How To Read Literature Like A Professor Essay

The third chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster writes of the recognizable pattern where a “nasty old man, attractive but evil, violates young women, leaves his mark on them, steals their innocence … and leaves them helpless followers in his sin” (Foster 16). In the fourth episode of the fourteenth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the detectives discover a girl from an accident with a barcode tattoo who was thought to be part of a sex slavery ring. The detectives tried questioning the girl, but she refused to release any details about the slavery. After questioning, she was picked up by an older girl who also had a barcode tattoo. The detectives promised to help the older girl if she would just stay

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.

Chapter 14 is about how almost everything, in some form, is a Christ figure. The chapter gives a list to relate characters to. The list is 1. crucified, wounds in the hands, feet, side, and head 2. in agony 3. self-sacrificing 4. good with children 5.good with loaves, fishes, water, wine 6. thirty-three years of age when last seen 7. employed as a carpenter 8. known to use humble modes of transportation, feet or donkeys preferred 9. believed to have walked on water 10. often portrayed with arms outstretched 11.

In the skillful novel, "How To Read Literature Like A Professor" by Thomas C. Foster, there is neither a protagonist nor antagonist. As a whole, the novel gives insights on how to pick up signs of symbolism, irony, and many other hidden details that are buried within the words of literature. Foster refers to many classis novels by classic authors to demonstrate the use of logic in writing. The novel is extremely educational, leaving many insightful questions and interpretations to the reader's opinion.

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

The motivation for the quest is implicit- the stated reason for going on the journey is

“Weather is just weather. It’s never just rain” (44). If a setting in a story involves rain it’s not because outside was hot and all the water evaporated into the clouds and couldn’t hold anymore so it started to pour. I mean who would ever think of such a thing? Usually when a story contains raining it can mean the character is being “purified” or transformed. However with rain comes mud, which can cause the character to be more tainted then before. Rain is also associated with spring, which is a period of rebuilding and all the more imperatively, trust. Mist can include the wretchedness element, additionally disarray among characters and circumstances. Snow is generally as critical and negating as downpour. It can be spotless, welcoming, lively, or even warm (like a protecting blanket).However it can likewise be stark, serious, cold choking, and even grimy. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby and Daisy's get-together starts amidst a deluge which

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.

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

Emily Bronte uses weather as an symbolic archetype in Wuthering Heights as the season change, the characters entered different season of life. As Catherine lays ill and dying, the weather reflects the melancholy mood of the novel. Rain and water are used as a means of portraying of how although Catherine is dead, she lives on through Cathy, and through Cathy Heathcliff maintains hope. Just like “Rain”

As a symbol of tragedy rain is frequently used by Hemingway in this novel. Rain is a symbol of disaster already beginning in the first chapter when the reader learns that the war is not going well and that the " the permanent rain brought the cholera". Here rain is related to illness. Rain also falls when Frederic and Catherine are looking for a hotel room so they can be together before Frederic must leave for the front. Catherine buys a nightgown for the evening. And when they find a room, she looks in the mirrors and feels cheap, while Frederic looks outside at the storm. The rain degrades the farewell of Frederic, and Catherine tells him that „[she] never felt like a whore before". Rain also falls during the troop's retreat which is symbolizing a failure. One night when Catherine and Frederic are in the hotel in Italy, Frederic awakens to the sound of rain and learns that he will be arrested. And during their time of escape from Italy to Switzerland it is very windy and rainy. That symbolizes how their escape would definitely be difficult. It takes them many hours to row to Switzerland’s shore.

In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway, uses the motif of rain to suggest that Henry dies shortly after Catherine at the conclusion of the novel. In literature, rain, is a symbol that is used to represent a negative event that is about to occur. Rain is often used to foreshadow an event and can be seen as an omen of death. Throughout A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway uses the motif of rain. As the novel opens, the negative impact of rain can be seen. “With the rain came the cholera. But it was

I think the rain was a symbol for death. At the end of the book when Catherine dies and Lt.Henry was walking back to the it says that “I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. It also says that when Catherine was going through her delivery the nurse told Lt. Henry the baby died that he looked out the window and saw that it was raining.

Rain in this book can be interpreted in other ways, too. Misery, despair, tragedy, destruction, and sadness are additional denotations of the rain in the story. The presence of the rain shows that no matter how hard Henry tries to escape death, he can never outrun it. The rain is a potent symbol of the inevitable disintegration of happiness in life. Catherine’s fear of the rain

Rain, usually is used in literature to foreshadow death or in other cases some kind of turmoil. In The Sound of Waves, since is related to fishing, the sea’s outcome has an impact in Shinji’s life. For instance, if the sea forms gigantic waves, fishing becomes impossible. Shinji’s feelings reflected in the sky, “the clouds were moving at a gallop” and “in the dark sky there was a restless fluctuation between light and dark” (67). This quote symbolizes that there is still hope to achieve his goal, to be with the love of his life Hatsue. In other cases, it can the weather can foreshadow, some event, “a high wind came blowing “ mixed with rain” and “the heavens and the sea” were “filled with sounds like human shrieks and shrilling” (64) The sea symbolizes life, and the sky is starting to form a storm which would mean that, Shinji is having negatives thoughts and loses his hope, becoming dark as a the night sky. Hatsue, on the other hand, was feeling secure and guided as the lighthouse guided her home to her loved one, “The sky was just beginning to become light”, which was the lighthouse ”but the village and its harbor, which faced northwest, still remained in night” (35). The lighthouse symbolizes direction, protection and guidance, when one is lost at the sea, ends up recurring to the lighthouse. Mishima wanted to