foster quiz (lit n comp 2h)

In Foster chapter 2, Acts of Communion: Eating is a fundamental element of life that shows the bond between strangers. It sends the message....

"I'm with you, I share this moment with you, I feel a bond of community with you."

Foster suggests that there is a "language of reading" made up of a "set of conventions, patterns, codes, and rules that we learn to employ" when analyzing literature. What answer does Foster use to tell students how they can get better at understanding the language of reading?

"Same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice."

According to Foster's principles, Dracula is a quintessential vampire in both novel and movies because...

He grows younger, more alive, and more virile when he obtains a young woman He is alluring, dangerous, mysterious, and tends to focus on beautiful, unmarried women His victims become like him and begin to seek out their own victims (All of the above)

Which of these most closely summarizes Foster's main point about Baptism?

If a writer has a character get wet somehow ,it probably means something symbolic.

Foster asserts that rain functions as

a democratic element atmospherics a plot device (all of the above)

According to Foster, when fog is present it almost always serves as

a sign of confusion within or amongst characters

In _______, things stand for other things on a one-on-one basis.

allegory

In A Christmas Story, Marley's ghost appears to Scrooge carrying the chains he "forged in life." Foster would argue that the appearance of this ghost symbolizes...

an ethical lesson

What are the three essentials of the vampire story?

an older figure representing worn-out values, the stripping away of a young woman's youth and virtue, the death or destruction of the young woman

In the movie, Inception, while in a dream, Mal shoots a man in the leg instead of killing him because killing someone in a dream only wakes them up, but hurting them in a dream is all mental and serves as an act of torture. This is done so that the audience understands how the dream world works. According to Foster's chapter 19, Acts of Violence, this moment of violence would fall under which category of violence?

authorial violence; it symbolizes the turmoil that occurs in dreams (probably wrong, idk)

Foster claims that the season ____________ represents decline and middle age, while the season __________ represents old age, resentment, and death

autumn; winter

According to Foster, the season of Spring represents ___________, while the season of Summer represents ____________.

childhood and youth; adulthood, romance, fulfillment, foolishness

According to Foster, the most prominent influence in the literature of our culture is:

christianity

The main function of the image of the rainbow is to symbolize...

divine promise and peace between heaven and earth

Sometimes the really scary bloodsuckers are...

entirely human

Foster's chapter 12: Is That a Symbol?: Besides objects and images, what else can be symbolic?

events and actions

According to Foster, ghosts, vampires, and other "spooky" figures in literature usually serve to convey what idea?

exploitation

According to Foster, eating scenes in literature are generally the author's way of...

exploring characters and relationships between characters.

According to Foster, violence in real life just is, so violence in literature can never be literal, metaphorical, or symbolic.

false

According to Foster, a vampire figure in literature often represents:

fear of old age exploitation of others lust (all of the above)

Foster's Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires not only applies to vampires but also

ghosts and doppelgangers (evil twins)

Consider Simon & Garfunkel's lyrics to "A Hazy Shade of Winter." Time, time, time See what's become of me While I looked around for my possibilities I was so hard to please But look around Leaves are brown And the sky is a hazy shade of winter What is the speaker concerned about in this excerpt?

his age

When a dinner, or act of communion, turns ugly or doesn't happen at all, Foster states that this failed communion:

informs the reader how we should feel about certain characters there is no sense of community and understanding is a bad sign (all of the above)

Which of these is NOT one of those listed by Foster as the "three items that, more than any other, separate the professorial reader from the rest of the crowd"?

innovation

The ongoing interaction between poems and stories is

intertextuality

Geography isn't just setting, it's....

lace and space and shape that bring us ideas and psychology and history and dynamism.

A master list of works of literature that usually reference important, classical, or traditional works is called:

literary canon

According to Foster, what are the two categories of violence?

narrative violence (harm in general, including specific injuries); authorial violence (death/suffering for plot advancement or thematic development)

According to Foster's definition, a symbol must _______________ while an allegory ______________.

not be reduced to standing for one thing; has a one-to-one correspondence between the emblem and the thing it represents

Geography in literature can also be revelatory of virtually any element in the work of literature including

plot and character theme symbol all of the above.

It's nearly impossible to generalize about the meanings of violence, except that there are generally more than one. This opposes Foster's assertions about...

rain and snow (probably wrong, I don't know)

Foster claims that rain is often used in literature because it is the "democratic element." This is true because:

rain falls on the just and the unjust alike

A character surviving a drowning usually symbolizes:

rebirth

When writers baptize a character they mean

rebirth new identity death (generally, all of the above. But be careful.)

In "Geography Matters," Foster discusses the various roles and implications of geography in a literary work. He gives one rule. It says, "when writers send characters south, it's ____________."

so they can run amok

Rain is most closely associated with....

spring

In mysteries, violence is prominent and readers/viewers scarcely notice the deaths along the way. However, in "literary" fiction, poetry, and drama, violence is.....

symbolic action

. Each of the following would imply something different about baptism on a symbolic level EXCEPT if

the character rises up and walks on the water

One of the paradoxes of rain, according to Foster, is "how clean it is coming down and how much mud it can make when it lands." This paradox in literature symbolizes what two things, respectively?

the falling of rain can symbolically cleanse a character, but if the character falls in the mud he is more angry and confused than before

Surprisingly, Foster claims that violence is

the most personal and even intimate act between human beings.

Understanding the meaning of a symbol requires...

the reader to bring something of himself into the encounter

Every drowning serves its own purpose, including:

thematic development of violence or failure or guilt character revelation plot complication all of the above

According to Foster's chapter 19, Geography Matters, when writers send characters south it's so they can run amok. They run amok, typically, because:

they are having direct, raw encounters with the subconscious

Snow, like death, is a great unifier in that it falls....

upon the living and dead

One central question to chapter 19, Geography Matters, is...

what does geography mean to a work of literature?

When trying to understand symbolism, it is important for the reader to ask many questions including...

what does it feel like the symbol is doing? what's the writer doing with the symbol? what possibilities are suggested by the movement of the narrative or lyric? all of the above

Accidents happen in real life. But when they happen in literature they're not really accidents. The question always is,

what does misfortune really tell us? (possibly wrong, idk)

Foster's chapter 18, If She Comes Up It's Baptism: Foster states that not all moments in literature in which the character experiences a symbolic "baptism" are religious. However, we as readers know when a baptism in literature has religious significance or has ritual association when:

when the baptism is conducted by a priest (probably wrong??)

Define "communion" in literature.

whenever characters eat together.

Foster highlights the reason acts of communion are highly symbolic when he explains that

writing a meal scene is so difficult, and so inherently uninteresting that there must be reason that an author does it