Yann Martel's 'How To Read Literature Like A Professor'

In the book "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" by Thomas C. Foster, the first chapter is dedicated to explaining the aspects of a quest in literature. Using this chapter, entitled 'Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It's Not)' (page 1-6), the aspects in question can be related to the quest in "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. The first aspect listed is 'a quester' or 'a person who goes on a quest' (page 3, HTRLLAP); within the first line of the main story, our quester is revealed. We learn that 'the boy's name [is] Santiago,' (page 3, Alchemist). The focus of the entire story is on him and his journey, so the first aspect is there. 'A place to go' (page 3, HTRLLAP) is the second aspect, a very pivotal component for the development of the story.

Thomas C. Foster’s book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, tackles the process of uncovering the underlying complexities and symbols that authors incorporate into their literary works. In its most lucid form, Foster’s message is that, when reading a work of literary merit, anything you may postulate has a deeper meaning most likely does, since skilled authors do not include items and occurrences just to include them. The dystopian literature novels 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World follow this trend as they interpolate different motifs with deeper political and symbolic context; however, Foster’s statements do not only apply to written literature. The movie V For Vendetta, released in 2005, connects to How to Read Literature Like

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 Siddhartha, Siddhartha is the quester who is specifically in search for enlightenment through his wanderings. During his quest, he constantly endures internal unrest. Although Siddhartha searched for enlightenment, he really wanted all of his unsettled questions about his life answered.

In the novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster discloses to the readers the significance of the communion of food, which can be applied to the journey Pi experiences in the novel Life of Pi. Foster manages to portray the significance of the communion of food by explaining that “whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion” (Foster 8). Communion can not only be religious, but it can also be an act of understanding a character’s relationship with other characters.

“Sometimes the really scary bloodsuckers are entirely human” (Foster 18). In How To Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster argues that vampires in literature are not always actual vampires, but can be figurative as well: “Using other people to get what we want. Placing our desires above the needs of others...as long as people act toward their fellows in exploitative and selfish ways, the vampire will be” (Foster 22). In essence, Foster illustrates that the act of using others to attain one’s personal goal is analogous to a vampire sucking the blood out of it’s victim. Foer’s protagonist in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar, also shows these vampiric tendencies in his goal of learning about his father’s key. “‘Actually, I’m diabetic

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

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.

Yann Martel`s Life of Pi follows A journey of a young man and a Bengal tiger as they travel across the ocean in a lifeboat.Director Ang lee made many consider the book to be beautiful,but virually unflimable.Being needed to told on screen Ang lee discerned very adeptly,about Life of Pi ‘’if there is will there is a way’’.

In The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Martel shows that Richard parker represents Pi’s Id state of mind. Pi invents Richard Parker and other animals to represent the wild primal side of his story that he wants to suppress. In the book the first encounter with Richard Parker represents his struggle to survive himself . When the ship sinks Pi says “From the lifeboat I saw [Richard Parker] in the water” (97).

Bengali polymath, Rabindranath Tagore, once said “you can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” In the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the protagonist, Pi, faces many challenges at sea while being accompanied by a tiger by the name of Richard Parker. This tiger, though a nuisance, proves to be essential in the role of Pi’s survival. Throughout the story, Richard Parker symbolizes survival, a reflection of Pi, and a being of God.

Everyone can pick an animal that they believe describes themselves or symbolizes themselves, but in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi he takes those characteristics to a new level. The symbolism of a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger all contribute to the characteristics of Pi and his journey through the sea, together, on a life boat.

There are multiple themes in the story such as the will to survive and religion is important. Life of Pi uses symbolism through Richard Parker, the algae island, and the color orange. Richard Parker seems to be just a tiger on board a lifeboat.

Charles Darwin, English Naturalist, once said, “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.” Similarly, a few years ago, one of my friends, he suffers a depression after his brother passed away at a traffic accident.He starts to kill himself.One normal summer night, everyone is celebrating the last day of school, he decided to kill himself.But then was stopped by his mother.His mother tries to think some ways to help his son.But ran out of options, she decided to bring his son to church.And it works, my friend became more focus on religion. End up he devote himself to god.Life of Pi by Yann Martel which talks about exploring religions and find the real you.The main character named Pi who suffer the loss of his parents and he is survivor's story for months in the Pacific ocean on a Lifeboat along with a tiger, Richard Parker. In ‘Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the use of symbols: The Algae Island, the Tsimtsum, the colour orange, and Richard Parker shape the central message of the novel. Ultimately those symbols represent pi’s spiritual journey.

1. Marvelous body of Richard Parker as both an image of God and a sign

The Life of Pi is a story that tells of a young boy who is full of life and faith, a boy who is Christian, Hindu and Muslim. But after a shipwreck, he is abandoned on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, an orangutan, a zebra and a hyena. As the journey unfolds, Pi is faced with many threats and challenges. Pi ends up drifting alone with no direction through the Pacific Ocean with the Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. In Life of Pi, Pi's constant challenges change him from a naive boy to a troubled teenager and then slowly into a survivor.