How to Read Literature Like a Professor Chapters 26 - Envoi

Chapter 26

Is he serious? And other Ironies

The author claims that irony trumps everything else that has been discussed so far. And then explains irony and symbolism by way of signifier and signified pairs, the former are objects, words, or events that point at the latter. In symbolism, the association between signifiers and signified pairs is well understood although it is never fixed as authors often choose to shift the meaning of symbols. Examples of symbolism include the use of rivers to represent change, and the season of spring for rejuvenation. In irony, the generally agreed-upon meaning of symbols is subverted and used to indicate opposite meanings, for instance, T.S. Elliot refers to April (spring) as the cruelest month in The wasteland. This is ironic because, in Literature, Spring has oftentimes been associated with hope.

He discusses the work of Samuel Beckett, an Irish playwright who has earned the title of the Poet of Stasis. In his play Waiting for Godot, characters stand beside a road and complain about their unchanging lives without ever thinking about the potential of the waiting road.

He explains that irony can be intimidating for many readers and in some cases escalate to conflicts. He cites the example of the fatwa that was issued against Salman Rushdie for his book the Satanic Verses. He concludes that Irony isn’t just difficult for readers to interpret but rather difficult for a writer to create since it involves an intricate understanding of a reader’s expectations to subvert them effectively.

Chapter 27

A Test Case

The author asks the reader to explore The Garden Party, a short story by Katherine Mansfield. The story follows Laura, a young woman from an upper-class family, who finds out about the death of a man from the lower class as she is helping her mother prepare for a garden party. She attempts to have the party stopped but her family members tell her that the lower class families do not expect the upper-class families to make such sacrifices for them. Laura then becomes distracted as people compliment her on the new hat that she had been given by her mother. After the party, Laura takes a basket of leftover food from the party and descends to the houses of the lower-class families. She is particularly affected by the red and swollen face of the man’s relative and even sees the dead body. However, her reaction to the dead body is rather anticlimactic.

Foster then discusses the meaning of the story and gives a brief overview of the author’s background, about how she died early due to tuberculosis, and that she was a friend of D. H. Lawrence. He then outlines some views expressed by students from his classes, and the first student view focuses on the evident tension between the social classes, and the indifference of the upper-class characters to the suffering of the impoverished. Through the course of the story, the reader comes to understand the confusion that Laura experiences, as she seeks to find an answer through Laurie, her brother. Another student focuses on the prevalence of birds in the story and suggests that Laura is a young bird learning to fly, and her visit to the cottages of the lower classes signifies her first flight. By the end of the story, Laura’s flight ends with her adopting the same lofty opinion as to the other members of her family and her dismissal of the concerns she had for the poor dead man and his family. The author explains that though this second view is not completely accurate in his opinion, yet it is an excellent analysis of the story. Foster concludes that the views expressed by the students were too focused on the actual events of the story itself, while this is an acceptable means of analysis there should also be a focus on the story’s spiritual level of being.

He then discusses the noumenal level of the story and compares Laura’s journey to the cottages of the lower classes to that of Persephone to the underworld. Foster chooses to focus on the word 'garden' instead of 'party' and supports his claim by pointing out the descriptions of the garden and the food against those for the dark and smoky cottages of the lower classes. The author also compares Laura’s mother to Demeter, a Greek goddess associated with agriculture, and the mother of the Greek goddess Persephone. The story about Persephone’s descent into the underworld represents maturation into female adulthood, a parallel that can be drawn between that story, and that of Laura’s.

Postlude

The author discusses the challenge of verifying whether an analysis of symbols can be considered accurate and ultimately concludes that it is nearly impossible to do so. However, he emphasizes that as readers, the text is the ultimate authority, and not the author who penned it. Therefore, the reader ought not to worry about whether an author had intentionally created a symbol, but only consider how they interpret the text. He cites Death of the Author by Roland Barthes, which depicted the figurative death of an author as a metaphor for the author's lack of authority on the finished work. He then ends the book by stating that the reader should be confident in interpreting texts and could now probably analyze literature like a professor.

Envoi

Foster explains that an Envoi is a ritual of farewell that is practiced when someone sets out on a journey or a mission. He dedicates his Envoi to the reader and clarifies that the book covers a small portion of the wide variety of techniques used in Literature analysis. However, he assures the reader that the techniques they have learned in the book are sufficient for the analysis of most texts. He adds that the reader now has a rudimentary understanding of literary analysis, one that they can now develop on their own with a little research. He concludes that at the end of it all, reading should be fun, and analysis should feel like a game.

Analysis

Chapter 26 focuses on irony and expresses Foster's opinion that Irony trumps everything. Many scholars have noted that the present times are particularly suited to irony since artists from before the 20th century exhausted most creative options, so the artists of today are left with little else besides irony. Through the course of the chapter, we come to understand that surface-level reading does not allow us to accurately detect the use of irony since we are likely to be distracted by the flow of the story during such a reading. On the other hand, when practicing deeper reading, the reader can identify the uses of irony easily and more accurately. The author presents a short story at the end of the book to help the reader practice the techniques covered in the book, and there are indeed many clues about the symbols used in the short story throughout the book.

The Garden Party is very obviously about class tensions, as the characters' social status is highlighted as a central aspect of the story. On the other hand, the story is also about the cusp of adulthood which is indicated in the way Laura attempts to talk authoritatively with the workmen but later cannot help herself from having the freshly delivered cream puffs. The story has a rather anticlimactic and ironic ending, as Laura fails to react in an expected manner at the sight of the dead body.