Read Literature Like A Professor

Behind each movie lies the meaningful aspects and significant features worth noticing. All movies and books can be carefully examined and interpreted. Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor provides a new view on interpreting literature. In the novel, Foster identifies and analyzes common patterns, themes, and motifs found in literature, many of which are also present in Disney’s film, Maleficent. This movie showcases several of his ideas, including quests, flight, geography, and symbolism. These are only a few characteristics that shape the movie into an enjoyable and thought-provoking experience for the audience.

The Kite Runner by Khalid Alhussaini is very inspiring and powerful novel about a Pashtun named Amir who is looking back over his life during the transition from childhood to adulthood. Amir grew up in a prosperous district of Kabul, Afghanistan. His father was known and respected by others, Amir tried his best to follow his father steps and always craved his love and attention.

Humans are though to be the most developed living species on the planet Earth. However, throughout life, one can also see humans can be so evil and illogical during moments of desperation that the ability of reason is cannot be found. In the book Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, Golding depicts many examples of human nature with the use of characters he placed in the story. One of these characters is a boy named Simon. Golding uses Simon to describe compassion, wisdom and insight, and a Christ-like figure.

Chapter five of How To Read Literature Like An English Professor is about how Shakespeare is prominent in both old and current works of literature and in the media. Foster states “He’s everywhere, in every literary form you can think of. And he’s never the same: every age and every writer reinvents its own Shakespeare.” (33). So why Shakespeare? Foster states “There is a kind of authority lent by something being almost universally known, where one has only to utter certain lines and people nod their heads in recognition.” (38). People recognize parallels to his stories. Foster also writes that Shakespeare provides a character in which authors can bounce ideas off of to further develop their own stories. Some famous books and movies that parallel Shakespeare are The Hunger Games, Star Wars, and The Fault In Our Stars.

In the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, author Thomas Foster explains concepts that have been used in writing and how those can be interpreted differently. This includes vampires and ghosts and their relationship to seemingly normal people. The concept of vampires and ghosts can be found throughout the book The Scarlet Letter in the character Roger Chillingworth. It is hard to tell what his true intent is throughout the book, thus making him seem suspicious and somewhat evil.

A Christ Figure is a literary character whose actions are homogeneous with that of Jesus Christ. A Separate Peace, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Cool Hand Luke are all works that incorporate a Christ Figure as one of their characters. Some of the actions exhibited by these characters include the performing of miracles, a last supper, a death and resurrection, and the betterment of their fellow peers.

In the book How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, the first chapter illustrates the elements and ideas of quests in literature. Foster starts off the chapter with a hypothetical story where an average sixteen year old boy named Kip goes to the A&P, a local super market, to buy a loaf of Wonder Bread. Along the way, Kip unpleasantly encounters a German shepherd but meets Karen, the girl of his dreams, laughing with Tony Vauxhall in his ‘68’ Cuba. Kip continues to search for the bread in the store, but he is disturbed by a marine asking him to join the Navy. The story is immediately paused, and Foster analytically explains how Kip’s trip to the A&P was actually a quest. He shows that a quest consist a knight, a dangerous

How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book that shows numerous ways and strategies to understand what their reading. Each chapter shows examples from books and use of literary devices that can help develop the meaning of the story. Think of this book as reading between the lines. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald used people to symbolize objects or things to let the reader have an interpretation on the characters. For example, the green light represents Gatsby's future for him and Daisy to be together. The green light is the most important symbol of the book because it has a meaning for many things. It also was interpreting the American Dream and money. Gatsby lived a poor life when he was younger and being in his situation now made him want to impress business and famous people, even Daisy. The first technique is used in chapter 10: Is That A Symbol? called allegories. Allegories are stories that reveal a hidden meaning. ¨Things stand for other things on a one-for-one basis (Foster 98).¨

In the beginning of Chapter ¬15 of How To Read Literature Like A Professor, Thomas C. Foster first introduces the very known fact that humans cannot fly. So if a human is able to in a piece of literature, it belongs to the categories he lists later on. However, the categorization is an superficial analyzation of flying. He introduces the history of flying and how humans have strived to defied the laws of gravity forever.

In Thomas C. Foster's How To Read Literature Like a Professor, he describes the setup of the adventure of the protagonist, dividing it into five parts: Our quester, a place to go, a stated reason to there, challenges and trials, and the real reason to go. A protagonist must experience all of these things in order to accomplish their goals and learn their lessons. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens, the main character, must encounter these things in order to unlock the mystery of what really happened to her mother the night she was killed, in addition to learning about the passion of writing and telling stories, the dangers and foolishness of racism, and female power.

Lord of the Flies, a novel about good versus evil and the struggle for power to survive, takes place on a deserted island. A group of English boys become stranded after their plane crashes and face many difficult decisions in order to not only survive, but be rescued. Lord of the Flies has many instances that parallel the Bible. William Golding utilizes religious imagery and makes biblical references to Jesus Christ throughout this religious allegory to further illustrate the battle between virtue and sin.

Although Simon does show traits of a Christ figure, he does not fully live up to the archetype of a Christ figure. To be a Christ figure is someone must show the traits of the Biblical Christ. In the Bible, Christ fed people who could not feed themselves, and Simon fed the littluns ripe fruit, so that they could eat without getting sick. Simon’s role as a failed Christ figure is shown in his violent and ineffective “crucifixion” and “resurrection”, and his failure at getting them to listen and be reassured by what he had to say.

Throughout the novel of Lord of the Flies, William Golding provides a profound insight into human nature. Golding builds on a message that all human beings have natural evil inside them. To emphasize, the innate evil is revealed when there’s lack of civilization. The boys are constantly faced with numerous fears and eventually break up into two different groups. Although the boys believe the beast lives in the jungle, Golding makes it clear that it lurks in their hearts. The message of inner evil is portrayed throughout the book by the destruction of the conch, terrifying beast, and character developments to establish the hidden message throughout the novel.

The novel Lord of the Flies is not just a simple adventure story but is a story which contains many archetypal critical theories. Archetypal critical theory in this novel includes hero, villain, advisor/guide, Christ-figure, journey/quest, and loss of innocence. The main archetypal theory that builds up the story is that Ralph is a hero who is on a “journey” to an end goal of getting everybody on the island rescued. Jack and the hunters impede Ralph in pursuit of fun and hunting rather than working together to get rescued. These themes are all related to the emergence of Ralph as a hero.