How To Read Literature Like A Professor Critical Analysis

Almost every child grows up with the age old moral principle, ‘violence is never the answer’. But is violence occasionally the answer in literature? Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in it’s implications. In the novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, particularly chapter eleven, Thomas C. Foster discusses violence in writing. This can then be connected to acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The elements of violence in Lord of the Flies can be connected to chapter eleven in How to Read Literature Like a Professor through violence. The violence Foster discusses can be related to Lord of the Flies through the two types of violence

Foster, however, categorizes violence in literature into two types, the first being when “the specific injury that authors cause characters to visit on one another or on themselves” (Foster 96). In general, this would include a range of behavior - shootings, stabbings, drowning, poisoning, bombings, starvations, and so forth. Golding expresses this through the killing of Piggy. Known for his intellectual superiority and physical inferiority, Piggy was seen as an outsider on the island. When the boys divide into two opposing groups, Piggy and Ralph are the only ones to side against Jack. The two go to Castle Rock in hopes of negotiating and reasoning with Jack and his reckless choices when a huge rock is pushed from the cliff. It bounded in the air, striking Piggy, leaving his “arms and legs [to twitch] a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed” (Golding 181). Here, Golding uses the type of violence discussed in How to Read Literature Like a Professor where the violence is an action of the characters. The boys physically push the rock off the cliff, leading to Piggy’s demise. While Golding may have written the novel, it was not “fate” that killed Piggy. The boys went through a mental thinking