How to Read Literature
Like a Professor
A summary of the book by Thomas Foster
“Every Trip is a Quest
(Except When It’s Not)”
A Quester
A real
reason to
go there
Challenges
and trials
A Place
to go
A stated
reason for
going
“Nice to Eat with You:
Acts of Communion”
“whenever people eat or drink
together, it’s communion.”
Sharing food is
an act of
community
Eating is a
mundane human
need, so why
write about it?
“Nice to Eat You:
Acts of Vampires”
•Attractive
•Alluring
•Dangerous
•Mysterious
•Focuses on beautiful,
unmarried girls
•Thrives on their vitality
•They end up becoming
like him
If it seems Biblical,
it probably is…
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Garden of Eden
Serpent
Tree of Knowledge
Apple
Adam and Eve
Cain and Abel
Great Flood
Noah’s Ark
Abraham and Isaac
The Ten Commandments
The Ark of the Covenant
The plagues
The escape from Egypt
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Dove/lamb
Baptism
Communion
Last Supper
Sacrifice
#40
#7
Thirty pieces
Betrayed with a kiss
Cross/crucifixion
Resurrection
The four horsemen
The Antichrist
“weather is never
just weather”
Violence:
1. provides action
2. causes plot complication
3. ends plot complication
4. creates stress
Specific injury to characters
• Standard shootings,
stabbings, poisonings, etc.
for which the characters are
guilty
Narrative violence
• Death and suffering authors
introduce for plot
advancement or thematic
development (author is
guilty, not characters)
“Is That a Symbol?”
Identifying a Christ figure:
• Crucified, wounds in the
hands/feet
• Self-sacrificing
• Good with children
• Good with loaves, fishes, water,
wine
• 33 years old
• Employed as carpenter
• Known to use humble modes of
transportation
• Believed to have walked on
water
• Known to have spent time alone
in the wilderness
• Believed to have had a
confrontation with the devil
(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)
• Very forgiving
• Came to redeem an unworthy
world
If you are submerged in water and …
• …you don’t come
back up, you die
• …you emerge from
the water, you are
reborn.
• Your death is
significant…see
previous slides
• But that doesn’t
necessarily mean life
is better
“when writers send characters south,
it’s so they can run amok”
Low:
High:
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Swamps
Crowds
Fog
Darkness
Heat
People
Death
The underworld
Snow
Purity
Thin air
Light
Clean views
Isolation
Life
Mount Olympus
Summer =
vibrancy,
life, youth,
passion
Spring = rebirth,
resurrection,
beginning,
cleansing
The Four
Seasons:
Winter =
death,
paralysis, loss,
barrenness
Fall = aging,
ending, loss,
decay
Outward appearances can be important
to characterization!
Illness isn’t just illness:
1. Not all diseases are created equal
Thus, for a prime literary disease:
2. It should be picturesque
3. It should be mysterious in origin
4. It should have strong metaphorical possibility