Summary Of How To Read Literature Like A Professor By Thomas Foster

( Chapter 3) Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, or playing ball games, or squatting silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs. The roses were in bloom, two nightingales soliloquized in the boskage, a cuckoo was just going out of tune among the lime trees.The air was drowsy with the murmur of bees and helicopters (Huxley 30).

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.

Thomas C. Foster in ‘How to Read Literature like a Professor’, references the different literary devices that authors use in literature, in order to enhance the reader’s ability to critically analyze literature from any time period. Foster expands the reader’s understanding of literature by exploring the profound impact of symbols and common themes on literature.

Author Thomas Foster thoroughly examines the overall concept of characters in his book “How to Read Literature Like a Professor.” He discusses round and flat character and how this impacts the eventual outcome of the characters, themselves. Although all characters are vital and add their own value to the plot, it just so happens that certain characters are more significant than others. This results in the more minor character suffering more hardships and in many cases dying in the story. This part of Foster’s book brought up many similarities to the novel “The Book Thief.”

In “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, chapter 18, Foster speaks on the topic of rebirth and renewal. He says that when a character's body is submerged into a body of water there is a symbolic meaning behind it. If the character arises from the watery depths ,then there has been some form of transformation whether it be internal or external. This is actually one of my favorite motifs to speak on, or think about. It shows the change and development of a character, how they grow, and their thought process has changed. This stage of rebirth in a literary work is the background, or building blocks, to the character's new persona/attitude.

Many children who are in their teens have difficulty with reading books; whether that being with the wording of the book or the content of it. The novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor, written by Thomas C. Foster, is a book aimed toward teens to help them better understand books that may usually be challenging for them. This book is written in second person since Foster uses the word “you” a lot in the novel. The main thing Foster thinks you will be after reading his book is a better reader overall. All of the chapters in the book have a reason for being where they are, and he also gives the reader examples from other books. He gives the reader insights into what authors did in their books that you may have never noticed before. This

Seasons in American literature are often not what they seem. Yes in some instances they are literal and mean what you think. In Thomas C. Foster’s book How To Read Literature Like A professor, He mentions that “sometimes the season is not mentioned specifically or immediately”(Foster 187). This is true, more often than not, seasons have hidden meanings in literature. These hidden meanings quite often symbolize an array of different things. But, what does each season symbolize?

In the novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster discloses to the readers the significance of the communion of food, which can be applied to the journey Pi experiences in the novel Life of Pi. Foster manages to portray the significance of the communion of food by explaining that “whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion” (Foster 8). Communion can not only be religious, but it can also be an act of understanding a character’s relationship with other characters.

Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor begins with an introduction that provides a framework for the next five chapters. The author explains that any story can fit into a general, archetypical theme, and he spends the first five chapters of his book speaking on these critically prevalent themes.

In Thomas C. Foster’s novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster describes the aspects of a quest in literature as: “a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials en route, and a real reason to go there,” (Foster 3). These aspects can be applied to many forms of literature and media. For example, in the theatrical adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the aspects of a quest are present. In this case the quester would be Harry Potter, the place to go would be the Mirror of Erised, the stated reason to go there would be to protect the Philosopher’s Stone from Professor Snape, the challenges and trials en route would be the three headed dog (along with the other trials such

In this chapter, the concept of a quest is presented to the reader. Aspects found in a quest include; the quester, destination, stated purpose, trials, and the “real” purpose. An important concept seen in many works of literature is the concept that the real

When a novel is revealing, witty and whimsical it unlocks the hidden truths about literature as discussed in the book How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster. This book is written in second person so the reader can experience Foster’s personality that is directed towards them. A reader is given a fresh and clear perception on literature to understand what is being read. Foster clarifies the way writers uses symbols and themes. He believes by analyzing the deeper meaning in literature will help foster a better reader.

this book was to show the reader how to look at literature through a wide eye. To see

The author states in this chapter that the actual goal of the character, the quest, is not the actual point of the story. The point is to actually see how the character changes and develops. This has lead me to the conclusion that literature cannot truly be enjoyed by a reader without good characters. The human experience and growth is what calls for a quest and in the end fulfills it. We, the readers, do not care about the objects or the scenery in literature. We care about how it impacts, reflects, or relates to the character. This is why by the end of most quest based stories, as the author puts it, “We hear less and less” about the stated goal. Now it isn’t always that the goal decreases in importance to the protagonist, like in

Throughout the story “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” Thomas C. Foster describes to read the many different ways to read and look at the many different stories in a completely different way. Foster tells the reader that in literature the same concepts pop up in and out the different novels that were written throughout the years. He writes about how symbolism is everywhere and everything in literature. How the different types of religion impact how things are interpreted and read, like the Bible or greek mythology. In Foster’s novel he allows readers to fully understand and gain the ability to read all types of literature in a way where they can interpret all of the meanings inside of it.