Analysis Of How To Read Literature Like A Professor By Thomas C. Foster

“Sometimes a meal is just a meal, and eating with others is simply eating with others. More often than not, though, it’s not” (Foster 7). Thomas C. Foster’s book How to Read Literature Like a Professor examines several literary devices and techniques used by authors to make their books interesting, relevant, and genuine. Foster supports many times in his book that authors almost always include certain scenes only if they serve a purpose in their plots and character development. Allusions serve to connect readers to legends, history, and culture while symbols force readers to read past the obvious and use their imaginations to give an object meaning. Foster also writes about why authors include meal scenes in their novels. Whether it is

In reality, two people might eat together for business or to go out on a date. If an author wanted to include either of these instances in his book, he would have to make the conversation or the resolution of the meal relevant to the story’s plot. The business lunch might conclude with a successful negotiation, and the dinner date might be the beginning or the end of a beautiful relationship. A meal scene that ends well, according to Foster, says, “I’m with you, I share this moment with you, I feel a bond of community with you” (Foster 11). On the other hand, a meal that ends in disaster might prove a character’s carelessness, depict an enemy’s cruelty, or begin a fight between characters. All of these examples are necessary to a novel’s plot or characters no matter the outcome of the meal scene and contribute to Foster’s theory that every literary meal scene is an act of

To begin, Charles Bovary is described as an unsophisticated, boorish man, and his bad eating habits further reinforce his clumsiness. The narrator writes, “As he grew older his manner grew heavier; at dessert he cut the corks of the empty bottles; after eating he cleaned his teeth with his tongue; in taking soup he made a gurgling noise with every spoonful; and, as he was getting fatter, the puffed-out cheeks seemed to push the eyes, always small, up to the temples” (Flaubert 43). This characterization of Charles proves to the reader that Charles is uncultured and an embarrassment to Emma. At their wedding, the guests have a variety of food to eat, but the guests cannot eat all of the food. The wedding food may symbolize the future extravagance of Emma’s life that never satisfies her and results in her debts and suicide. Lastly, at the Marquis’s ball, Emma’s dissatisfaction with her middle class lifestyle is apparent when she sees the candelabra, silver dishes, fine linen, and delicacies. It is at this ball that Emma first begins to long for a new life among the wealthy, romantic nobility. All of these instances in Flaubert’s novel prove Emma’s dissatisfaction with her life and Charles’s