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

In the introduction of Thomas C. Foster’s book, How to Read Literature like a Professor, Foster explains how professors think differently while being compared to beginning readers. He says that professors think symbolically and that “Everything is a symbol... until proven otherwise.” What Foster means by symbolism is seeing things “as existing in themselves while simultaneously also representing something else.” That means you have to think further than just what the author says and take it out of the book. Foster also brings up that beginning readers are usually overwhelmed by all the detail put into a book. To fix this overwhelming feeling, you have to see and think in “Memory, symbol, pattern.” You have to practice finding these ways of

To Foster, a quest contains: “a knight, Holy Grail, a dangerous road, one or more dragons, a princess, and at least one evil knight.” For the ease of his readers, Foster breaks down what a quest needs in a certain format: “A. a quester, B. a place to go, C. a stated reason to go there, D. challenges and trials en route, E. a real reason to go there.” He explains and says why there are two reasons in the structure of quests, and he says “The real reason for a quest never involves the stated reason.” You’ve got to think deeper to figure out why the character does what they do. Quests can help the author tremendously develop the characterization to further help us either understand the book, or for us to even come closer to the person, to make them more realistic. Foster adds, “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.” This gives us our answer why we need

This advice is that no matter how hard their life is during the book with all the things they have to go through, you might as well be them. Authors usually don’t kill off the heroes. It’s always their best friend or someone really close to them. Even though change still happens and can be fatal, it doesn’t really apply to the main character. If authors killed off the main character, usually the story would end. The friend usually dies because they put their life ahead of the hero’s. This is because they don’t have the abilities or powers the hero does. Foster says when the friend dies “Then we get drama, death, and guilt, the movie trifecta.” If the hero were to die, we wouldn’t see the vital change rewarded after the climax. Also if the hero were to die, there wouldn’t be as much feeling and attachment towards the book. That feeling always comes from us. Foster says “Characters are products of writer’s imagination and the reader’s imaginations.” We care about the characters because they fill in the empty spaces of our lives and help where we need it the most. We normally get too attached to the characters and sometimes overthink how closely they are related to us, but Foster says that we need to keep in mind that “If it’s not in the text, it doesn’t exist.” Foster continues his book with symbolism. He says that even though it may be tricky, there’s really no wrong answer, if that’s what it means to you