How to Read Literature Like a Professor Chapters 1-5

Introduction

The author cites an incident from one of his literature classes. It involves his students’ incredulity at his statement that Mr. Lindner, a mild-mannered man, from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, represents the devil. The author asserts this as he compares the situation in the play to a Faustian Bargain, which involves a deal with the devil in exchange for a soul. 

The author expresses the student’s disbelief and doubts about whether the scenario in the play can actually be compared to a Faustian Bargain. He goes on to explain that literature is a language like much else. It has a grammar that represents a set of rules, visible to a literature professor while it may not be apparent to a lay reader. He asserts that while most people tend to look at a novel just as a story, the professor recognizes the structure, themes, and symbols in literature.

He explains that the three most important aspects of reading like a professor include memory, symbol, and pattern. He goes on to explain how each of them is applied to understand the literature at a deeper level. Through the book, he hopes to help the reader reach a point whereby they can independently carry out an analysis of literature.

Chapter 1

Every trip is a quest

Consider the example of a kid, Kip, who is sent to the store for some bread. On the way, he meets fierce dogs, a girl who has rejected him, the guy she’s now going out with, and his fierce green car. Kip gets to the store but tries to join the army instead of buying the bread. The professor explains that this represents the quest of a knight (Kip) who meets a princess, a nemesis, trials, and a dragon. Some say that this is a stretch but the author breaks down the concept of a quest to better elucidate his point. He explains that a quest must have a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go, and the real reason for the trip. 

He then breaks down The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, to explain why the story represents a quest. According to the author, the novel is about the female protagonist's discovery of her own identity more than the surface level story which deals with her execution of a will for a stamp collector. He corroborates this viewpoint by noting how few times the protagonist mentions the stated reason for her travel near the conclusion of the book. 

He adds that while journeys generally indicate a quest, there are always exceptions to the norm since authors are always motivated to break conventions. According to the author, it is important to pay attention whenever a character sets out on a journey. 

Chapter 2

Nice to eat with you: Acts of Communion

The author cites an account of someone remarking about the phallic nature of the cigars that Sigmund Freud was so very fond of. Freud had replied that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The author agrees and asserts that the opposite can also be true. He states that “whenever people eat or drink together, it is communion.”

He elaborates that the term doesn’t necessarily allude to the Christian ritual but rather has several literary meanings. The act of sharing food is so notoriously difficult to write due to its mundane nature and is generally used to demonstrate how the characters like or dislike each other. There are several examples cited. The first is that of an eating scene from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, in which the eating was used to represent intercourse due to the taboo on sex during those times.

Another example is that of Cathedral, by Raymond Carver. The protagonist of the story is a bigot and has trouble dealing with the physically challenged. The protagonist is forced to sit down for a dinner with his wife and her blind friend. He slowly begins to overcome his prejudice as he shares a meal with the blind man and later smokes with him. Both of these acts indicate that the characters are together since eating is a sign of peace, most of the time.

He then explains what occurs when a meal doesn’t go as planned, and the author cites first the example of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler. In the story, the mother tried to arrange a meal with all of her family members but continually fails to do so. The meal finally occurs in the form of her funeral.

The last cited example is that of James Joyce’s The Dead. The exquisite details of the meal represent the tension between the characters. However, the conclusion of the meal leads to a general feeling that they are together, and as they watch the snow, the meal begins to appear like a celebration of life contrary to the story’s title.

Chapter 3

Can I eat you?

The author discusses the figure of Dracula and its significance in literature. He describes Dracula as an alluring being that takes the blood of virginal women and abandons them to a life of sin. This character can essentially be described as a charming, evil, older man that preys on innocent women. While the figure of the vampire does serve to scare the reader, it tends to be about more than just the vampire itself. In Victorian times, gothic elements generally stood in for sexuality which was a taboo then. 

The author goes on to state that there are other stories in which the ghost or element of spookiness is more alarming when it remains invisible or in an unrecognizable form. Henry James is considered the master of psychological realism, and the author cites his story The turn of the screw as an example. The story involves a governess that smothers children with protectiveness in an attempt to defend them from possession by a notorious ghost. The presence of the ghost is never established and the story can be interpreted from different perspectives. 

Daisy Miller is another story by the same author which involves the death of the protagonist due to vampires. Although, the vampires in this story are the society represented in Winterbourne. Daisy is drained of her energy and virtue by the older and more conservative winterbourne. The author concludes that Vampires are essentially about exploitation, a phenomenon that is couched in the novels of several stories.

Chapter 4

If it’s square, it’s a sonnet.

The author explains that he generally only ever teaches his students about the sonnet since it is one of the most prevalent forms of poetry. He argues that although there are several forms of poems, the other forms are rare and so the average reader need not learn about them.

Sonnets can easily be identified by looking at the structure since it always forms a square. Sonnets have 14 lines, and most lines have 10 syllables which in the English language is about 14 lines. The author explains that although a poem's actual content is of prime importance, the structure of the sonnet lends poetry form. He goes on to explain that most major forms of the sonnet have two content units, one of eight lines and one of six. Other forms of sonnets include the Petrarchan sonnet and Shakespeare’s Sonnet.

The author then uses the example of Christina Rosetti’s “An Echo From Willow-Wood.” And reminds the reader that the right way to read such a poem is by focusing on the periods and not the lines. The sentence and the paragraph remain the chief ways of conveying information to the reader. The first period in the poem marks the end of the first content unit. 

Chapter 5

Now, where have I seen her before?

The author uses the analogy of dots that children have to connect to form pictures, a practice very similar to finding references in a work of literature. It is established that there is no such thing as an original story since the writer consciously or unconsciously draws from other stories. This is not to be confused with plagiarism since the story might be new but certain elements, characters or structures may be reminiscent of other works. The author cites the example of Going after Caccatio by Tim O’Brien. It is a book about soldiers involved with the Vietnam war yet it has sequences that almost directly reference Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. He then explains that more important than the reference to Alice in wonderland is the reference to the story of Sacajawea through the character of Sarkin Aung Wan. The author explains that the understanding of the character develops with the resalization of the reference to Sacajawea.

The author explains that essentially there is only one story, and the novels we read form a part of it. He uses an analogy of a barrel of eels that represent past works, and a new piece of writing is made from those eels and returns to be one of them. 

As to the utility of being able to identify these elements of reference, the author believes that it adds to the experience of the reading since it allows you to identify and even anticipate the narrative. Some authors can use this ability of the reader to reference other texts to create a more engaging experience. The example of Wise Children by Angela Carter uses the reader’s understanding of Shakespeare to lead and tangle the audience. 

Analysis

Foster demonstrates his understanding of the skepticism that literature students have towards analysis. In the introduction, he provides a detailed roadmap to the analysis of Mr. Lindner's character and presents evidence to support the assertion that he is the devil. Throughout the course of the book, Foster propagates a deeper style of reading that involves the active application of the reader's imagination rather than just passively consuming the writer's words. He also describes a literature student's inability to grasp the analysis as a communication problem. Thus he asserts that literature analysis has more to do with a professor's understanding of the language of reading rather than a difference in intelligence.

Kip's quest to purchase wonderbread is a great means of explaining intertextuality as it demonstrates the common features between the story of a young man and that of a knight from the medieval period. This example demonstrates that irrespective of the alien setting in a story, the symbols continue to have universal meanings that may be more relevant than we first perceive them to be. The example of Cathedral demonstrates the differences between a surface-level reading and a deeper one. The first kind of reading only allows the reader to see a bigoted man change his mind about his prejudice, while a deeper reading allows the reader to understand and mark the process as the protagonist begins to reevaluate his views. Another example is that of the Turn of the Screw which is used to elucidate the same point. A surface-level reading of the story would cause a reader to fixate on discovering the presence or absence of the ghost. On the other hand, a deeper reading would cause us to understand that the question about the ghost's existence is irrelevant, and thus be focused on analyzing the themes presented in the story.