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1-Page PDF Summary of How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Practice you lot want to learn to become more out of the novels you read? Are you interested in learning how authors communicate through literary devices similar symbols, archetypes, and allusions?

How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a crash course in the art of reading intelligently. In this volume, yous'll learn how to identify common literary conventions and gain the skills necessary to analyze them similar a professor would. You'll detect why Goose had to die in Top Gun and why sexual practice scenes aren't e'er about sex activity in literature.

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For example, Ernest Hemingway used the title The Sun Also Rises, which alludes to a passage from the Bible that is about hope and life's endless cycle. Only Hemingways' book is well-nigh hopelessness—it's about infertility and the feeling that the futurity will never come. Hemingway's ironic biblical reference is meant to highlight a primal theme for the reader.

Symbol

When yous read with a symbolic mind, you constantly look for metaphors and analogies. You not only see things for what they actually are, but also what they might represent.

Common symbols and their associations:

  • Vampires, ghosts, and monsters correspond the darker side of reality.
  • Flying represents freedom.
  • Weather illustrates a novel'southward atmosphere and themes.
    • Pelting represents cleansing, regeneration, or misery.
    • Fog represents confusion.
    • Snow represents inhospitality or coziness, depending on the story.
  • Seasons are symbols for a character'southward age, his place in the cycle of life, or his emotional state.
    • Winter is the season of anger, unhappiness, old historic period, and death.
    • Spring is the season of naivety, possibility, birth, and childhood.
    • Summer is the season of honey, passion, and machismo.
    • Fall is the flavor of tiredness, reflection, personal harvest, and middle age.

Some symbols in literature are less ordinarily used, even unique to a particular novel or author. While it is more challenging to interpret the significant of a symbol you've never seen earlier, you can still describe on your experiences with previous works of literature as a guide.

And symbols aren't always objects. Some deportment that are usually used as symbols are:

  • Violence: Acts of violence in literature are always a symbol for some greater kind of personal or societal suffering.
  • Sex: Authors include sex scenes in a novel when they are trying to illuminate other themes, such every bit submission, rebellion, or fertility.

When interpreting symbols in literature, think of information technology as an imaginative and intellectual exercise. In order to read like a professor, you have to be able to look beyond the symbol and draw conclusions about how the themes of the novel could be represented there.

Example of Symbol: Passage to India

In E. M. Forster's A Passage to Republic of india, a progressive woman named Adela is taken on an outing to the Marabar Caves past an Indian homo named Dr. Aziz. In the cave, Adela has a disruptive feel. She runs out of the caves bruised and scared, feeling as though she's been assaulted. She later discounts her own story, unable to be sure of what transpired in those caves.

The mysterious caves in the story are clearly symbols—but that's the only affair that's clear about them. Readers can infer a variety of meanings from the caves. Hither are simply a few:

  • Considering caves as the dwellings of our earliest ancestors, you might read the caves equally a symbol of the most primitive elements of human being nature. Maybe Adela was scared when confronted with the most basic chemical element of her ain nature.
  • Perchance Forster was implying that every person's cave is different. Throughout the beginning of the novel, the caves are simply described very vaguely, as though they must be seen to be understood. The reader could interpret the caves every bit continuing for our own, individual fears.
  • Adela'southward cavern could symbolize her fearfulness of matrimony and sex. She is on the cusp of an arranged wedlock and comes out of the cave feeling equally though she has been assaulted. Perhaps this is a symbol of her feeling the spousal relationship is being thrust on her.
  • The caves could exist a racial or cultural symbol in some style.

A Passage to India is a great work of literature considering of its networks of possible meanings and significance. The fact that every reader tin can bring his own experience to the book and come away with a different interpretation of the caves speaks to the power of its symbols.

Design

When you read to observe patterns, you recognize the similarities between life and books. You await beyond the plot to come across how the drama and characters illustrate a truth of human feel.

Ane of the main benefits of the similarities and connections betwixt literary works is the emergence of archetypes. "Archetype" really just means "pattern," or the original on which that pattern was based.

Common archetypes and their associations:

  • The Quest
    • Whatsoever time a character goes on a trip and learns about herself along the way, that is a quest narrative.
  • Meals
    • Any time characters come together to share a meal, that is an act of communion.
  • Sacrifice of Secondary Characters
    • Many secondary characters or sidekicks die in the course of a story. This is a mutual blueprint employed past authors to create the need for revenge.
  • Political and Social Criticism
    • Any story that includes a consideration of the class relations, ability structures, sex and race relations, or ethical dilemmas of its time is a political criticism.
  • Baptism
    • Whatsoever fourth dimension a character emerges from water in which they near drowned, it is a symbolic baptism. That character has been reborn with a new identity.
  • Injuries and Disabilities
    • Scars: Physical deformities are given to characters to marking them as different.
    • Blindness: If yous see a blind character in a story, know that the writer is alerting you to the theme of sight and incomprehension—insight and ignorance.
    • Disease: Authors requite characters illnesses that symbolically highlight their own moral or emotional shortcomings.

Example of Pattern: The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon follows the blueprint of a quest narrative. In the novel, a immature woman named Oedipa travels from San Francisco to Southern California to execute the will of her former lover. Along the mode, Oedipa meets a lot of foreign and scary characters and ends up in a lot of unsafe situations. By the end, Oedipa has learned to rely on herself and trust her own self-noesis.

In this novel, Thomas Pynchon presents an example of a archetype quest narrative because there is a young quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, and an alternative mission fulfilled: the quest for self-knowledge

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Advice for Readers

Now that you have a sense of how to employ memory, interpret symbols, and recognize archetypes in literature, y'all are almost fix to outset reading similar a professor.

Some other advice for the intelligent reader:

  • Irony changes everything.
    • When an author turns your expectations of mutual literary devices upside down, that is called irony. In that instance, forget everything you've learned in this volume. Irony makes it all irrelevant.
  • Don't worry near the writer'south intentions.
    • Unless the author has spoken or written almost their work, there is no way to know whether they purposely injected allusions, symbols, and archetypes into the story. Use your instincts and trust what you discover in the text.
  • At that place'due south no such affair as being correct.
    • When discussing literature with others or merely analyzing it for yourself, you will never be able to definitively prove your theories. All y'all can practice is look for evidence in the text.

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PDF Summary What It Means to Read Literature Like a Professor

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  • Case: Watching Stake Rider starring Clint Eastwood might make you retrieve of the movie Shane from 1953.

Symbol: When y'all read with a symbolic heed, you lot constantly look for metaphors and analogies. You not only run across things for what they actually are, but as well what they might represent.

  • Example: The monster in Beowulf is not simply an actual monster, but too a representation of the dark side of human nature which can only be overcome by achieving a higher version of ourselves.

Pattern: When you read to observe patterns, you recognize the similarities between life and books. Yous expect across the plot to see how the drama and characters illustrate a truth of human experience.

  • Non-literary example: A expert car mechanic can use pattern recognition to diagnose a auto. They tin see that if these things are happening, it is probably caused by this. Then they know to check that.

The combination of using retentivity, identifying symbols, and recognizing patterns allows the reader to analyze literature in a new light. If you ignore memory, symbols, and patterns in literature, you volition not exist able to appreciate a book for everything that it says...

PDF Summary Memory: Compare Texts

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For case, in 1 part of Berlin's fantasy, he and his squad fall down a hole in the road. They cease up in an otherworldly network of tunnels. I character even states that they need to fall back up. As a reader, you lot are invited to relate this part of the story to when Alice falls down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

At present that you have made that connection, your reading of the story will be nuanced by that awareness. You might expect that the tunnels the characters find themselves in will be some kind of wonderland for them.

Analyze Intertextuality Like a Professor

Don't worry if y'all aren't able to catch allusions to intertextuality right abroad when reading literature. The worst thing that happens is you miss the references and enjoy a good story anyway.

It takes a lot of practice and cognition of other books to brainstorm to make connections and consciously look for layers beyond the text on the page. When yous do, yous will enrich your reading feel and give yourself the opportunity to run into the way an author might play with your expectations based on literary references.

  • Example: In Wise Children, writer Angela Carter uses...

PDF Summary Symbols Part I: Recognize and Interpret Metaphor

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When interpreting symbols in literature, think of information technology as an imaginative and intellectual do. You should actively bring yourself to the run into with the text. Utilise your instincts near how the text makes you feel, and don't be afraid to use those feelings to infer meaning from symbols. Associate the symbol with everything you can, then toss out the associations that don't seem to apply.

Remember: A symbol'south literal pregnant within the narrative will ever be its primary purpose. The metaphorical pregnant is secondary to that. If a novel is unsuccessful at telling the story, no amount of symbolism will modify that. On the other hand, if a novel presents a great story and a variety of figurative symbols and imagery, that is the sign of a keen slice of literature.

Example: A Passage to India

In Due east. M. Forster'south A Passage to India, a progressive woman named Adela is taken on an outing to the Marabar Caves by an Indian man named Dr. Aziz. In the cave, Adela has a confusing experience. She runs out of the caves hobbling and scared, feeling as though she's been assaulted. She later discounts her own story, unable to exist sure of what transpired in those...

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PDF Summary Symbols Part 2: The Symbolic Significance of Setting

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  • Restoration: Pelting tin bring nature back to life and restore new growth.
  • Rainbows: Rainbows symbolize a divine peace—a harmony betwixt God, people, and nature.

Of course, other weather has associations, besides.

  • Fog is a symbol of confusion. When an writer puts fog over a scene, information technology shows that things are ethically, mentally, or emotionally murky.
  • Snow can symbolize inhospitality, starkness, severity. On the other hand, snow is sometimes used to invoke playful, warm, and cozy images.

There are too many possibilities for conditions to encompass in one book. The most important thing is to acquire to see atmospheric condition as something to analyze as a purposeful choice on the part of the author.

Geography

Every time an writer sits down to write a story, one of the first questions he asks himself is where will this story take place? An intelligent reader volition recognize the geography of a novel as a conscious option on the author'due south part to deepen the story'southward significant.

In literature, geography is not only most the earth's physical features, like hills, rivers, and seas. **Literary geography is about the means in which a specific place forges the people who...

PDF Summary Symbols Office III: Actions as Symbols

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As a reader, of course, we see Eunice's violence toward herself as a literal act of personal despair. But Faulkner also challenges usa to see it as a powerful metaphor for the lack of humanity in slavery. Eunice has no control over her ain life or the life she brings into the world. The only pick she is given is the choice to die.

The title Go Downwards, Moses helps the reader grasp this metaphor. In the Bible, Moses is asked to "go downward" and "fix my people complimentary" from Egypt. In the story, no one appears to go down and ready Eunice free. Therefore, she has to set herself free in the merely mode she's able.

Sex

In literature, sex and sexuality are used symbolically in 2 different ways:

  1. Encoded sex: The author uses symbolic imagery to imply sex in a scene, but the reader never sees the sexual act have place.
  2. Explicit sex: The writer uses a sexual activity scene to symbolize a larger theme in the story.

Encoded Sex

Sexual practice is often disguised in literature and in film. At first, the master reason for sexual symbolism was censorship. Artists were not immune to describe sex on the page or on screen, so they had to find other ways of getting the indicate across.

  • ...

PDF Summary Patterns Part I: Know the Archetypes, Find Them Everywhere

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In this novel, Thomas Pynchon presents an example of a archetype quest narrative.

Structurally, every quest consists of

  • A quester: In this case, Oedipa, a young woman with many problems in her life
  • A place to get: San Francisco
  • A stated reason to become there: To execute a volition
  • Challenges along the way: Oedipa goes through a nightlong exploration, a dangerous visit to her therapist'due south part, and a mysterious postal conspiracy
  • The real mission: The existent reason behind any quest is the search for self-knowledge

The stated reason to proceed a quest is often in search of a "holy grail." This can be as simple as going to the store to go a loaf of staff of life. Throughout the quest, the stated goal falls away and the real mission is revealed: the character learns about himself.

Questers are often immature, inexperienced characters. This is considering older characters would either already have self-knowledge or be besides late to e'er go it. In comparison, young characters have a lot of learning and evolution left to practice.

(Shortform notation: For more than on the quest classic and the hero's journey, read our summary of Joseph Campbell's _[The Hero with a Thousand...

PDF Summary Patterns Function II: The Injured Character Archetype

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Blindness

Writing a blind character into a story comes with a lot of complications to the author—such as how the character will motion around and be a part of the narrative. For that reason, when you run into blindness in a novel, accept notice. A bullheaded character is a sign that themes of metaphorical blindness, sight, or insight will exist issues in the work.

Many novels have themes of blindness versus sight, but not all of them take a blind character. So why exercise some authors feel the need to add together a blind character into their writing? Simply put, to make the theme more obvious for the reader.

In one case you come across a blind grapheme in a novel, you'll instinctively look out for metaphorical blindness, likewise. As a result, you lot'll exist more observant of the linguistic communication and imagery that the author uses to describe that theme throughout the story.

  • Example: In James Joyce'due south Araby, the very first sentence contains the word "bullheaded." That alerts the reader to exist on the lookout for other references to incomprehension versus sight. Throughout the story, the primary character is using his sight in unlike ways: peeking out from behind "blinds," being "blinded" by his own tears, and mentally...

PDF Summary Advice for Readers

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  • Structural or dramatic irony: The writer goes against the reader'due south expectations of the plot or the overall structure of a story.
    • Example: In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, two characters stand by the side of a route for the entire play. As we know, roads are normally associated with trips, and trips normally propose a quest. But Beckett's characters never go anywhere and the road never brings anything to them, either. Because Beckett knows the reader'due south expectations of a road, he has the freedom to do the opposite and create irony.

Read With an Open Mind

In club to read like a professor, you lot'll have to acquire to read without your own biases and the fixed position of being you in the year that you are in. Instead, you lot should try to read every novel equally it was intended to exist read.

Every bit a reader, you should remain open up-minded plenty that you lot tin can sympathize with the historical moment in which a novel was written. And sometimes the social, historical, or cultural background of that novel volition clash with what you know or feel to be true.

For case, Greek epics have many unsympathetic qualities, similar concubines and violent slaughter. But in that location are...

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PDF Summary Your Plow to Read Like a Professor

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Laura's hazard down the colina mirrors Persephone's trip to Hades in many ways:

  • When Laura crosses the broad road at the bottom of the loma, it is reminiscent of crossing the River Styx into Hades.
  • Hades has a three-headed dog at the gate, and Laura meets a dog at the gate in front of the dead man's business firm.
  • The Golden Bough, which is the admission ticket into Hades in the myth, is replaced past the gold daisies on Laura'due south hat.
  • In the myth, Persephone comes beyond a woman named Sibyl, who has a cavern total of written oracles. In Mansfield'due south story, Laura meets an old woman who has newspapers at her anxiety.
  • Laura's brother, Laurie, is a representation of Hermes from the myth. In the myth, Hermes escorts Persephone out of Hades in a chariot. In this story, Laurie comes to selection up Laura from the expressionless human being'south house.
  • Theme: The myth of Persephone is near a immature woman acquiring knowledge of decease. The same could certainly exist said well-nigh "The Garden Party."

If y'all didn't make any of these associations in your reading of the story, that's okay. If yous understood the story in terms of what actually transpired in the plot, y'all accept nevertheless gotten something out of it....