Examples Of How To Read Literature Like A Professor

Ryan Abbott

6th Period

8/20/15

How to Read Literature Like a Professor and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are Connected a lot More than You Might Think There is only one word that ties everything together in a story: connections. That is how piece of literature is formed. According to Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor, everything is connected. How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book that explains concepts and patterns found in stories. Can Foster's ideas apply to novels? Of course they can. A novel is a form of literature, isn't it? Ken Kesey's One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest has several examples that relate to Foster's teachings. Some of these examples are so obvious that you can't miss-well for me-to relate

Throughout the novel McMurphy is has to overcome challenges that Nurse Ratched places in front of him. Chief Bromden tells us that "a seam runs across his nose and one cheekbone....and [Chief Bromden sees] how beat up his hands are" (Kesey 12) as he analyzes McMurphy arrival to the ward. Foster refers to scars as "indicators of the damage life inflicts" and "character differentiation" (Foster 195). This is spot on correct and do you want to know why? It's because McMurphy tells the others that he was sent to ward in order to be excused from the work he hated. His scars also inform us, you guessed it, that McMurphy is different from the other patients in the ward in a sense that the damages of life have toughened him up as opposed to other the patients who are very weak minded and subservient. This is shown to us throughout the book by the fact that McMurphy is the one who opposes Nurse Ratched's tyrannical rule while the other patients just follow his

At first look it just looks like a bunch patients going on a fishing trip, but we know by now that it's never that simple. After all, Foster told us that "the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge"(Foster 3). McMurphy hopes that the fishing trip will make the others realize that they are still human, still men, still deserving of some of life's simple pleasures, and deserving of being out of Nurse Ratched's iron fisted control. Having a little fun outside of Nurse Ratched's control will help the patients remember who they are. This is exemplified by Chief Bromden when he recalls a memory and states that "it was the first time in what seemed to me centuries that I'd been able to remember much about my childhood"(Keser 215). Chief Bromden remembers to a time before he had to pretend to be deaf and mute. To a time before Nurse Ratched and all the fog. Now I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like discovery about ones-self. Another example of one of the patients rediscovering who they are is when Billy starts up a friendship with a prostitute named Candy. While under Nurse Ratched's influence, the only woman who Billy loved was his mother, but while on the fishing trip he starts to realize that he deserves some of the pleasures of being life and being human. Therefore, we can easily surmise that the fishing is more than a trip to catch fish, but instead it's a trip for the patients to realize what means to be human