How to Read Literature Like a Professor Chapters 1-26
Illness Chapter 23:"It's Never Just Heart Disease"
According to Foster, there is no better, no more lyrical, no more perfectly metaphorical illness than heart disease. "Since ancient times the heart has been considered the symbolic repository of emotion. Sophocles uses the heart to mean the center of emotion within the body as Dante, Shakespeare, Hallmark... all the great writers." Heart disease= bad love, cruelty, loneliness, disloyalty, cowardice, lack of determination
Geography Chapter 19: "Geography Matters.."
According to Foster: its rivers, hills, valleys, buttes, steppes, glaciers, swamps, mountains, prairies, chasms, seas, islands, people. In poetry and fiction, it may be mostly people. Geography can be used as virtually any type of literary device, especially characterization Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time the spaces that inhabit humans. Geography is setting, but it's also psychology, attitude, finance, industry-- anything the place can instil in the people who live there. Can be used as a metaphor for the psyche, with the south being their subconscious. When writers send their characters south, it's so they can run amok. Whether it's Italy, Greece, Africa< Vietnam, or Disney World, the characters will have direct, raw encounters with their subconscious Landscapes: The sublime landscape (the dramatic and breathtaking vista) has been turned into a cliche, but it is still often used. Characteristics of generic landscape: Low (valley, prairie)-- swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, unpleasantness, people, life and death. High (mountains, mesas)-- snow ice purity, thin air,clear views, isolation, life and death. Examples: In E.M Forster's early novels, English tourists find ways of making mischief, usually unwittingly, and not always comically, when they travel to the mediterranean In Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" the leopard, dead and preserved in snow on the peak, is contrasted with the writer dying of gangrene down on the plain... The leopard's death is clean, cold, pure, while the writer's death is ugly, unpleasant, horrible
Weather
Chapter 10: "It's More Than Just Rain or Snow" It's never just rain "It is never just rain. And that goes for snow, sun, warmth, cold and probably sleet..." Why use weather (especially the rain) at all? Plot device atmosphere misery factor cleaning paradox (rain=clean, mud=dirty) Rain may be said to be restorative: it restores the past, can show people what they're looking for, can heal and can clarify Rainbows symbolize promise or the peace between Heaven and earth; we are rewarded Examples: Hemingway's A farewell to Arms ends with the protagonist, Frederic Henry, leaving the hospital after his lover has just died in childbirth, walking through the rain Joyce's "The Dead" has 2 important examples of weather: near the end Gretta Conroy tells her husband about the great love of her life who, although dying of consumption, stood outside her window in the rain and died a week later Gabriel, Gretta's husband, sees himself as superior to other people. He is now at the end of an evening in which he is broken down little by little and looks upon the snow which is falling "upon all the living and the dead" making the snow a great unifier.
Violence
Chapter 11: "...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence" Is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its implications. It can be symbolic, thematic, biblical, Shakespearean, romantic, allegorical, transcendent. Violence in real life just is. Violence has 2 categories: 1. The specific injury that authors cause characters to inflict on one another or on themselves (shootings, stabbings, bombings, etc) and 2. the narrative violence that causes characters harm in general (the death and suffering authors put into their work for plot advancement or thematic development). Writer kill off characters for the same set of reasons every time -- to make actions happen, to cause plot complications, to end plot complications, to put other characters under stress Examples: In Morrison's Beloved, Sethe decides to save her children from slavery by killing them (succeeding only once). Morrison wants the reader to grasp the horrors of slavery which allows its victims no decision-making power over any suspect of their lives; the only power they have is the power to die. We see a mother seeing no other means of rescuing her child except infanticide. Frost's "Out, Out.." depicts a young farm boy, distracted by a call to dinner, who has his hand cut off by the buzz saw he's been using, showing that our relationship with an indifferent universe is hostile and uncaring
Symbolism
Chapter 12 Symbolism is found in what you find to symbolic. Some symbols have a relatively limited range of meanings, but in general a symbol can't be reduced to standing for only one thing If they can it's not symbolism, its allegory. Allegory-- thing stand for other things on a one-for-one basis Example of allegory: Orwell's Animal Farm, in which he tells us revolutions inevitably fail because those who come to power are corrupted by it and reject the values and principles they initially embraced. Always remember that actions, not just things, can also be symbolic Break down the work into smaller pieces and organize your thoughts and question the text to best find symbols Examples: Rivers: Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: the Mississippi River. Huck and the escaped slave Jim are floating down the river a raft. Jim uses it to escape to freedom but it takes him deeper into slave territory. Its both danger and safety. It also serves as a vehicle for Huck, a white boy, to get to know Jim as a man. The river is also a road, and the trip is a quest with Huck growing to maturity and understanding. Hart Crane's poem sequence The Bridge: beginning with the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, the river then grows into the Hudson and ultimately into the mississippi (which represents all rivers to Crane). Crane uses the bridge as a connection between 2 pieces of land, and the Mississippi as a connection between 2 parts of the country Eliot's The Waste Land (written immediately after WW1): the River Thames which carries the refuse of a dying civilization; it's slimy and dirty, the bridge is falling down; it is no longer has grandeur. It is a symbol of corruption of modern life and collapse of Western civilization.
Politics
Chapter 13: "It's All Political" Overtly political writing can be dull and boring, so it's better to make your point with an enjoyable story by Dickens, Poe, or Irving. All writing is to some degree political, as everyone is influenced in their writing by their beliefs. We can better understand the political significance of a work by learning a little bit about the social and political conditions of the time in which it was written. Examples: British social thinker Thomas Malthus' theory that in helping the poor in or in increasing food production to feed more people we would, in fact, encourage an increase in the number of the impoverished, who would procreate in order to take advantage of the surplus food, Hence, Dicken's Scrooge who insists he wants nothing to do with destitute. Poe in both "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" implicitly believes that what Europe represents is degrading and decaying Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" illustrates the beginning of America and the problems it faced after the Revolution ended.
Quests
Chapter 1: "Every trip is a quest (except when it is not)" A quest consists of 5 things: a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges on the way, & a real reason to be going there The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge, self-fulfillment, self-discovery Ex: Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien, Star Wars, Crying of Lot 49
Acts of Communion
Chapter 2: "Nice to Eat With You: Acts of Communion" Whenever people eat or drink together, it's a communion Communion is "an act of sharing of peace" & doesn't have to be religious at all (usually isn't) Food is something everyone likes & therefore has in common, so we can watch characters getting along (or not getting along) Ex: Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, Raymond Carver's "Cathedral", Joyce's "The Dead"
Vampires
Chapter 3: "Nice to Eat You" Ghosts and Vampires are never only about Ghosts and Vampires Classic Traits: -Older figure representing corrupt, worn out values -A young, preferably virginal female -A stripping away of her youth, energy and innocence -A continuance of her life force for the older figure -Death or destruction of the young woman Victorian Age- vampire, topics like sex & sexuality couldn't be talked about directly, so this character used to bring the issues forefront Ex: Marley's Ghost in a Christmas Carol, James' Daisy Miller, Hardy's Tess of the D' Urbervilles
The Sonnet
Chapter 4: "If It's a Square, It's a Sonnet" Sonnets have been written in every era since the Renaissance There are always 14 lines long, usually with about 10 syllables per line. This format makes the poem itself, more or less, look like a square There are 2 types : -The Petrarchan (or Italian), which consists of two parts- one section of 8 lines & one section of 6 lines, with a unified rhyme scheme -Shakespearean consist of three 4 line stanzas (quatrains) & 1 two line stanza (couplet)
Originality
Chapter 5: "Now, where Have I Seen Her Before?" There's no such thing as a wholly original work of literature We are influences, no matter how much, by things we have seen before There's only one story To make connections to past characters, think of new characters in generic forms & you will often find ties in plot usage and/or characterization Stories come out of other stories & even history is a story, therefore there is only one story into one massive "barrel of eels" Ex: O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, Alice in Wonderland, Son's of Anarchy, Lion King- Hamlet
Shakespeare
Chapter 6: "When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare..." Many references, which are made by situation or by quote, are references to Shakespeare. Many well known quotes are also attributed to him. Macbeth- "by the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes" "O brave new world, that has such people in it" Aldous Huxley Brave New World
The Bible
Chapter 7: "... Or the Bible" Biblical references don't have to be religious in nature, convey morals Is nonsectarian (all writers may get ideas from it) Ex: Steinbeck's East of Eden- East of Eden to be in a fallen world, Joyce's "Araby", Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Biblical Names (Marys, Josephs, Rebeccas, Ruths, Jonah)
Fairy Tales
Chapter 8: "Hanseldee and Greteldum" The "literary canon": a master list of works that everyone pretends doesn't exists but that we all know matters in some important way List changes with time and population- the best source for parallels, analogies, plot structures, and references is "kiddie lit" Ex: Hansel & Gretel: idea of children lost & far from home. Widely used with many interpretations in many literary works Fairytales not recreated- details and patterns are used to add depth and texture "One child's gingerbread is another child's drug"- Foster Wants strangeness and familiarity in our stories. We want character, story, ideas, etc. but we also want to make connections with literature that is familiar Last chance for change- characters given one last chance to redeem him/herself or make a difference before it's too late
Myths
Chapter 9: "It's Greek to Me" Myth is a body of story that matters. In a myth we find the ability to explain ourselves in ways that physics, philosophy, mathematics and chemistry cant. Examples: The tale of Icarus and his flight to the sun is used to teach values, The film, "O Brother, WHere Art Thou?" and Joyce's Ulysses are recreations of Homer's Odyssey.
Baptisms and Drowning Chapter 18: "if She Comes Up, It's Baptism"
Characters go to the water for: A. wish fulfillment; B. exorcism of primal fear; C. exploration of possibilities; or D. a handy solution for the author's built up plot difficulties In Morrison's Song of Solomon it takes a character 3 encounters with water to make it into anything significant (which makes reference to the Holy Trinity) The baptism is not always 100% about rebirth since there are no absolutes in writing. It may not always be associated with spirituality either. A character's rebirth could just turn him from being a nice average guy to a vengeful creature. Examples: In Guest's Ordinary people, 2 brothers go out on their boat, storm comes up, one brother dies (the star of the family), the other lives. He feels he doesn't deserve to be alive but through therapy he is reborn In Flannery O'Connor's "The River", a little boy, having watched baptisms joining people to God on a Sunday, goes back to the river the next day to join God on his own. He does, by drowning.
Reading with YOUR Eyes Chapter 25: "Don't Read with Your Eyes"
Don't read with your eyes. Don't read from your own fixed position (the time in which you live) Examples: Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues". You must transport yourself to Baldwin's 1957 Joyce's "The Dead". Transport yourself to Dublin on the Feast of the Epiphany, pre-electricity
Flight Chapter 15: "Flights of Fancy"
If a person in a work of literature can fly, they are almost always one of the following: a superhero, crazy, a ski jumper, a circus act, departing a canon, suspended on wires, an angel, heavily symbolic, fictional Flight is freedom. Often in literature the freeing of the spirit is seen in terms of flight. Ex: Hamlet "flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" Claudis, Hamlet's uncle, tries to pray- his words fly up but his thoughts remain below. The spirit can't be free b/c of all the guilt he feels about the murder. Horatio, Hamlet's bestfriend, says Goodnight sweet prince & fly to the angels to rest" you are now free of the quest to find your father's murderer
Irony Chapter 26: "Is He Serious? And Other Ironies"
Irony trumps everything. A sign used in a way other than the one for which it was intended. It makes great use of deflection from expectation. In Wilde's The Importance of being Earnest, one character says of another, recently widowed, "her hair has gone quite gold from grief" We have certain expectations behind, say, the meaning of a rainy day and its connotations, but if the writer doesn't write to fit our preconceived idea then the newfound meaning trumps what we used to know. In Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry walks into the rain after the deaths of his lover and child. The rain doesn't have the cleansing effect we've come to expect. That's irony In Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Alex is considered a Christ Figure, That's Irony. Ironic Mode- literary theorist Northrop Frye's way of describing characters that have a lower degree out autonomy, self-determination, or free-will than most people, making the simple things we do all the time a major struggle, Modern and postmodern writers make such use of irony that we come to expect it. Irony doesn't work for everyone. The multivocal nature of irony is nothing if you can't see the layers.
Christ Figures Ch 14: "Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too"
List of possible Characteristic for a Christ Figure: -Crucified, wounds in the hands, feet, side and head -In agony -Self-sacrificing -Good with children -Good with loaves, fishes, water, wine -33 years of age when last seen -Employed as a carpenter -Known to use humble modes of transportation, feet or donkeys preferred -Believed to have walked on water -Often portrayed with arms outstretched -Known to have spent time alone in the wilderness -Believed to have had a confrontation with the devil, possibly tempted -Last seen in the company of thieves -Creator of many aphorisms and parables -Buried but arose on the third day -Had disciples, 12 at first, although not all equally devoted -Very forgiving -Came to redeem an unworthy world Foster believes we line in a Christian culture You might be a Christ figure if you are: -33 years old -Unmarried, preferably celibate -Wounded or marked in the hands, feet or side (crown of thrones extra credit) -Sacrificing yourself in some way for others (your life is best, and your sacrifice doesn't have to be willing) -In some sort of wilderness, tempted there, accosted by the devil -Etc. Examples: Hemingway's Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea Burgess's Alex in A Clockwork Orange Many of Flannery O'Connor's characters
Physical Marks Chapter 21: "Marked for Greatness"
Physical deformity was, in the past, equated with moral deformity, suggesting that one's proximity to or from God was manifested in external signs. This explains why heroes may be remarked and differentiated from everyone else in some way. Example: Shakespeare's Richard III has a bad case of scoliosis (he's a hunchback). This was done to show him to be as morally and spiritually twisted as his back, making him one of the most repugnant figures in literature. Physical limitations may be given to characters because they mean something, some psychological or thematic point the writer wants to make. "You give a guy a limp in Chapter 2, he can't go sprinting after the train in Chapter 24." Example: Jake Barnes in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has been wounded during World War I. He never says, but when he looks at himself naked in a mirror he weeps. He symbolizes a society that has been left barren by the war.
Illness (Continued) Chapter 24 "... and Rarely Just Illness"
Principles Governing the Use of Disease in Literature: 1. Not all diseases were created equal (cholera was worse than tuberculosis, but TB was much more popular in literature.) 2. Diseases should be picturesque. Don't kill of characters in a nasty way. Be like Cleopatra. 3. The disease should be mysterious in origin. 4. The disease should have strong symbolic or metaphorical possibilities (like heart disease) This sometimes makes author bring in objectionable illnesses simply to make a point. Tuberculosis was considered the perfect disease in literature. Also called consumption it was considered a "wasting disease" and dominated literature for a long time (along with cancer) Malaria, or "Roman Fever", was useful because it translates into bad air. We know now that it comes from mosquitoes and not harmful vapors in hot, moist night air Taboo diseases would have to be treated with care like syphilis was in Ibsen's A Doll's House Using diseases that are currently in the social vernacular allows writers to save time since readers will identify with a few symptoms instead of needing a medical dictionary (Gray's Anatomy) to get them through a story. Every age has its special disease and ours is AIDS. As Foster puts it, "AIDS is the mother lode of symbol and metaphor" Examples: In James' Daisy Miller, Daisy suffers from figurative "baid air"-- malicious gossip and hostile public opinion while in Rome. When she is ignored by Winterbourne (her love interest) while in the Colosseum at night, she remarks, "he cuts me dead", she then contracts "Roman Fever" and dies In Ibsen's A Doll's House, a character, Dr.rank, is dying of "tuberculosis of the spine". Rank says he inherited the disease from his father's dissolute living, so instead of TB it's VD (syphilis)
Sex Chapter 16 "It's All About Sex.."
Sex is so popular of Freud. His book, The Interpretation Dreams, unlocked the sexual potential of the subconscious Male symbols: tall buildings, lances, swords, guns,etc. Females symbols: rolling landscapes, chalices and grails (the search for the Holy Grail was all sex) Sex is often code in literature, many times the "code" sexual acts are much more intense and multi-purposed than actual sex. Examples Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner": Paul's wild ride on the horse = masturbation Hank/Williams/George Thorogood song, "Move it on Over": 'She changed the locks on my front door, and now my key don't fit no more'; the Hayes Code in Hollywood (1935-1965) which stated that you couldn't show bodies intimately in film, so you saw waves crashing on the beach, window curtains blowing in the early morning sunlight after last seeing the characters kissing by that window, or a train entering a tunnel
Seasons Chapter 20: "... So Does Season"
The use of seasons in literature has been used for thousands of years, back to earliest mythology (Persephone's months on earth vs her time with Hades in the land of the dead (also Hades) to explain the origin of the seasons). Common Meanings of the Seasons : Spring: childhood and youth; Summer: adulthood, romance, fulfillment, and passion; Autumn: decline, middle age, (thanks Shakespeare and others), tiredness, and harvest; Winter: old age, resentment, and death Example: Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73"
Sex (continued) Ch 17: "....Except Sex"
When writers write about other things they are most often referring to sexuality to some extent, but when writers actually write about the sex act, It's never just about the sex unless you are E.L. James Sex becomes heavily symbolic when used as the correct type of plot device Example: Burgess's A Clockwork Orange in which the main character, Alex, talks about rape, 'the old in-out' and commits it but describes it in his language, Nadsat, which makes the act not as we understand it. Burgess wants to make his character revolting,not make the violence and sex interesting.
Blindness Chapter 22 "He's Blind for a Reason, You Know"
Writing blind characters is a great deal of extra work because everything that character does has to reflect his lack of sight, and people have to recognize it in him/her. This extra work can only mean one thing: if a character is blind, you know that character is important, and the levels of sight and/or blindness go beyond the physical. The Indiana Jones Principle: if you want your audience to know something important about your character introduce it early before you need it **INdy's afraid of snakes, remember, and we knew it from the first scene, even before credits Physical blindness may be used as foreshadowing Examples: In Sophocles Oedipus trilogy we meet the character Tiresias, the blind prophet, who know the whole truth about King Oedipus, doesn't want to reveal it. When Oedipus, who vows to "bring the matter of light", finds out the truth, he blinds himself In Joyce's "Araby", the first line tells us the street the young narrator lives on is "blind"; he is blinded by love, then by vanity; he watches the girl at every opportunity, even when the light is poor or the blinds are pulled down, and finally, blinded by his angry tears, he sees himself for the ridiculous creature he is.
