'How To Read Literature Like A Professor' By Thomas Foster

Bryce Rasbeary

Mrs. Mary smith

AP Literature

22 September 2017

“How to read literature like a professor” Analysis

The author of the novel “How to read literature like a professor”, Thomas foster, talks extensively about the use of symbols in literature. He writes about the ranged use of symbols in most if not all of his chapters. In these chapters he speaks about how the symbols used in literature can be almost anything within the story. They can range from a character going into and emerging from water “reborn” or the use of sex scenes to illustrate points of freedom or a loss of innocence. Foster writes a lot about these symbols which are arguably the most important part of a piece of literature. One of the most common symbols that he

He gives an example of the use of eating as a symbol of understanding from the book “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. In this book the narrator is prejudiced against people with disabilities and sees them as lesser beings than him. However when his wife invites a friend, a blind friend, over for dinner he is not very excited at the prospect of having this man at his table for a meal. However when he sees the man eat he notices that the blind man eats the same way he does, and this connects them in a way that goes beyond his prejudices and bonds them on a level that transcends their physical differences. Foster also uses an excerpt from a book called “Tom Jones” in which a man and his wife are eating a meal at an inn. Foster then goes on to talk about how instead of just eating the meal they “dine at an inn, chomping, gnawing, sucking on bones, licking fingers; a more leering, slurping, groaning”(pg.22). Due to this story being written in the 1700s there was a taboo against writing sex scenes into the novel so the author had to innovate. The author then instead of writing about the two characters having sex in the inn, he instead writes about their meal in a very provocative way that is meant to symbolize sex. Without even once

Foster proves throughout his chapter “It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow” rain can be manipulated in literature to have different effects based on how it is used. He states “One of the paradoxes of rain is how clean it is coming down and how much mud it can make when it lands. So if you want a character to be cleansed, symbolically, let him walk through the rain to get somewhere.” What he means by this is that although rain can be viewed as pure as it falls, once it hits the ground it creates mud which is the opposite of the rain. It also means that in order for a character to be cleansed is to drag themselves through the mud only to have all of the grime and dirtiness be washed away by the rain, the very thing that created it. This is all a symbol for a character having to face their problems, fears, and mistakes head on, and although they may “get dirty” when they crawl through this “mud”, in the end they will be cleansed and the rainstorm will end. Another way that an author can use rain is in the use of a flood. Using a flood dates back all the way to biblical times in