Patriarchal (p.157): Relating to a system of government managed by men. Summary: Foster begins the chapter by discussing how authors have trouble when writing sex scenes. During the Victorian era, authors who wrote about sexual intercourse were shunned. Books based on sex were once banned by nations such as the United States and United Kingdom. Unlike D.H. Lawrence, Foster believes that no writer is daring enough to describe actual sex. Chapter Eighteen : If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism Drudge (p.168): When someone is made to do hard and menial work. Epigraph (p.170): A short inscription at the beginning of a book, it intends to suggest it’s theme. Summary: In this chapter Foster discusses how baptism signals a change in a characters …show more content…
Summary: Foster starts the chapter off by declaring that Geography in literature may be represented in diverse ways. Geography consists of typical terrain such as mountains, rivers, canyons, mountains, etc. to socioeconomics, politics, and history. Authors use physical and human geography as a plot device. Locations with high altitudes represent difficult quests or tasks Arda Erbil characters have to overcome. Foster also implies that physical geography is interchangeable with a characters mood. Chapter Twenty: So Does Season Surreptitious (p.185): A secret that is reticent because it is not approved of. Indiscretion (p.192): Behavior that shows a lack of good discernment. Summary: In the twentieth chapter Foster considers the importance of season in literature. The seasons are an exact representation of the human life cycle. Spring is a representation of childhood, summer symbolizes young adulthood, autumn connotes middle age, and finally winter exemplifies old age. Shakespeare provides many examples of the correlation between season and the human life cycle in his poem Sonnet 73. In the poem he parallels the loss of leaves to the lost youthfulness of an elderly
Everyone enjoys the summertime. In Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, Douglas Spaulding, a twelve-year-old boy, wakes up the town to summer. A few days into summer, he suddenly realizes his existence and livelihood. Not merely existing and taking up space, Douglas notices his surroundings and slowly begins to understand life. How to manage and control one’s life on earth exists as one of the main issues Doug faces. He struggles in finding how to live life and using his time on earth to his full advantage. In Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, the motif of time shows the struggle between life and death, serves as an object of change, and reinforces one’s short time on earth, suggesting that quality trumps quantity.
Throughout My Ántonia, by Willa Cather, the change of seasons is often mentioned and represents the hardships and beauties of the world. The summer and spring are examples of the beauties in the world since the citizens are able to work due to the long days. The spring is almost as important as the summer since it is the time of year when farmers begin to farm again after the winter. But, the winter is unforgiving. During the winter all of citizens are hiding in their nice warm houses trying to avoid the harsh cold. Due to the citizens’ perseverance and hard work their town is able to thrive.
Hurston shows her hope of love and achievements through it by stating “now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (Hurston 32). Even more so Hurston utilizes the the seasons to perfection. To show the mindset of the character and clump them with hope, fertility, barren, or blooming, through “wintertime,” “summertime,” and “springtime
Season; noun, is defined as one of the four periods of the year beginning astronomically at an equinox or solstice, but geographically at different dates in different climates. The seasons plays a huge role in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a novel about a young wealthy man who has been trying to reunite with a woman who he deeply loves but, only to be reaching out for his death. Three seasons spring, summer, and autumn all have different meaning throughout the novel as it symbolizes the actions and tones of the characters, especially Mr.Gatsby. Spring represents sadness, depression, or love; Summer symbolizes anger, hatred, or fights/arguments; and Autumn indicates death,
It creates a mood that readers can understand. Williams does a wonderful job contrasting death and life; his use of “attiring” and “disattiring” basically narrates how trees lose their leaves, leaving them “clothless”, but then the branches are preparing for what’s to come--their rebirth in the coming season. The liquid moon makes me think that he’s trying to create irony; the moon is liquid, as if melted, even though it’s winter time and everything is supposed to be frozen. The irony is subtle, yet very impactful when you notice it. Perhaps the long branches represent the strength of the trees despite the harsh environment around them. The buds can be seen as children being prepared by their parents for what’s to come, possible teaching them what to do and what not to do so that they can survive the winter and bloom in the spring. Like letting a child go off to college after years of care so that they can become their own person. The “wise trees” have experience, an experience that they have to share with their “buds”. The wise stand sleeping in the cold to take their last breath and let their children take their places. This poem is very meaningful because Williams creates a very important similarity between the trees and humans. Readers can relate because most parents go through the stage of letting their children go and letting them continue what they
In the novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster gives evidence of every season having a symbolic meaning in different pieces of literature. In most cases, the seasons can represent certain times in a person’s life, such as death or the renewal of life. Foster states that the seasons may also represent times of decline, dormancy, awakening, and even times of passion. Foster then gives examples of how the seasons are interpreted in other pieces of literature, such as Shakespeare. This makes the reader question if the seasons are symbolic in other pieces of literature and if the author used a specific season on purpose to help portray the meaning of the story they are trying to tell.
In chapter 16 of “How to read like a Literature Professor” it claims that in a novel sex is disguised. Foster blames Freud for making everyone’s mind dirty but it is true the most innocent things can be about sex. “Tall Building? Male Sexuality. Rolling Landscapes? Female Sexuality. Stairs
It is impossible to find a family that is problem free and does not go through its ups and downs. Seasons often marks a progress, here it not only sets the way for Doodles progress of becoming like a normal boy, but it is used as a way to show the growth of the sibling relationship between the two brothers. Seasons and weather play an important role in setting the tone and mood of the story. An example of the motif of seasons and weather is seen in the short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst as doodles progress goes along with each season. This motif is used to develop the relationship between Doodle and his brother as evident through the clove of seasons, summer, and storms.
To begin, Foster made it clear that no matter what type of story it is, geography is there and it shapes the story. Whether it’s humans, land, canoeing, or sailing it’s geography. Not many people realize that geography is as big as it is. Writers use geography to represent what is going on in their lives and to show their personality. In poetry, writers use a better sense of people as geography. While in books and stories, the writer can take their time showing people the land. Foster states that no matter what it is, where it happened, or how it happened, it happened due to geography and writers have to show that. Foster explains, “Geography in literature can also be more. It can be revelatory of virtually any element in the work” (Foster 174). This statement shows that writers need to have a better understanding of what the geography is like before writing, and how important is to get a visual idea of the story. Moreover, geography’s impact is also shown throughout The Crucible.
Foster’s insights about seasons and weather in literature change the story’s interpretation by clarifying their purposes. Foster’s main idea in the chapter It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow is weather always has a purpose; for example, rain, which has an “association with Spring,” can allow a “character to be cleansed symbolically” and “can bring the world back to life.” This insight is clear in the short story as outside Mrs.Mallard’s room the “trees were all aquiver with the new spring life” and “the delicious breath of rain was in the air.” The rain and spring weather may be dismissed as merely setting, but Foster’s insights allow the deeper meaning behind the inclusion of rain and spring to be clarified. The rain and spring show how Mrs.Mallard was cleansed
We obtain the feeling of spring when King describes the weather in this section: “The air soft and beautiful, the sky was darkening by slow degrees from blue to the calm and lovely violet of dusk” . The spring symbolises hope and joy and make the atmosphere calm contrary to the dark streets in the night that obtain a more scary atmosphere when there suddenly are less people than on the big avenues.
Proceeding on to quatrain two, the poet continues to meditate by using images of decay; lofty trees, barren of leaves, white and bristly beard. Just as time progresses, day changes to night, and the young become old, summer becomes winter. In the warm weather, the trees were leafy and bountiful. They served as a canopy that sheltered herd of animals from the blazing sun (L.6). In winter, however, the lofty trees are now barren and stripped of their leaves. The outward appearance of the tree is pathetic and unsightly. The herd of animals will no longer seek shelter under the trees because they look lifeless. Shakespeare further elaborates the imagery of plant life decaying. Summer flowers are beautiful and they exemplify life. However, quite the contrary, Shakespeare states that these flowers are gathered together to be used as funeral arrangements and carried on the coffin over the white and bristly
According to Bracher, this loading and overloading makes Autumn quite the ambivalent figure, traditionally standing for death, but being attributed to fulfilment in the poem. Autumn’s actions unite both meanings within them, abundance and ripening symbolizing death and decay – through the anxiety of bursting and rotting –, as well as fulfilment (Bracher 1990, 646
At one time or another, every person has experienced the beauty of summer. In this time of the year, nature is full of life, the weather is at its finest, and the paramount joys of life can be experienced to their fullest. Then the fall comes, the trees turn lovely shades of red and yellow, and the wind offers a nice chill breeze for relief. Unfortunately, seasons change and the beauty that people once experienced vanishes. People focusing only on the material and petty aspects of life, rather than the beauty around them, will let life pass them, missing out on the true wonders of the world. In his poem “To Autumn,” John Keats utilizes imagery to express the importance of indulging in the beauties of nature, while alive, because humans are mortal beings bound by the limits of time.