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

In chapter fourteen of Thomas Foster’s novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, when telling of Christ in our literature, he makes the all-composing assertion that we live in an overwhelming Christian culture. The common man or woman may not know all there is to understand in Christianity, but our media and minds are affected by it considerably and basic knowledge of its core is known by the majority. The figures of Jesus in literature are abstract and in no way have to be exact to Jesus in gender, morality, or actions. No literary character or real character can be as divine or perfect as Jesus was in the Bible, making it impossible to completely replicate him. Imagination is the largest

Elie Wiesel used eyes as a motif in his narrative, Night, as windows to characters’ inner souls. He used eyes to assist the theme of surviving at all costs throughout the story by giving the audience an insight of people’s true emotions and status. Without eyes, we would have been blind to see past characters’ outer layers of fake emotion. There is more than the eye can see. One has to look deep into another’s eyes to see the true light or darkness within them.

"The eyes are the window to your soul," In not being able to see Mr. Hooper's eyes, the congregation becomes distressed and uncomfortable. The eyes make it possible for others to discern your feelings and emotions. Mr. Hooper creates an impenetrable solitude that makes it impossible for people to relate to him. The body is but a shell; the eyes are the gates to the real self. From the first day of the veil dropping over the minister's face people's opinions changed of him. He becomes a mystery, unreachable and feared. In reality the minister hadn't changed at all. He is the same gentle man with

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 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 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.

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.

In the fourteenth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster depicts all the elements found in a Christlike character. To begin, a simple fact is stated; “we live in a Christian culture” (124). Foster declares this to establish the fact that Christianity is a predominant religion on Earth, and it greatly impacts it’s surrounding civilizations. “Culture is so influenced by it’s dominant religious systems” that religion may sneak into a writer's work, no matter their personal beliefs on the religion (125). While knowledge of religion is helpful - especially to a reader - too many religious beliefs can lead problems. Foster articulates that intelligent readers possess a diverse knowledge in multiple religions,

In “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster there are three new concepts I took and analyzed at a deeper level when reading “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Foster tells us that in stories drownings or deaths that take place in water is serving a purpose whether it is to help the theme development, failure, guilt, or plot complication. In Crime and Punishment after Raskolnikov has committed the murder of his land lady. He begins to have suicidal thoughts of jumping off the bridge into the river. However, this idea does die quickly when a women standing right next to him decides to jump off the bridge. As he sees what has taken place he quickly snaps out of his guilt driven thoughts and the matter never comes up again. The water represents baptism. If ,Rasolnikov would've thrown himself into the river it would symbolize as a baptism to cleanse all his

In life, sometimes the expression, “eyes are the window to the soul” is used to convey the private thoughts in a person's mind. Without dialogue or communication, one can read a soul and how a person feels without any verbal contact. By gazing into eyes, emotions can be read as if a person were saying what they felt in the inside. Just as opening a window, abling one to look inside and finding out things never known or seen before. In Sherwood Anderson's, Winesburg, Ohio, windows are a common motif used among characters who show separation in their public and private identity.

History is something that cannot be changed, so there is no need to change it for appearance’s sake. In order for future generations to live on and not repeat past mistakes, teachers must be brutally

As they walked to where Thomas Jackson stood after descending the stairs, Allie watched his eyes. You could usually tell a lot about a person from their eyes. Had she not heard someone say that the eyes were the windows to the soul -- but of course, she had also heard someone else say they were but the reflection of the world around them?