'How To Read Literature Like A Professor' By Thomas C. Foster

In Thomas Foster’s book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” readers learn how to look past the surface of a literary work to find a deeper or hidden meaning. Writers use devices, such as symbolism, imagery, foreshadowing, irony and allusion to reveal these meanings. If these are overlooked, important aspects of the story can be lost. One literary device that Foster emphasizes in his book is allusion. Every story has elements of another story, and Foster devotes Chapters Four through Seven explaining the meaning of allusion in works by Shakespeare, the Bible, and fairy tales.

1. In chapter eleven of his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster examines violence in literature, and particularly the way violence functions on multiple levels. Foster identifies two different kinds of violence in literature, and discusses how those two different kinds create different literal and literary meanings. By examining Foster's categories of violence in more detail, one can see how violence in literature serves as an important link between the internal events of a story and the story itself.

In the novel “How to Read Literature like a Professor” the author, Thomas Foster, analyzed and broke down many literary techniques and reoccurring themes in literature. One of the most widely used literary techniques as shown in the novel was Symbolism. Symbolism is heavily used in literature from precipitation and weather to politics, almost everything we read in literature is a form of symbolism.

How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.

In the twelfth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster provides various information on how to identify symbols throughout literature. The chapter stressed the individuality of identifying symbols, Foster mentions multiple times that “every reader’s experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to different degrees” (110). After learning this and also having read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, one thing that stood out was that the main character, Oskar, only has and only wears white clothes. Not only does Oskar often reference his various white clothes, including the white scarf that Grandma knitted

In the book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” by Thomas C. Foster, many elements are brought to the reader’s attention. Three of these elements, happen to connect with the novel, “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” written by Mark Haddon.

Foster discusses the idea that when two characters eat together, that moment acts as a bonding experience and causes the characters to come together. I had never noticed the significance of a meal between characters before. After reading this chapter, I can think of so many moments in stories when the characters share a meal together to form friendships or come to a peace. In one of my favorite novels, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, Picoult writes that “Emma Alexis- who was one of the cool, beautiful girls…she rolled her wheelchair right beside Justin. She’d asked him if she could have half of his donut” (367). Splitting the donut between one of the popular girls and one of the quieter, nerdier boys was a representation of the deformation of the high school social classes. After reading this chapter, I could recall the significance of meals together in so many novels and movies but I never noticed this pattern before.

Analysis: Compare chapter 20 :How to Read Literature Like a Professor-“…So Does Season” to part four (chapter 1) of The Fountainhead.

Authors tend to get very political in between the lines of their stories. In “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” by Thomas C. Foster, there is a chapter that discusses about how almost every author gets political with their writing. “Nearly all writing is political on some level.” (“How to Read Literature Like a Professor” 118.) “Animal Farm,” “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave,” and “Nature” are some examples that’ll be used to prove this point.

In the sixth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster examines the Bible and its importance throughout stories, poetry and film. The Bible is one of the most commonly known pieces of literature and is even “nonsectarian” in Foster’s eyes (44). Because stories from the Bible are so well known, the Bible is a tremendously easy for authors to reference when constructing a new composition. Especially “prior to sometime in the middle of the twentieth century” writers were “solidly instructed in religion” and could count on the public being very well acquainted with Biblical stories (47). This widespread knowledge of the Bible lead to greater understandings throughout literature, and the recognized allusions helped

Every character that travels down a path, that encounters obstacles on their journey, that makes sacrificial decisions faces each of these components as they undertake a life-altering quest. Often times the hero ventures out to save someone or solve a problem, but in fact, their true journey is a search for self-knowledge. Through every obstacle and road-block along the way, the character discovers more about themselves and their true identity. Though they may have journeyed across great lands to accomplish their mission, the thing they were searching for was inside of them all along; the journey and challenges only helped to reveal their real character. As explained in Thomas C. Foster’s literary criticism, How to Read Literature Like a Professor,

The recognition of patterns makes it much easier to read complicated literature because recognizing patterns will help you relate two or more pieces of literature together, therefore making it easier to understand and analyze the literature you are focused on. Patterns in literature can help the reader understand plots, settings, themes, and other literary elements. I greatly appreciated the novel, Brave New World because of how different the society in the novel was from the one I live in. Using the Signposts from Notice and Note, I was able to see contrast and contradictions that enhanced my understanding of the book. I noticed how I was expecting Bernard, in Brave New World to be just like everybody else in the novel but instead he was a “normal person” that felt normal human emotions, such as the longing for love, that the other characters just did not feel. He also felt isolated and alone. Bernard thinks in a way we were not expecting. Patterns such as this helped me, the reader, to better understand literary elements.

In the skillful novel, "How To Read Literature Like A Professor" by Thomas C. Foster, there is neither a protagonist nor antagonist. As a whole, the novel gives insights on how to pick up signs of symbolism, irony, and many other hidden details that are buried within the words of literature. Foster refers to many classis novels by classic authors to demonstrate the use of logic in writing. The novel is extremely educational, leaving many insightful questions and interpretations to the reader's opinion.

-Flight is freedom. When a character has the ability to fly they are free from the burdens of everyday life.

Before his death, her father, Marmeladov was s drunkard. He is unwilling to provide for his family. Sonia gave her father money regularly, even though she knew he would drink his money away. Sonia shows her devotion to others by lovingly caring for others. Crime and Punishment shows Sonia as, “…the daughter who gave herself up for the cross, consumptive step-mother and for little children of another… the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness”(Dovesty 14).