How to Read Literature like a Professor Notes

Conventions In stones Types of characters Plot rhythms Chapter structures Point-of-view limitations Chapter 1 Every Trip is a Quest (Except When Its Not) The modestness for a quest Is always self-knowledge The stated reason is never the actual reason to go on a quest, the real reason for a quest is self-knowledge. Most of the time, when a piece of literature involves someone going somewhere and doing something, it is a quest. Chapter 2 Nice to Eat You Acts of Communion Whenever good deal eat or drink together, its communionSharing a meal Is a very personal thing (you wouldnt have a meal someone you hated). Food Is a universal thing that we as humans sh ar. In Cathedral a man who hated people with disabilities bonded to a man who was blind over food. Chapter 5 Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before? There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature All authors suck up inspiration from previous works. In Going After Cacciatore, Tim OBrien pulls inspiration from Lewis Carols Alice In Wonderland when he has his character saying that they have to fall up to get out, onto Vetting tunnel.Authors excessively use historical Inspiration. OBrien models the main characters lover interest after Showcases (a brown-skinned young women guiding a group of mostly white men, speaking a manner of speaking they dont know, knowing where to go, where to find food, and taking them west) There is only one story. Chapter 9 Its All Greek to Me Myth Is the body of story that matters Greek and Roman myths are so Ingrained Into our consciousness that we dont realize how apparent they are. Like in William Carols Williams painting Landscape with Fall of Cirrus.Without the legs sticking out of the water in that devising the painting that much less popular. Chapter 12 Is That A Symbol If its not symbolism, its allegory Symbols are personal things We want It to mean one thing, but Is hopeless because then the novel ceases to be what it is, a network of meanings and signification. Meaning doesnt lie of the surface of the novel. Authors may have the same object mean a variation of things. Pay attention to how you feel about the text. It probably means something. Interlude Does He Mean That?