How To Read Literature Like A Professor

Chapter 26- Is He Serious? And Other Ironies

All the meanings and symbols that the whole book was about can be ruined with one simple page of irony. “Irony trumps everything” is what the author wrote to clue that no matter if you read five hundred pages of symbols and meanings they can all be ruined with one sentence of irony and wiped out.

How To Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 23- It’s Never Just Heart Disease

The heart is all emotions. It can be any emotion. So in a book when a character has a heart disease, it’s never just heart disease. Sometimes it could be loneliness or sadness. Pain is a main one also. The characters with heart disease usually are not happy with their lives or angry with something.

Chapter 24- And Rarely Just Illness

Illnesses are never just illnesses. There is always a behind the story or deeper meaning in characters with illnesses. Never will you find a character in a book with an illness for no reason. Most illnesses in movies or in books are physical meaning they affect the characters appearance more than anything else.

Chapter 25- Don’t Read with Your Eyes

The saying hearing but not listening has the same meaning as Reading with your eyes. Anyone can read a book, but actually finding the meaning, symbols, and  details is another story.  

How To Read Literature Like a Professor

Interlde- One Story

Like before everything in u

the world is connected. Whether it’s books to actual life they are based on the same human life. Writing is the same. When an author writes a book the meaning he puts behind the story is the same. He or she made that meaning and there can be many different paths to take to find that meaning.

Chapter 21- Marked for Greatness

When an author makes a character, that character has their own personality. This includes the appearance down to their attitude. The more different and detailed character, the more personality and meaning there is behind that character.

Chapter 22- He’s Blind for a Reason, You Know

Blindness in any character refers to as criminal like. That character usually has committed something or done something bad to deserve blindness. The character usually hunts or tries to find ways to renew their innocence. But it is not always bad. Blindness could also mean innocence.

How To Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 18- If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism

The water is symbolized as rebirth. A person goes in and suffers a traumatic experience and comes out of it alive it is considered rebirth, like a baptism.  Baptism means renewal, changing faith, or death. Death means a development in violence and anger in a character representing the devil.

Chapter 19- Geography Matters

Geography to the untrained eye is hill, mountains, rivers, and lakes. Geography to a writer is the plot, symbols, or character definition. A writer adds politics, history, and or economics to his or her writings is also geography. Geography in a book can reveal all of these and more.

Chapter 20- So Does Season

Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall are all the seasons that have been written about for centuries. They mean so many things like age, time of day, or emotion.  Sometimes they even show a characters point of view on life.

How To Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 15- Flights of Fancy

Humans have been and always will be fascinated by flight, but why? It symbolizes freedom and letting go.  That’s what everyone looks for is to be free or to let go of something holding them back.

Chapter 16- It’s All About Sex

Sex is not actually sex in a story or movie. It is everywhere. The symbols are everywhere. An example would be a lock and key to represent the male and female reproductive parts. Also every human has a way of interpreting how far you want to go with the sex symbols everywhere.

Chapter 17- …Except Sex…

Again sex is not sex. When writing about sex keep it short sweet and to the point. It must have a different meaning like freedom or giving in. the emotions with sex can vary, like sacrifice or anger to pleasure and love.

How To Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 12-Is That a Symbol…

Symbols can be many things, not just people, but objects or emotions. The writers usually have their own way of finding or making their symbols, but it’s up to the reader to find it and interpret what it means or is.

Chapter 13- It’s All Political

Politics is involved in everything. It’s in novels, short stories, and even magazines. The writers secretly put their political view in their writings. You may not see it, but it’s there. Writers also put how society really is or their view of it in their writings. Some views are cruel and show society as hurtful and rude and others show it as kind and gentle.

Chapter 14- Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too

There is usually a character in every book that is a Christ figure. A Christ figure that has followers and has been damaged somehow. The list in the chapter tells these; 1. Crucified, wounds in the hands and feet and head 2. In agony 3. Self- sacrificing 4. Good with children 5. Good with bread, water, fish, or wine 6. 33 years of age when last seen 7. Employed as a carpenter 8. Humble modes of transportation like a donkey 9. Believed to have walked on water 10. Portrayed with arms outstretched 11. Known to have spent time in the wilderness 12. A confrontation with the devil or tempted 13. Last seen in company with thieves 14. Creator of many parables 15. Buried and arose on the third day 16. Had disciples, had twelve at first but 17 later 17. Very forgiving 18. Came to redeem an unworthy world.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 10- It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

 Rain is one of the most talked about subjects in books. It may not be talked about directly but is mentioned and always has a deeper meaning.  Rain with a rainbow usually means something has changed or turned.  Rain in general usually means cleanliness. Weather patterns in books or short stories always have a meaning. It’s your job to find what it is.

Interlude

There are devices and plots. Readers need to dig deeper and find what they mean or what they represent. Its writer’s jobs to hide the little things in books for the readers to find. The harder to find the more interesting the book.

Chapter 11- …More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence

Killing someone to let them go or let them be free is usually the complete opposite of what it means. Killing someone to let them be free means that the person who dies is usually coming back later to have revenge. An injury causes distress or sympathy to the readers. Violence in a book can be intimate and very personal.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 7- …Or the Bible

All books, short stories, or poems have some way of relating to the bible. Like Shakespeare, the bible is a world-wide known book. The stories in the bible are known and usually put into someone else’s own version.  A lot of books may put scriptures or verses in to connect the reader to something they may relate to.

Chapter 8- Hanseldee and Greteldum

Hansel and Gretel the well- known tale of two kids and a witch is the main example for this chapter. What the author talks about in this chapter is putting old tales like Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty  and turning them into modern day stories that people now enjoy. A lot of stories have examples or comparisons to these fairy tales.

Chapter 9- It’s Greek to Me

 Greek mythology is and was big part in everybody’s culture. It had huge influences   on people. There are towns and mascots named after many Greek mythology stories. Myth has so much power in everything. Myth is the body of the story matters, means that everybody is shaped by itit changes our way of seeing by which we read the world and, ultimately ourselves.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 4- If It’s Square, It’s a Sonnet

A sonnet is a square poem with fourteen lines. The author said he could recognize a sonnet just by looking at it and not reading. Sonnets can be hard to write but easy to understand. The more difficult for the writer the more in depth the poem is.

Chapter 5- Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?

Compared to a connect the dots, some kids can see the picture right away while others have to draw before seeing it. The same concept comes with the meanings or plots in a story. Some people cannot see it right away and others have it while reading the first page. There’s only one story. Think about it one story for everyone. Someone writes a book that book adds to the story. That has its discussion points from person to person.

Chapter 6- When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…

Shakespeare, one of the best known play writers ever is debated about whether he even wrote his own plays. His plays had meanings to them that stuck in people’s minds forever. No other writer has ever been able to accomplish what he did. When reading anything it is up to the reader to use their own imagination.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapter 1-Every trip is a Quest

Chapter 1 consisted of telling the reader about a simple story of a boy running to the grocery store for his mother and seeing the girl of his dreams with another guy in his expensive car. It was actually a heroic quest. The boy who is the knight, a dragon (the expensive car), an evil knight (the boy with his girl), and the princess (the girl of his dreams). The author wanted us to think structurally, to dig deeper. The 5 quest structures are our quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials, and the real reason to go.

Chapter 2- Nice to Eat with You Acts of Communion

Eating or dining scenes in a book can be hard to figure out and even hard to write. To break it down they tell us that whenever people eat or drink together, it’s a communion. Not the communion you have heard about in church.  They mean communion with or with words. A classic example would be friends are eating together and another joins them later on. One of the friends dislikes the other and excuses themselves from the table and leaves. This shows that one did not enjoy the other. Maybe they fought before hand or maybe they never knew each other. What the author is getting at is people only eat with others if they are comfortable. Sharing food with another means you like that other and are comfortable around them. An example in the book about a man who was asked to show a blind man what a cathedral looks like. To show the man he would draw it while holding the man hand. The man was uncomfortable with the blind man. He thought this man is so much different from me. They shared a meal together before hand and he realized that they eat and drink the same way. He became more comfortable with him just over a meal.

Chapter 3- Nice to eat with you Acts of Vampires

Dracula, the world famous vampire of any age, luring young woman and taking their life is not the vampirism the author is speaking of. Vampirism is about losing the innocence in anything. An example a young woman longing for the desire of one man. She went out every night trying to get his attention in any way but he never noticed her. After awhile she caught malaria and died. According to the author that is not what actually killed her. Her energy, virtue, and the stripping away of her youth took her to her limits. The man not even knowing took her life. So is he the vampire? The act of vampirism is in almost every book whether it’s little or big.