How to Read Lit Like a Prof Notes

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.

Throughout this course, I have learned about what a myth is and all of the themes that fit into myths. The most common themes seen throughout the myths we have studied during this course are fate, pride and hubris, heroism, justice and vengeance, and beauty. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about mythology throughout this course and I have always felt that the controlling question driving this course is, why is mythology so important to us, even today? It is important to know the answer to this question and to know about the different themes seen throughout the myths studied in this course.

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.

Analysis: Compare chapter 20 :How to Read Literature Like a Professor-“…So Does Season” to part four (chapter 1) of The Fountainhead.

In the sixth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster examines the Bible and its importance throughout stories, poetry and film. The Bible is one of the most commonly known pieces of literature and is even “nonsectarian” in Foster’s eyes (44). Because stories from the Bible are so well known, the Bible is a tremendously easy for authors to reference when constructing a new composition. Especially “prior to sometime in the middle of the twentieth century” writers were “solidly instructed in religion” and could count on the public being very well acquainted with Biblical stories (47). This widespread knowledge of the Bible lead to greater understandings throughout literature, and the recognized allusions helped

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster is a book that explains there is more to literature than just a few words on a paper or a few pages in a book. Thomas Foster’s book portrays a relatable message to a wide based audience. This book is relatable for two reasons, the way it is written and the examples it uses. The book is written in a conversational manner, as if the reader was in a group discussion about books and writing. As for the examples, they are informative, descriptive, relative, and entertaining.

Intertextuality is the ongoing interaction between poems or stories. Romeo and Juliet, and the Titanic are two examples

There has to be a compelling reason to include a meal scene in the story because they’re typically boring.

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

The first chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s guide to finding symbolism and motifs in literature, How To Read Literature Like a Professor, details the literary plot device of a quest and how to identify one in a novel. He introduces the chapter by explaining how a seemingly normal trip to the grocery store is a quest because it is structurally a quest. The hero, a boy named Kip, like every other hero in a quest, confronts various trials (his jealousy of another boy and his rejection by the girl he likes) in search of a “Holy Grail” (a loaf of bread). According to Foster, there are five components of a quest, all of which can be found in Kip’s story. The first structural component is the quester, or the character who is undertaking the quest, consciously or not. This character is known as the hero or heroine of the story, which in this case is Kip. The second and third elements are the “declared” purpose of the quest: a location that the hero must travel to and a reason to go there, which would be Kip’s search for a loaf of bread at the grocery store. Sometimes,

Throughout this movie, Quasimodo, a crooked bell ringer of the Notre Dame cathedral is looked over by Frollo, the evil minister of justice for all of Paris. Quasimodo is constantly belittled by Frollo which is emphasised during the several meals they share together. During the film, Frollo expects Quasimodo to set up and serve the meal in a servant manner. Frollo dines with clean metallic plates, glasses and a napkin while Quasimodo is forced to feed off a wooden scrap for a plate. In one instance Frollo drops food onto the ground on purpose and expects Quasimodo to clean up after him. During these gatherings Frollo’s flauntful behaviors highlight the differences between the two characters. These scenes also stress how Frollo abuses and discredits Quasimodo. Because of this chapter I came to the realization that the small dining scenes assorted throughout The Hunchback of Notre Dame withhold much more information than I initially thought. Instead of two characters simply eating together for the necessity of food, this chapter in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor illustrated the relevance a sole meal can exhibit between two or more

In ‘Medea’, Euripides shows Medea in a new light, as a scorned woman that the audience sympathises with to a certain extent, but also views as a monster due to her act of killing her own children. The protagonist of a tragedy, known as the Tragic Hero is supposed to have certain characteristics which cause the audience to sympathise with them and get emotionally involved with the plot. The two main characters, Medea and Jason, each have certain qualities of the Tragic Hero, but neither has them all. This makes them more like the common man that is neither completely good nor evil, but is caught in the middle and forced to make difficult decisions.

Focusing on two of history’s most notorious mythologies, Greek and Roman, one may believe that they are exceedingly comparable; however, beyond a first glance, it is clear that each system is extremely distinguished. The Roman Empire, developed nearly a millennia following the great, Greek Trojan war, was highly influenced by the elaborate Greek myths of gods, goddesses, monsters, and mythical creatures. Their captivation of Greek culture bore a permanent effect on the Roman Empire, as Rome adopted much that defined Greece, including its art, philosophy, literature, drama, and most importantly, mythology. However, despite their indistinguishable origins, Roman and Greek mythologies prove to be very individualized.