Foster’s explanation of meals in literature, he explains that the details of a meal are often included for a specific reason. He suggests that a meal is reflective of the characters’ status as a community. In the play Death of A

In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is one man attempting to turn his society upside down. After discovering for himself the injustice of his society as it shuns all literature, Montag relentlessly fights to fix this corruption and endures large amounts of persecution in the process (Bradbury). Meanwhile, in his autobiography, Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass recounts his past as a single slave doing his best to right the evils of southern slaveholders. Although one takes place in a fantasy and one during 19th century America, both works portray individuals going against the unjust grain of their societies, and persevering through extreme opposition in the process. After escaping the grip of slavery, Douglass recounts his life story to a curious, yet most-likely privileged audience in an intelligent and revealing manner. Throughout his narrative, Douglass praises the surprising resilience of the human spirit even in the midst of constant hardship.

Jalapeno bagels is about a boy named Pablo whom cannot decide what to take to school for International Day. He wants to bring something from his parents’ baker. He wants something that represent his heritage but he cannot decide what to bring. His mother who is Mexican baked pan dulce and change bars. His father who is Jewish baked bagels and challah. Both of the bake good were good but while helping his parents with the bakery on Sunday morning, Pablo made a decision on what to bring. He decided to bring jalapeno bagels because they are a mixture both of his parents and just like him too. The multicultural representations in the story line is Mexican and Jewish. The pictures that were drawn in the book, the family has the same color of skin even though the parents are different cultures and the main character is mixed. There were no different skin colors.

“Sometimes meals are just meals, and eating with others is just eating with others, but whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion”

through time and space with her younger brother as well as her friend in an attempt to rescue her