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.