In English class during my last year of highschool, I have learned a lot of all these different types of reading. Did I actually read them or did I use all the annotations on line? Well that doesn’t matter does it, the only thing that really matter is that I at least got something out of my English B class. I kinda did, between all the extra hours of homework and the texting in class I should've learned something. Well I did learn that I actually like about three of the stories in this so called literature book, no more or no less just three stories and that's it. The three stories that I found out that I actually like are The Lady of SHALOTT by: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ah, Are You Diggin on My grave by: Thomas Hardy and The Rocking-Horse …show more content…
H. Lawrence. These are the only stories out of the whole big book that I liked reading, no more no less than these three stories. The first story I picked was The Lady of SHALOTT by: Alfred Lord Tennyson. I like this story because of its curiosity, it’s power and the last thing is the stubbornness. In the story there was this really hot looking guy, who's kinda I guess I could say like the start football player in the school. That every girl wants to go after and he’s the hard one to get because he’s so into all the popular girls and you just want him to look at you for that one little tiny second. So you can get all those butterfly feelings that everybody else gets. Ya, but one problem you're like the girl in this story thats lock away and can’t come out and play. It’s not that you're ugly or anything just that you're kinda stuck in your bedroom under a spell and can’t get out. Well one day this super hot guy comes to your house and you really want to go out and play, but you can’t because well you know the spell won't let you leave. Well what girl who sees a really hot guy outside their window won't try and get out. Well the lady in the story get very curious and climbs out of the window, but the spell says she will die if she leave. She doesn’t care tho because she's super …show more content…
H. Lawrence. I like this story because it teaches us that more isn’t always the best, the little boy passed away trying to get the mom more money and the last thing I like about this story is that it just hits a place at home to lose somebody that close to you. You can have all the money in the whole wide world and still wouldn’t be happy enough. The more money you end up with the more you're going to want. In the beginning of the story the little boys mother needed money so she could feel up in class with the neighbors and have high end stuff, but in the end when she keep getting more and more money she just wanted more and didn’t care how she was getting it or how it made her look. She just liked the fact that it was making her look really high end class and up there with the neighbors. The little boy ends up passing away from riding his horse too hard. He was the one that was getting his mother the money that she wanted and there was one last race that would win a big amount of money. The little boy thought he was the luckiest boy alive because he was winning all this money and making him mother proud and happy. When she found out thats where the money was coming from she didn’t tell him to stop or thank you for everything you do. You gave me the world by giving me all this money. Instead he thought he had to win more to keep her happy and so that's what he did and end up passing away because of it.
Analysis: Compare chapter 20 :How to Read Literature Like a Professor-“…So Does Season” to part four (chapter 1) of The Fountainhead.
In Thomas Foster’s book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, it is written that there are five aspects of a quest: “the quester; a place to go; a stated reason to go there; challenges and trials en route; a real reason to go there” (Foster 3). In the book The Poisonwood Bible, the Price family were the questers going to the Congo to bring Christianity to the villagers. During their stay at the Congo, they faced hate, disease, violence, and even the death of Ruth May. Although the whole family was attempting to bring Christianity to the villagers, Nathan Price’s real goal was to baptize all the villagers.
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.
The recognition of patterns makes it much easier to read complicated literature because recognizing patterns will help you relate two or more pieces of literature together, therefore making it easier to understand and analyze the literature you are focused on. Patterns in literature can help the reader understand plots, settings, themes, and other literary elements. I greatly appreciated the novel, Brave New World because of how different the society in the novel was from the one I live in. Using the Signposts from Notice and Note, I was able to see contrast and contradictions that enhanced my understanding of the book. I noticed how I was expecting Bernard, in Brave New World to be just like everybody else in the novel but instead he was a “normal person” that felt normal human emotions, such as the longing for love, that the other characters just did not feel. He also felt isolated and alone. Bernard thinks in a way we were not expecting. Patterns such as this helped me, the reader, to better understand literary elements.
In chapter 20 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster describes the significance of seasons in literature. Seasons can mean many different things besides the obvious change in weather. Shakespeare uses seasons as literary devices to make comparisons. Seasons often act as metaphors for age in his work. Fall, for example, can also be seen as middle age; the turning point between old and young, summer and winter. Seasons were also used by Shakespeare to convey moods and emotions. Winter is often associated with bitterness, dissatisfaction, or anger. This works because elements of winter include harsh winds and freezing temperatures that make people uncomfortable. Furthermore, authors connect season with the human experience. Each season
How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.
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.
-Flight is freedom. When a character has the ability to fly they are free from the burdens of everyday life.
The two stories that I related to and learned the most from were The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien and The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis. Both revealed things in myself that in some cases I already saw and pushed away, or that I never knew and helped me understand myself better. I will begin with The Hobbit.
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.
The stories selected were, The Pit and the Pendulum, The system of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, and the Masque of Red Death. These stories all have interesting, eye catching, dramatic names. For the most part, the stories are on the short side. This made for a quick read, easy to analyze. They are really interesting stories, but only two of which deal with mortality. The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether deals more with sanity and absurdity than mortality.
I actually quite enjoyed reading Jerusalem's Lot. With the people in the walls of the home, it reminded me of The Yellow Wallpaper, another short story that gave me goosebumps. I enjoy any kind of supernatural or the world is
How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book Thomas C. Foster uses to expose his thoughts and feelings of many literary terms and devices. Such ideas can be found in James Joyce’s short story, “The Dead”.
Intertextuality is the ongoing interaction between poems or stories. Romeo and Juliet, and the Titanic are two examples
The story that I enjoyed the most that we have read is “Call of the Wild”. I liked “Call of the Wild” because it had thrill and adventure.The novella is one of the most exciting stories I have read and it had a very intense climax.I liked this story the most out of all the stories we have read.I mainly liked this story because of the thrill and setting.