How to Read Like a Professor
American Literature
9-28-2009
Introduction Chapter
Being able to recognize patterns and symbols
in literature helps the entire work make more
sense.
Learning to do this makes you a better reader.
Being a better reader makes you a better writer.
When you see the hidden stuff, you’re able to
make deep analytical written commentary.
“…Or the Bible”
Authors often reference the Bible in their
writing.
Draws people from all parts of life together.
Garden of Eden:
Women tempt men and cause failure.
Apple:
symbol of temptation/failure/evil
Or the Bible….
Job:
Faces disaster, but never gives up.
Flood:
Rains as a symbol of destruction
Light as a form of redemption/savior.
Biblical names:
Connect a literary character to a Biblical
character.
Hanselee and Gretledum
Peter Pan:
Refusal to grow up.
Men saving women.
Snow White:
White=purity/innocence
Saved by a prince
Sleeping Beauty: a girl grows towards
womanhood.
Blood=womanhood.
Saved by a prince (man)
Violence in Literature
Violence is symbolic, thematic, Biblical,
Shakespearean, Romantic, allegorical or
transcendent.
Two types:
Character caused (shootings, stabbings,
poison, etc)
Accidents where characters are not involved.
Accidents are not really accidents.
Symbols
Authors use symbols all the time;
sometimes more than any other literary
device.
Actions as well as objects can be symbols.
Symbols are built on emotional reactions;
pay attention to how you feel about a text.
Food in Literature
When people eat
together, it’s for a reason.
Act of sharing and peace.
A failed or tense
meal=negative events
foreshadowed.
Greek Allusions
 Odyssey and Illiad
Men in an epic struggle over
women.
Achilles—a small weakness
causing a great downfall.
Penelope—the need and
desire to stay faithful to one’s
husband no matter what.
Greek Allusions
Oedipus:
Family struggles
Family
dysfunction
Mother Love
Persephone
Demeter
Oedipus
Weather
Weather

Rain






Fertility and Life
Cleansing/Innocence
Noah and the Flood
Total destruction
Removing sin or a stain
Symbolically:



Restorative: brings back to life
Clean: Cleanses what is marred or dirty
fog—almost always signals some sort of confusion; mental,
ethical, physical “fog”; people can’t see clearly
Weather
 Snow
• negatively—cold, stark,
inhospitable, inhuman,
nothingness, death
• positively—clean, pure, playful
 Sunshine
• Rebirth, freedom, new beginning
• Return of God or of Hope
Christ Figures
Characteristics:
 crucified, wounds in hands, feet, side, and head, often
portrayed with arms outstretched
 in agony
 self-sacrificing
 good with children
 good with loaves, fishes, water, wine
 thirty-three years of age when last seen
 believed to have walked on water
Christ Figure
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, twelve at first, although not
all equally devoted
very forgiving
came to redeem an unworthy world
Christ Figure
As a reader, put aside belief system.
Why use Christ figures? Deepens our sense of a
character’s sacrifice, thematically has to do with
redemption, hope, or miracles.
If used ironically, makes the character look smaller
rather than greater
Sex in Literature
Why use symbols? Make it juicy!
 Before mid 20th c., symbols allowed
authors to write about sex without being
censored.
 Function on multiple levels
 More intense than literal descriptions
Female Symbols in Literature
Chalice
Rolling Landscape
Cup waiting to be filled
Female
Symbols
Bowls
Holy Grail
Tunnels
Sex in Literature
Tall Buildings
Male Symbols
Heroic Father Figure
AKA: The “prince charming”
Blades
Sex in Literature
…Except Sex. When authors write directly
about sex, they’re writing about something
else:
 sacrifice
Submission
 rebellion
Supplication
Domination
Enlightenment
Water and Baptism
Baptism is symbolic death and rebirth as a new
individual:
 Drowning is symbolic baptism, IF the character
comes back up, symbolically reborn.
 But drowning on purpose can also represent a form
of rebirth, a choosing to enter a new, different life,
leaving an old one behind.
 Traveling on water—rivers, oceans—can symbolically
represent baptism.
Water and Baptism
Rivers can also represent the River Styx, the
mythological river separating the world from the
Underworld, another form of transformation, passing
from life into death.
Rain can by symbolic baptism as well—cleanses,
washes.
There’s also rebirth/baptism implied when a character
is renamed.
Geography
 Jungles, tunnels, labyrinths: Represent danger and
confusion.
 Geography can symbolize the human mind.
 Going South: starting to go crazy, chaos, losing
one’s mind.
 Low places:
 swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat =
unpleasantness, people, life, death
 High places:
 snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear views =
•
isolation, life, death
Bellringer: 9-28-2009
What is non-verbal communication”? Give an
example.
How much of your communication is
nonverbal?
Do you think you're good at NON verbal
communication? Why or why not?