How to read literature like a professor summary chapter 1

Roy Chung

Period 3

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Template

Introduction: How’d He Do That?

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Beginner reader goes with the flow of the book

· Experienced reader askes how the effect came to be, who a character resembles, where did he/she see this experience before.

· 3 Key Features: Memory, Symbol and Pattern

· Memory ties to how an experienced reader can recall and make connections between works.

· Symbol is a mantra that prevents the reader from taking things merely on face value

· Patterns enables the reader to distance him/herself from the text even as they engage with it, allowing the reader to take a broader perspective of something.

· Thomas Foster sets out for the reader reasons why the book was written.

· Book was written as an instructional guide that hopes to enrich he reading experience by pointing out the cues that make a work of literature what it is.

· Introduction is a summary of all the cues

· Recalls a classroom experience, students could not understand why and how he had reached a certain conclusion about a character in the book “A Raisin in the Sun.”

· Many Layers of meaning are often embedded in a text.

· Literary analysis requires a certain amount of effort and training that is not immediately at hand to the beginner reader or student of literature.

· The way to identify, recognize and learn the cues is through practice.

· Experienced Reader vs Beginner Reader

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

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.

The 3 key features (memory, symbol, and pattern) is used to distinguish an experienced reader to a novice reader. Memory in reading literature involves recollection of previous work studies that might allow the reader to make connections between works. Symbol on the other hand, helps the reader to dive deep into the meanings behind it instead. Lastly, pattern helps the reader distance him/herself from the text as they engage with it to take a broader perspective of things. Recognitions of pattern gives the ability to look at things from a broader perspective and debrief the meanings behind a text or literature. My appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by the understanding of a symbol or pattern when I made a reference of a movie to an event in history that was significant which is the hardships of World War 1.

Chapter 1 – Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Foster gives an imaginary story about a boy named Kip.

· The story involves the boy riding to the A&P to buy a loaf of “Wonder Bread” , on the way he meets his crush in the car of someone he hates. Then he lies about his age at the marine Recruiter.

· Foster claims that an English professor would read it as a knight going on a quest.

· Though the story is simple, there are elements where certain characters represent key components of the quest narrative.

· To see the how the boy’s trip can fit the archetype of the quest, a reader must view the story structurally.

· 5 Structural Elements:

1. A Quester

2. A Place to go

3. A reason to go there

4. Obstacles along the way

5. The real reason for the quest

· Real Example would be Thomas Pynchon’s “The crying of Lot” which he claims is the best quest novel of the 20th century.

· Foster argues that many classic quest stories share a cartoonish side.

· Don’t get stuck on figuring out the “right” or “wrong” analysis of a work of literature.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

List the five aspects of the QUEST and then apply them to something you have read (or viewed) in the form used on pages 4-5.

From the Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom

1. A adventurer, archaeologist, and professor (Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. played by Harrison Ford)

2. A Place to go (to seek artifacts)

3. A reason to go there (colleague insisted him to go, wants to know if such artifacts exits)

4. Obstacles along the way (Group attacks want to stop him from leaving with the artifacts)

5. The real reason for the quest (Realize the certitude of the artifact and danger of possessing it)

Chapter 2 – Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Sigmund Freud was once teased for his love of cigars.

· Anytime Characters eat together, this is communion

· The broader definition of the term is anytime people come together to share food and, in doing so, create a temporary community with one another.

· Eating scene in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones is an example of Communion

· The scene describes eating in highly sensual, vulgar terms, highlighting the way in which eating together can be a sexual act.

· Another example would be Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” (1981)

· Two key turning points in the main character’s change of opinion are when he watches the blind man eat and when the two of them smoke marijuana together.

· Just as a harmonious meal signals interpersonal connection and community, so does a difficult meal spell disaster.

· Tense events during meals made a character in “The Dead” realize that he is not superior to other people.

·

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Choose a meal from a literary work and apply the ideas of Chapter 2 to this literary depiction

The eating scene in Ms. Doubtfire

Chapter 3 – Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· “Actual vampires” are not even the scariest thing in literature.

· Vampires in film versions are immortal, evil, yet strangely attractive male figure who preys upon young, beautiful, innocent virgins.

· This show that vampires can play on fears about sexuality.

· Just as vampires symbolize more than monstrous horror, so too do ghosts and doppelgangers (doubles).

· Often, ghosts convey a message.

· Authors developed covert techniques of portraying sex and sexual themes-methods that have survived in the present day.

· Movies such as “Teen Vampire”

· Foster concludes that “ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires.”

· Presence of horror, monstrous things can symbolize the themes of madness, neglect, and claustrophobic love.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

What are the essentials of the Vampire story? Apply this to a literary work you have read or viewed.

In a vampire story, there seems to be a broader meaning containing a hidden message behind it. Such as the TV series “My Babysitter is a Vampire” it is a success in showing how babysitters do not appear to be what they are behind the kids. How the babysitter has other company that strips them away from the reality of the world hence the vampires.

Chapter 4 – Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Foster enjoys being able to recognize recurring characters and archetypes within literature.

· “Meeting Old Friends”

· As a novice reader, it can be hard to recognize recurring characters and archetypes within literature.

· This ability of being able to make connections between different texts, authors, characters, genres, and tropes mostly comes as a result of practice.

· Reading widely and often allows people to learn how to look for patterns within and between books.

· Literature always grows out of other literature.

· There is no such thing as a wholly original work literature

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Define intertextuality. Discuss three examples that have helped you in reading specific works

Intertextuality exist because there is only one story. There is no form of wholly original work literature. Finding intertextuality requires practice and much reading to master as it is a skill usually develop as a result of practice.

Chapter 5 – When in Doubt, it’s From Shakespeare

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· The plays of William Shakespeare have been endlessly adapted, transformed, and used loosely as inspiration for a countless number of artistic works

· Shakespeare is “everywhere, in every literary form you can imagine”

· Foster declares his favorite Shakespearean-infected work is Angela Carter’s Wise Children (1992)

· Shakespeare’s influence is not only found within works of art and literature

· Quotations from Shakespeare’s plays are so commonplace that there’s a large chance you might have already heard one today

· “Quoting Shakespeare makes you seem smart”

· You don’t necessarily have to be familiar of him to quote him

· Quoting Shakespeare “confers authority” in a similar way to quoting the Bible.

· Another less obvious way is because they can struggle against him.

· The relationship of writers to their literary predecessors is all part of the web intertextuality.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Discuss a work that you are familiar with that alludes to or reflects Shakespeare. Show how the author uses this connection thematically. Read pages 44-46 carefully. In these pages, Foster shows how Fugard reflects Shakespeare through both plot and theme. In your discussion, focus on theme.

Movies such as Aladdin and The Little Mermaid have references to Shakespeare. Shakespeare has become a widely known literature work and has inspired to create many references to movies and literary works.

Chapter 6 - …Or the Bible

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Just like Shakespeare, the Bible played a fundamental role in the Western Literary Canyon

· There are many religious references in literary works

· Films such as East of Eden and Pulp Fiction don’t exactly have a holy message bu it features biblical symbols and quotations

· Other works such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, that references the arrival of the white men that represents the Apocalypse, which, according the Gospel of St. John, will be announced by the arrival of four Horsemen

· Writers don’t just borrow figures, symbols, and plots from the bible but also passages and phrases.

· Often the titles illuminate subtle biblical themes that can be found within the text such as the cycle of life, death, and renewal

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Read Frankenstein. Discuss Biblical allusions that Foster does not mention. Be creative and imaginative in these connections.

In Frankenstein, the author gave an allusion to the Bible from the story of Creation. This may not seem as if the author was trying to be explicit with the allusion to the bible. The creation of Frankenstein and how he turned out not to be what the creator expected is an allusion to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, of how God created Men with the intentions to be pure however, man sinned.

Chapter 7 – Hanseldee and Greteldum

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Authors frequently borrow from the existing literary canon in their own work

· The Canon refers to and elusive and ever-changing list of literary text that critics feel are essential to understanding the history of English Literature as a whole

· The canon is not an official list

· The canon is a notionally agreed-upon a group of books that is constantly being amended, updated, and fought over

· Many of the deeply layered references are not recognize by a majority of people

· This problem would be solved by authors borrowing from children’s literature.

· The Fairy tale such as Hansel and Gretel they center around the classic theme of lost children who can’t find their way home.

· There are many other children literature references put in the work of authors as it seems to be a way to connect to the reader and provide a morale.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Think of a work of literature (including film) that reflects a fairy tale. Discuss the parallels. Does it create irony or deepen appreciation?

The movie “Into the Woods” reflects the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. This deepen the appreciation as children are able to receive the message of not talking to strangers and listening to their parents.

Chapter 8 – Its Greek to Me

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Shakespeare, the Bible, and fairy tales are all types of myth. It doesn’t mean that all are false or true, but they are stories that aim to “explain ourselves to ourselves.”

· Myths have an important place in culture as it can be used as a sense of national identity

· An example would be Richard Wagner who used Germanic myths as the inspiration for his epic operas.

· The west is likely to associate the word “myth” with Ancient Greek civilization.

· Many Literary works can be traced back to this myth, such as W.H. Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts”

· Writers often transpose Greek myths into completely new contexts

· Derek Walcott features characters with names from Greek myth who live in a Caribbean fishing village.

· As with reworkings of the bible and fairy tales, Greek myths are often updated in an ironic way.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

What mythological connections are present in Frankenstein and what’s the purpose of the additions. Greek mythology available online.

The Prometheus Myth, Frankenstein can be compared with Prometheus in the way in which he steals fire by harnessing the power of lightning to animate his monster.

Chapter 9 – It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Why has it become cliché to begin a story with the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night?”

· Weather is never just weather

· Types of weather often have significant symbolic meaning; rain, for example, invokes the Biblical story of Noah, and with it the fear of drowning and the promise of new beginning

· Weather can also be used as a plot device

· Rain is often depicted as having a cleansing or restorative effect on characters.

· It can wash away illusions, as happens to Hagar in Morrison’s Song of Solomon

· Rain could tie to cold, illness, and suffering, and on another with spring, birth and renewal.

· For example, in “The Dead,” James Joyce exposes this tension through the story of a young boy so in love that he stood in the rain for a week, got sick and died.

· Modernist writers are particularly likely to invoke the associations of rain with spring and hope on an ironic level.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Discuss the importance of weather in a specific literary work, not in terms of plot.

Weather in a specific literary work could tie to a character’s emotion. For example, if a character is walking home, to set a mood, rain would depict that the character is sad and that something has happened to the character. Rain itself could create a mood of tense whether it be a thriller setting or a horror setting.

Chapter 10 – Never Stand Next to the Hero

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· The problem of surrogacy: the fact that characters close to the hero/main character are likely to be killed because the main character won’t be.

· Characters’ deaths are important plot devices.

· Remember that characters are not people.

· Although they may be based on real, living humans, characters are not real or alive.

· They are simply figments of the author’s and readers’ imaginations.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Explain the difference between round and flat characters. Give three examples in literature or in a movie where the title of this chapter applies and how.

Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work. Round Characters are complex and undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader.

1. The Great Gatsby

2. Frozen

3. Camp Rock

Interlude – Does He Mean That

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· It might be hard to believe that one person could be doing all these things at once, and to say conclusively that authors do this would be incorrect

· The reality is that it is impossible to know what the author is imagining or thinking

· There are group of writers who we know made conscious choices in the way they include symbolic, intertextual, archetypical, and ironic meaning

· These are called the “Internationalists” and many were part of the modernist movement

· We have clues that indicate that writers prior to the modernist period also deliberately infused their texts with these many complicated layers of meaning.

· Writers tend to be “aggressive readers” whose love of literature means they are familiar with a big range of their literary ancestors.

· We should always try to be alert to as many clues as possible.

· We underestimate how much of what we encounter in a text is the result of deliberate planning on the part of the author

Chapter 11 – More than Its Gonna Hurt You

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Violence may be interpersonal, but it is almost always related to larger cultural forces.

· In real life violence can be meaningless, in literature it often has multiple layers of meaning, whether symbolic, allegorical, religious, political, etc.

· When violence is depicted in order to show the senseless cruelty of the universe, this is still a meaningful message about the world

· Violence is a huge topic in literature, and even authors noted for the lack of activity in their work frequently kill off characters.

· There are two categories of violence in literature

1. Violence that characters enact upon one another

2. Harmful events that happen to characters in order to advance the plot

· A character dying of heart disease is violence.

· The only major literary genre in which violence is meaningless are mysteries

· The fact that a character has died is not important in itself, but only as a device that triggers the process of discovering how and why it happened.

· Violence tends to carry major symbolic significance

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Present examples of the two kinds of violence found in literature (including film). Show how the effects are different.

1. Violence that characters enact upon one another

2. Harmful events that happen to characters in order to advance the plot

The effects are different in that violence upon one another shows how cruel society is and the effect leading to it can cause death while harmful events that happen to characters depict that of how strong a character is and the journey that a character has been through. A character could be shown surviving violence from a natural disaster to show how strong a character is.

Chapter 12 – Is that a Symbol?

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· If you are wondering if something is a symbol or not, it usually is

· What is rarely clear is the exact symbolic meaning

· Symbols that only have one specific meaning aren’t technically symbols at all, but allegories

· Symbols remain open to multiple possible interpretations

· For example, a cave could represent primitivism. But caves are also dark, in that matter the cave could represent the mystery of our inner consciousness. If the Cave is empty, it might symbolize the void

· When it seems likely that a given symbol will have a fixed, consistent meaning, this is in fact rarely the case.

· Historicist reading is the method of literary analysis that tends to emphasize the historical context in which a piece of literature was written.

· Foster encourages readers to take pleasure in disagreement

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Use the process described on page 113 and investigate a symbol present in Frankenstein.

Ice and Cold in Frankenstein could represent a distancing from society effect. While Fire could represent desire in searching something new.

Chapter 13 – It’s All Political

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Writing with an explicit, straightforward political agenda tends to be Unappealing to everyone except those living in the same time and place as the text was written.

· It would also appeal to those who share the author’s views.

· “Political” writing is rich, fascinating, and important.

· Foster argues that all writing is political on some level, and that one way to locate political elements in a work of literature is to examine how the lives of the characters fit within the society in which they live.

· Discovering the political angle within work of literature can be challenging, and it helps to bear in mind the author’s background, the historical context in which they lived, and any sociocultural traditions they might be writing against.

· Some literary scholars, particularly those who are themselves politically-oriented, argue that every work of literature is political because it is “either part of the social problem or part of the solution.”

· It is very important to bear in mind the social and political context in which a work of literature was written.

Answer the chapter questions on the other Professor page. As part of your response, apply the key parts of this Professor chapter to Frankenstein (if possible) and the other text listed in the chapter question. Note that when the chapter question only has you focus on Frankenstein, application to another text is not necessary. Answers should take the form of a developed paragraph.

Assume that Foster is right and “it is all political.” Use his criteria to show that one of the major works assigned to you in a previous year is political.

To Kill a Mocking Bird would be political in a sense that the story judge’s white supremacy and rejects the notion of being racist. This would influence the readers to be more liberal with this issue in being that they need change and that something has to happen.

Chapter 14 – Yes, She’s a Christ Figure Too

Take notes on the key details of the chapter, including moments of nuance. Your notes should be bulleted.

· Despite religious diversity and the separation of church and state, America is a Christian culture

· Most cultural artifacts have been influenced by Christianity on some level, and thus it is useful to have some basic knowledge if you are studying Western European and American Literature

· It is useful to recognize attributes linked to Jesus.

· Including personal qualities such as being forgiving ad self-sacrificing.

· Details such that Jesus was a carpenter and the miracles he is thought to perform such as walking on water.

· Reading like a professor requires you to put aside your belief system. And enter a more analytical mindset.