HOW T O READ
LITERATURE LIKE A
PROFESSOR
A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
WE’VE ALL BEEN
THERE
What the
author
meant.
What your
teacher
thinks the
author
meant.
For instance: “The curtains were blue.”
What your teacher thinks: “The curtains represent his immense depression
and his lack of will to carry on.”
What the author meant: “The curtains were really just blue.”
H OW ’ D H E D O T H A T ?
A N I N T RO D U C T I O N
 Over time, good readers develop the use of a certain “Language
of reading”.
• The grammar of literature: A set of conventions and patterns, codes
and rules, that we learn to employ in dealing with a piece of writing.
• Memory
• Symbol
• Pattern
HOW ’ D HE DO THAT?
AN INTRODUCTION
 Memory
• Spin your mental Rolodex. Look for correspondences and corollaries.
 Symbol
•
•
Where have I seen his face?
Don’t I know this theme?
• Everything is a symbol of something else unless proven otherwise.
 Pattern
•
•
•
Is this a metaphor?
Is this an analogy?
What does the thing over there signify?
• Life and books fall into similar patterns.
•
Experienced readers have an ability to overlook all the less important details to
find the patterns, the routines, the archetypes at work in the background.
A SHORT STORY…
You’re reading a book about an average 16 year old kid in 1968. The kid – let’s
call him Kip – who hopes his acne clears up before he gets drafted, is on his way to
the grocery store. His bike is a one-speed with coaster breaks which is humiliating
and riding it to run an errand for his mom makes it even worse. Along the way he
has a couple of disturbing experiences, including a minorly unpleasant encounter
with a German shepherd, topped off in the supermarket parking lot where he sees
the girl of his dreams, Karen, laughing and horsing around in Tony Vauxhall’s
brand-new Barracuda.
A SHORT STORY
CONTINUED
Kip hates Tony already because he has a name like Vauxhall and not like Smith, which
Kip thinks is pretty lame as a name to follow Kip, and because the ‘Cuda is bright green
and goes approximately the speed of light, and also because Tony has never had to work a
day in his life. So Karen, who is laughing and having a great time, turns and seeks Kip
who has recently asked her out, and she keeps laughing. Kip goes on into the store to
buy the loaf of Wonder Bread that his mother told him to pick up, and as he reaches for
the bread, he decides right then and there to lie about his age to the Marine recruiter even
though it means going to Vietnam, because nothing will ever happen for him in this onehorse town where the only thing that matters is how much money your old man has.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
A knight just had a not very suitable encounter with his nemesis.
Huh?
A knight just had a not very suitable encounter with his nemesis.
The knight → Kip
Dangerous road → German shepherd
Holy Grail → Wonder Bread
Dragon → ‘68 Baracuda
Evil knight → Toney
Princess → Karen
EVERY TRIP IS A QUEST
(EXCEPT WHEN IT ’S NOT)
 Quests consist of five things:
•
•
•
•
•
A quester
A place to go
A stated reason to go there
Challenges and trials en route
A real reason to go there (the real reason is always self-knowledge)
THE GOONIES
THE GOONIES
 Questers – “The Goonies” – group of outcast/mistfit kids
 Place to go – seeking the pirate ship of One Eyed Willy
 Stated reason to go –hoping to find enough treasure so they
will be able to save their homes from being destroyed
 Trials/challenges – booby traps, being chased by convicts
 Real reason to go – to learn about friendship, acceptance of
each other, sticking together etc…
EXAMPLES OF A QUEST??
 Movies
 Books
 Television shows
With someone sitting next to you, come up
with an example of a quest…we’ll wait…
→
→
→
→
→
→
EVERY TRIP IS A QUEST
(CONT.)
 The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.
• The quester often fails at the stated task.
• They don’t know enough about the subject that really matters:
themselves.
• This is why questers are young, inexperienced, immature, sheltered.
WHAT COMES TO MIND
WHEN YOU HEAR THE
WORD “COMMUNION ”?
NICE TO EAT WITH YOU:
ACTS OF COMMUNION
 Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion.
• Communion:
• The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings.
• Religious or spiritual fellowship.
 There are all kinds of communions; it’s not solely religious, holy
or even decent.
COMMUNION (CONT.)
 Thing to remember about all communions: In the real world,
breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since “if
you’re breaking bread, you’re not breaking heads.”
 We’re very particular about those with whom we break bread.
*Think about the people you eat lunch with. Why do you spend time
with them instead of other people?
COMMUNION (CONT.)
 Always exceptions: Tribal leader or Mob boss may invite enemies
to lunch and then have them killed.
 Has to be a compelling reason to include a meal scene (as they’re
difficult to write and inherently uninteresting).
TOM JONES
NICE TO EAT YOU: ACTS
OF VAMPIRES
 Vampires should be defined by traits, not long teeth and dark capes.
 Vampirism = selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to accept the
autonomy of others
 Look for ghosts and doppelgangers (evil twin)
 Ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires
 Look for a character who grows in strength by weakening someone
else.
THE SCARLET LETTER
Roger Chillingsworth - …there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the
old man's soul were on fire, and kept on smoldering duskily within his breast …In
old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming
himself into a devil.
Arthur Dimmesdale - How feeble and pale he looked amid all his triumph!... The
glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished…It
seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a deathlike hue
NOW WHERE HAVE I
SEEN HER BEFORE?
 There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature.
 There’s only one story. And that story is about ourselves, about
what it means to be human.
 “Intertexuality”—recognizing the connections between one story
and another deepens our appreciation and experience, brings multiple
layers of meaning to the text, which we may not be conscious of. The
more consciously aware we are, the more alive the text becomes to us.
NOW WHERE HAVE I SEEN
HER BEFORE?
 Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien: Characters fall into a hole
and one character says, “the way to get out is to fall back up.”
• Where have we heard this story before?
• Alice in Wonderland
WHEN IN DOUBT IT ’S
FROM SHAKESPEARE…
 If you’re reading a work, and something sounds too good to be true,
you know where it’s from
 Writers use what is common in a culture as a kind of shorthand.
Writer’s can say more in fewer words when we make connections.
 Shakespeare coined ‘em:
•
•
•
•
•
To thine own self be true
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
Double, double, toil and trouble
O brave new world / that has such people in it
To be or not to be, that is the question
WHEN IN DOUBT IT ’S
FROM SHAKESPEARE…
Feuding families? Young love?
Romeo &
Juliet
Jealousy?
Heroic character, revenge,
indecision? Melancholy in nature?
Othello
Hamlet
A power grab? Three fortune
telling witches? Murder?
Macbeth
CONNECT THE DOTS…
serpent
Garden
plagues
loaves
flood
betrayal
The Bible
fishes
denial
Parting the waters
Forty days
Milk and honey
Slavery and escape
Fatted calves
…OR THE BIBLE
 The Bible is a favorite of authors. Every writer prior to sometime
in the middle of the 20th century was solidly instructed in religion.
…OR THE BIBLE
Popular Themes
Garden of Eden: women tempting men and causing their fall, the apple
as symbolic of an object of temptation, a serpent who tempts men to do
evil, and a fall from innocence
David and Goliath—overcoming overwhelming odds
 Jonah and the Whale—refusing to face a task and being “eaten” or
overwhelmed by it anyway.
Job: facing disasters not of the character’s making and not the
character’s fault, suffers as a result, but remains steadfast
…OR THE BIBLE
 The Flood: rain as a form of destruction; rainbow as a promise of
restoration
 Christ figures (a later chapter): in 20th century, often used
ironically
 The Apocalypse—Four Horseman of the Apocalypse usher in the
end of the world.
 Biblical names often draw a connection between literary character
and Biblical character.
Eve, Cain, Jacob, Jonah, Rebecca, Joseph, Mary, Stephen, Moses…
…OR THE BIBLE
HANSELDEE AND
GRETELDUM
 Fairytales and kiddie lit. provide a basic story we all know.
 They make use of the patterns in the stories to build depth,
texture, theme, irony, and our knowledge.
 Fairytales often address morals.
 Glimpses of the familiar.
HANSELDEE AND
GRETELDUM
Common Story Themes
Hansel and Gretel: lost children trying to find their way home
Peter Pan: refusing to grow up, lost boys, a girl-nurturer/
Little Red Riding Hood: See Vampires
Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz: entering a world that doesn’t work
rationally or operates under different rules, the Red Queen, the White Rabbit, the
Cheshire Cat, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wizard, who is a fraud
Cinderella: orphaned girl abused by adopted family saved through supernatural
intervention and by marrying a prince
HANSELDEE AND
GRETELDUM
 Snow White: Evil woman who brings death to an innocent—again,
saved by heroic/princely character
 Sleeping Beauty: a girl becoming a woman, symbolically, the
needle, blood=womanhood, the long sleep an avoidance of growing
up and becoming a married woman, saved by, guess who, a prince
who fights evil on her behalf.
 Evil Stepmothers, Queens, Rumpelstilskin
 Prince Charming heroes who rescue women.
HANSELDEE AND
GRETELDUM
Your turn! Working with two to three other people around you and
follow these instructions:
1. Think of a movie/book that fits the pattern of a fairytale.
2. List the elements of the movie/book that match the fairytale.
3. When called upon, tell the class which movie/book you selected
and the rest of us will try to guess which fairytale you found.
IT’S GREEK TO ME
 Myth is a body of story that matters – the patterns present in
mythology run deeply in the human psyche.
 Odyssey and Iliad (the hero)
Odysseus – The struggle to return home.
Achilles—a small weakness in a strong man; the need to maintain one’s
dignity
Penelope (Odysseus’s wife)—the determination to remain faithful and
to have faith
Hector – The need to protect one’s family
 Other Myths (the underworld, Oedipus, Medea, ect.)
IT’S MORE THAN JUST
RAIN OR SNOW
 Weather is never just weather…pay attention to it.
 It’s never just rain.
•
•
•
•
Fertility and life, Noah, drowning…
Rain can be cleansing or restorative.
Rain can be destructive
Rainbows – a promise from God never to flood again, hope, peace, ect.
 Fog is almost always signals some sort of confusion; mental, ethical, physical
“fog”; people can’t see clearly
 Snow is clean, stark, severe, warm, inhospitable, inviting, playful, suffocating,
filthy [note paradoxes!]
IT’S MORE THAN JUST
RAIN OR SNOW
How is each weather element utilized in these scenes? What do you think the
elements represent?
…MORE THAN IT’S GONNA HURT
YO U : C O N C E R N I N G V I O L E N C E
 Violence in literature usually means more than just a punch.
 Two kinds of violence
•
•
Character caused—shootings, stabbings, drownings, poisonings,
bombings, hit and run, etc (mysteries fit here)
Death and suffering for which the characters are not responsible.
Accidents are not really accidents.
 Questions to ask:
•
•
•
i. What does this type of misfortune represent thematically?
ii. What famous or mythic death does this one resemble?
iii. Why this sort of violence and not some other?
IS THAT A SYMBOL?
 Sure it is.
 Not all symbols are objects or images; action can also be symbolic.
 Symbols rarely have one specific interpretation.
IS THAT A SYMBOL?
 Ask: what is the writer doing with this image, this object, this act?
What possibilities are suggested by the movement of the narrative or
the lyric? And most important, what does it feel like it’s doing?
 Use your instinct as well as your knowledge, literary background,
education, etc.
YES, SHE ’S A CHRIST
FIGURE, TOO
The values and
1. crucified, wounds in hands, feet, side, and
head, often portrayed with arms outstretched
principles of
2. in agony
religion inevitably
inform an
3. self-sacrificing
author’s literary
4. good with children
work.
5. good with loaves, fishes, water, wine
6. thirty-three years of age when last seen
YES, SHE ’S A CHRIST
FIGURE, TOO
7. employed as a carpenter
12. last seen in the company of
thieves
8. known to use humble modes of
transportation, feet or donkeys preferred
13. creator of many parables
9. believed to have walked on water
14. buried, but arose on the third day
15. had disciples
10. spent time alone in the wilderness
16. very forgiving
11. believed to have had a confrontation
with the devil, possibly tempted
17. came to redeem an unworthy
world
D. H . L AW R E N C E ,
“ T H E RO C K I N G - H O R S E W I N N E R ”
He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it. When the two girls were
playing dolls in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking horse,
charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer
at him uneasily. Wildly he horse careered, the waving dark hair of the
boy tossed, the eyes had a strange glare in them. The girls dared not
speak to them…He knew the horse could take him to where there
was luck, if only he forced it…At last he stopped forcing his horse
into the mechanical gallop and slid down.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
IT’S ALL ABOUT SEX…
Holy grail and lance – fertility
Lock and key
Curtains blowing in the wind
Wrestling
IT’S ALL ABOUT SEX…
Holy grail and lance – fertility
A knight, usually a very young one whose “manhood” is barely established,
sallies forth bearing his lance, which will certainly do until a phallic symbol comes
along. The knight becomes the emblem of pure, if untested maleness in search
of a chalice, the Holy Grail, which, if you think about it is a symbol of female
sexuality as understood once upon a time: the empty vessel, waiting to be filled.
Typically the knight rides out from a community that has fallen on hard times.
Crops are failing, rains have stopped, livestock is dying or failing to be born, the
kingdom is turning into a wasteland. We need to restore fertility and order, says
the aging king, too old now to go in search of fertility symbols. Perhaps he can
no long use his lance, so he sends the young man.
…EXCEPT SEX
 When authors write about literal sex, they’re really writing about
something else.
 Sex is hard to write, it’s awkward, odd, mechanical.
 Writing about sex for the sake of sex is pornography.
 Sex can be pleasure, sacrifice, submission, rebellion, resignation,
supplication, domination, enlightenment, the whole works.
IF SHE COMES UP, IT ’S
BAPTISM
 If a character gets wet, pay attention.
 Baptism is symbolically the death of the old self & the rebirth of a new self.
 Drowning is symbolic baptism, IF the character comes back up, symbolically
reborn. Drowning on purpose can also represent rebirth.
 Traveling on water—rivers, oceans—can symbolically represent baptism..
GEOGRAPHY MATTERS…
 Geography – rivers, hills, valleys, buttes, glaciers, swamps, seas,
islands – you get the picture!
 In fiction and poetry, geography may be mostly people. 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 (or can be) psychology, attitude,
finance, industry – anything that place can forge in the people who
live there.
…SO DOES SEASON
 Seasons have stood for the same set of meanings for about as long as
anyone’s been writing anything.
 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter=youth, adulthood, middle age, death.
 Spring = fertility, life, happiness, growth, resurrection (Easter)
 Summer = adulthood and romance and fulfillment and passion
 Fall = harvest, reaping what we sow, both rewards and punishments
 Winter = hibernation, lack of growth, death, punishment
COMMON THEME?
MARKED FOR GREATNESS
 Physical markings (scars, deformities, handicaps, missing limbs,
etc.) call attention to themselves and signify some psychological or
thematic point the writer wants to make.
 So if a writer brings up a physical problem or handicap or
deficiency, he probably means something by it.
DON’T READ WITH YOUR
EYES
 Don’t read only from your own fixed position in the year 2008.
 Try to find a reading perspective that allows for sympathy with the
historical moment of the story, that understands the text as having
been written against its own social, historical, cultural, and personal
background.
IS HE SERIOUS? AND
OTHER IRONIES
Irony trumps
everything.