DISCLAIMER!! READ FIRST!
THESE NOTES WERE FOUND SOMEWHERE ELSE ON THE INTERNET AND I HAVE RE-POSTED THEM HERE FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. (IF YOU READ WHAT I SAID BELOW YOU WOULD KNOW THAT...)
THESE NOTES ARE NOT SPARK NOTES! THEY ARE QUICK BULLETS FOR PEOPLE DOING SUMMER READING "STICKY NOTES" USED BY MANY HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS.
I found these notes on the internet of this book, so I figured I'd share it with you guys. I'm using these notes for sure haha but I would recommend rewriting them differently for your sticky notes, just in case - It might not be good if everyone has the same thing.
Thomas C. Foster
Notes by Marti Nelson
1. Every Trip is a Quest (except when it’s not):
a. A quester
b. A place to go
c. A stated reason to go there
d. Challenges and trials
e. The real reason to go—always self-knowledge
2. Nice to Eat With You: Acts of Communion
a. Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion
b. Not usually religious
c. An act of sharing and peace
d. A failed meal carries negative connotations
3. Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
a. Literal Vampirism: Nasty old man, attractive but evil, violates a young woman, leaves his mark, takes her innocence
b. Sexual implications—a trait of 19th century literature to address sex indirectly
c. Symbolic Vampirism: selfishness, exploitation, refusal to respect the autonomy of other people, using people to get what we want, placing our desires, particularly ugly ones, above the needs of another.
4. If It’s Square, It’s a Sonnet
a. No other poem is so versatile, so ubiquitous, so various, so agreeably short as the sonnet.
b. The over all shape of a sonnet is a square in most cases
5. Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
a. There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature—stories grow out of other stories, poems out of other poems.
b. There is only one story—of humanity and human nature, endlessly repeated
c. “Intertexuality”—recognizing the connections between one story and another deepens our appreciation and experience, brings multiple layers of meaning to the text, which we may not be conscious of. The more consciously aware we are, the more alive the text becomes to us.
d. If you don’t recognize the correspondences, it’s ok. If a story is no good, being based on Hamlet won’t save it.
6. When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…
a. Writers use what is common in a culture as a kind of shorthand. Shakespeare is pervasive, so he is frequently echoed.
b. See plays as a pattern, either in plot or theme or both. Examples:
i. Hamlet: heroic character, revenge, indecision, melancholy nature
ii. Henry IV—a young man who must grow up to become king, take on his responsibilities
iii. Othello—jealousy
iv. Merchant of Venice—justice vs. mercy
v. King Lear—aging parent, greedy children, a wise fool
7. …Or the Bible
a. Before the mid 20th century, writers could count on people being very familiar with Biblical stories, a common touchstone a writer can tap
b. Common Biblical stories with symbolic implications
i. Garden of Eden: women tempting men and causing their fall, the apple as symbolic of an object of temptation, a serpent who tempts men to do evil, and a fall from innocence
ii. David and Goliath—overcoming overwhelming odds
iii. Jonah and the Whale—refusing to face a task and being “eaten” or overwhelmed by it anyway.
iv. Job: facing disasters not of the character’s making and not the character’s fault, suffers as a result, but remains steadfast
v. The Flood: rain as a form of destruction; rainbow as a promise of restoration
vi. Christ figures (a later chapter): in 20th century, often used ironically
vii. The Apocalypse—Four Horseman of the Apocalypse usher in the end of the world.
viii. Biblical names often draw a connection between literary character and Biblical charcter.
8. Hanseldee and Greteldum--using fairy tales and kid lit
a. Hansel and Gretel: lost children trying to find their way home
b. Peter Pan: refusing to grow up, lost boys, a girl-nurturer/
c. Little Red Riding Hood: See Vampires
d. Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz: entering a world that doesn’t work rationally or operates under different rules, the Red Queen, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wizard, who is a fraud
e. Cinderella: orphaned girl abused by adopted family saved through supernatural intervention and by marrying a prince
f. Snow White: Evil woman who brings death to an innocent—again, saved by heroic/princely character
g. Sleeping Beauty: a girl becoming a woman, symbolically, the needle, blood=womanhood, the long sleep an avoidance of growing up and becoming a married woman, saved by, guess who, a prince who fights evil on her behalf.
h. Evil Stepmothers, Queens, Rumpelstilskin
i. Prince Charming heroes who rescue women. (20th c. frequently switched—the women save the men—or used highly ironically)
9. It’s Greek to Me
a. Myth is a body of story that matters—the patterns present in mythology run deeply in the human psyche
b. Why writers echo myth—because there’s only one story (see #4)
c. Odyssey and Iliad
i. Men in an epic struggle over a woman
ii. Achilles—a small weakness in a strong man; the need to maintain one’s dignity
iii. Penelope (Odysseus’s wife)—the determination to remain faithful and to have faith
iv. Hector: The need to protect one’s family
d. The Underworld—an ultimate challenge, facing the darkest parts of human nature or dealing with death
e. Metamorphoses by Ovid—transformation (Kafka)
f. Oedipus: family triangles, being blinded, dysfunctional family
g. Cassandra: refusing to hear the truth
h. A wronged woman gone violent in her grief and madness—Aeneas and Dido or Jason and Medea
i. Mother love—Demeter and Persephone
10. It’s more than just rain or snow
a. Rain
i. fertility and life
ii. Noah and the flood
iii. Drowning—one of our deepest fears
b. Why?
i. plot device
ii. atmospherics
iii. misery factor—challenge characters
iv. democratic element—the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike
c. Symbolically
i. rain is clean—a form of purification, baptism, removing sin or a stain
ii. rain is restorative—can bring a dying earth back to life
iii. destructive as well—causes pneumonia, colds, etc.; hurricanes, etc.
iv. Ironic use—April is the cruelest month (T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland)
v. Rainbow—God’s promise never to destroy the world again; hope; a promise of peace between heaven and earth
vi. fog—almost always signals some sort of confusion; mental, ethical, physical “fog”; people can’t see clearly
d. Snow
i. negatively—cold, stark, inhospitable, inhuman, nothingness, death
ii. positively—clean, pure, playful
Interlude: Does He Mean That?
a. Most writers purposely put things in books like symbols and references in order to evolve the story.
i. They do this because they have been educated in writing.
b. Remember that in the few minutes it takes you to read something, days have been spent writing it.
11. …More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence
a. Violence can be symbolic, thematic, biblical, Shakespearean, Romantic, allegorical, transcendent.
b. Two categories of violence in literature
i. Character caused—shootings, stabbings, drownings, poisonings, bombings, hit and run, etc
ii. Death and suffering for which the characters are not responsible. Accidents are not really accidents.
c. Violence is symbolic action, but hard to generalize meaning
d. Questions to ask:
i. What does this type of misfortune represent thematically?
ii. What famous or mythic death does this one resemble?
iii. Why this sort of violence and not some other?
12. Is That a Symbol?
a. Yes. But figuring out what is tricky. Can only discuss possible meanings and interpretations
b. There is no one definite meaning unless it’s an allegory, where characters, events, places have a one-on-one correspondence symbolically to other things. (Animal Farm)
c. Actions, as well as objects and images, can be symbolic. i.e. “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
d. How to figure it out? Symbols are built on associations readers have, but also on emotional reactions. Pay attention to how you feel about a text.
13. It’s All Political
a. Literature tends to be written by people interested in the problems of the world, so most works have a political element in them
b. Issues:
i. Individualism and self-determination against the needs of society for conformity and stability.
ii. Power structures
iii. Relations among classes
iv. issues of justice and rights
v. interactions between the sexes and among various racial and ethnic constituencies.
14. Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too
a. Characteristics of a Christ Figure:
i. crucified, wounds in hands, feet, side, and head, often portrayed with arms outstretched
ii. in agony
iii. self-sacrificing
iv. good with children
v. good with loaves, fishes, water, wine
vi. thirty-three years of age when last seen
vii. employed as a carpenter
viii. known to use humble modes of transportation, feet or donkeys preferred
ix. believed to have walked on water
x. known to have spent time alone in the wilderness
xi. believed to have had a confrontation with the devil, possibly tempted
xii. last seen in the company of thieves
xiii. creator of many aphorisms and parables
xiv. buried, but arose on the third day
xv. had disciples, twelve at first, although not all equally devoted
xvi. very forgiving
xvii. came to redeem an unworthy world
b. As a reader, put aside belief system.
c. Why us Christ figures? Deepens our sense of a character’s sacrifice, thematically has to do with redemption, hope, or miracles.
d. If used ironically, makes the character look smaller rather than greater
15. Flights of Fancy
a. Daedalus and Icarus
b. Flying was one of the temptations of Christ
c. Symbolically: freedom, escape, the flight of the imagination, spirituality, return home, largeness of spirit, love
d. Interrupted flight generally a bad thing
e. Usually not literal flying, but might use images of flying, birds, etc.
f. Irony trumps everything
16. It’s All About Sex…
a. Female symbols: chalice, Holy Grail, bowls, rolling landscape, empty vessels waiting to be filled, tunnels, images of fertility
b. Male symbols: blade, tall buildings
c. Why?
i. Before mid 20th c., coded sex avoided censorship
ii. Can function on multiple levels
iii. Can be more intense than literal descriptions
17. …Except Sex. When authors write directly about sex, they’re writing about something else, such as sacrifice, submission, rebellion, supplication, domination, enlightenment, etc.
18. If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism
a. Baptism is symbolic death and rebirth as a new individual
b. Drowning is symbolic baptism, IF the character comes back up, symbolically reborn. But drowning on purpose can also represent a form of rebirth, a choosing to enter a new, different life, leaving an old one behind.
c. Traveling on water—rivers, oceans—can symbolically represent baptism. i.e. young man sails away from a known world, dies out of one existence, and comes back a new person, hence reborn. Rivers can also represent the River Styx, the mythological river separating the world from the Underworld, another form of transformation, passing from life into death.
d. Rain can by symbolic baptism as well—cleanses, washes
e. Sometimes the water is symbolic too—the prairie has been compared to an ocean, walking in a blizzard across snow like walking on water, crossing a river from one existence to another (Beloved)
f. There’s also rebirth/baptism implied when a character is renamed.
19. Geography Matters…
a. What represents home, family, love, security?
b. What represents wilderness, danger, confusion? i.e. tunnels, labyrinths, jungles
c. Geography can represent the human psyche (Heart of Darkness)
d. Going south=running amok and running amok means having a direct, raw encounter with the subconscious.
e. Low places: swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, unpleasantness, people, life, death
f. High places: snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear views, isolation, life, death
20. …So Does Season
a. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter=youth, adulthood, middle age, old age/death.
b. Spring=fertility, life, happiness, growth, resurrection (Easter)
c. Fall=harvest, reaping what we sow, both rewards and punishments
d. Winter=hibernation, lack of growth, death, punishment
e. Christmas=childhood, birth, hope, family
f. Irony trumps all “April is the cruelest month” from The Wasteland
21. Marked for Greatness
a. Physical marks or imperfections symbolically mirror moral, emotional, or psychological scars or imperfections.
b. Landscapes can be marked as well—The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
c. Physical imperfection, when caused by social imperfection, often reflects not only the damage inside the individual, but what is wrong with the culture that causes such damage
d. Monsters
i. Frankenstein—monsters created through no fault of their own; the real monster is the maker
ii. Faust—bargains with the devil in exchange for one’s soul
iii. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—the dual nature of humanity, that in each of us, no matter how well-made or socially groomed, a monstrous Other exists.
iv. Quasimodo, Beauty and the Beast—ugly on the outside, beautiful on the inside. The physical deformity reflects the opposite of the truth.
22. He’s Blind for a Reason, You Know
a. Physical blindness mirrors psychological, moral, intellectual (etc.) blindness
b. Sometimes ironic; the blind see and sighted are blind
c. Many times blindness is metaphorical, a failure to see—reality, love, truth, etc.
d. darkness=blindness; light=sight
23. It’s Never Just Heart Disease...
a. Heart disease=bad love, loneliness, cruelty, disloyalty, cowardice, lack of determination.
b. Socially, something on a larger scale or something seriously amiss at the heart of things (Heart of Darkness)
24. …And Rarely Just Illness
a. Not all illnesses are created equal. Tuberculosis occurs frequently; cholera does not because of the reasons below
b. It should be picturesque
c. It should be mysterious in origin
d. It should have strong symbolic or metaphorical possibilities
i. Tuberculosis—a wasting disease
ii. Physical paralysis can mirror moral, social, spiritual, intellectual, political paralysis
iii. Plague: divine wrath; the communal aspect and philosophical possibilities of suffering on a large scale; the isolation an despair created by wholesale destruction; the puniness of humanity in the face of an indifferent natural world
iv. Malaria: means literally “bad air” with the attendant metaphorical possibilities.
v. Venereal disease: reflects immorality OR innocence, when the innocent suffer because of another’s immorality; passed on to a spouse or baby, men’s exploitation of women
vi. AIDS: the modern plague. Tendency to lie dormant for years, victims unknowing carriers of death, disproportionately hits young people, poor, etc. An opportunity to show courage and resilience and compassion (or lack of); political and religious angles
vii. The generic fever that carries off a child
25. Don’t Read with Your Eyes
a. You must enter the reality of the book; don’t read from your own fixed position in 2005. Find a reading perspective that allows for sympathy with the historical movement of the story, that understands the text as having been written against its own social, historical, cultural, and personal background.
b. We don’t have to accept the values of another culture to sympathetically step into a story and recognize the universal qualities present there.
26. Is He Serious? And Other Ironies
a. Irony trumps everything. Look for it.
b. Example: Waiting for Godot—journeys, quests, self-knowledge turned on its head. Two men by the side of a road they never take and which never brings anything interesting their way.
c. Irony doesn’t work for everyone. Difficult to warm to, hard for some to recognize which causes all sorts of problems. Satanic Verses
CH. 27 IS NOT ON HERE BECUZ THE ORIGINAL 'NOTE TAKER' DIDN'T POST IT ONLINE. Please don't yell at me :(
CH. 27 IS NOT ON HERE BECUZ THE ORIGINAL 'NOTE TAKER' DIDN'T POST IT ONLINE. Please don't yell at me :(
72 comments:
Best set of notes ever thanks man you saved my ass
Procrastinated this work so bad, thank god for this.
This.....is.....AMAZING. Thank you!
i love you.
THANK YOU JESUS! YOU'RE SIMPLY AMAZING.
thank god for the internet
wow this is awesome! this will really help me thank you SO SO SO much !
I wanna have your firstborn
YOU ARE AMAZING! Just helped me out with my IB English final exam.
there is a god....
I actually read this book and did not understand it at all. Completely lost. Thank you soooo much for your help! :D
umm.... absolutely amazing. you just saved my life.
Thank goodness for this!!
if only you had chapter summaries..i would be free from this assignment. but this is great too lol
OMG thank you!!!!!
helped alot with summer work!!!
i hate my life
haven't read entirely yet, i guess chapter 27 is pointless
YOU ARE A LIFE SAVER OMG
Thank you so much! Exactly what I needed!! :D
You just saved the last of my summer Honors English Homework!!!!!!!! Thank You SOOOOOOOOOOO much!! You're are simply amazing...
INCOMPLETE!! There's a chapter 27. Other than that...THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
I got asked a question on Envoi on a sample quiz thing.
http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/quizshowall.php?title=quiz-on-how-to-read-literature-like-a-professor
These notes are okay. I don't mean to be mean or anything...but the notes only cover the main bolded points in the book, they aren't amazing. The notes doesn't explain what foster has been saying, "read in between the lines". But the notes did help me a little with what to write about so thank you.
Example of really good notes (in my opinion):
Sample notes from Foster’s chapter, “If She Comes up it’s Baptism” (Ch 18; pg 153)
If character goes in water, two choices: character drowns or doesn’t.
Reasons for going in water could be:
o Wish fulfillment
o Exorcism of primal fear (getting rid of an instinctive fear?)
o Exploration of the possible (?)
o Solution to a messy plot problem
How character handles going in can imply different things on the symbolic level
o (i.e., rescue = passivity, luck, or indebtedness to another)
*If he doesn’t drown, it’s baptism
o Baptism=rebirth
o Death & rebirth through water
Rain is not the same as baptism (but certain similarities: rain is restorative & cleansing)
*Baptism is not religious but it is spiritual.
“When writers baptize a character they mean death, rebirth, new identity”
o (but you can’t ever say “always”)
Drowning
Baptisms have lots of common threads, but every drowning has its own purpose.
Examples:
o Character revelation
o Theme development: violence, failure, guilt, etc.
o Plot complication
o Denouement (tying up loose ends)
You my friend, are a GOD! THANK YOU SOO MUCH
Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much this saved my life.
Hellllll yea!
Damn, niggy I can return dis shit for my money back now and go get some weed tweed and use dis for my work u da man
turpen is a fag
bpf likes it in the butt
your amazing you literally saved my life cuz school starts the 20th and i was only on chapter 7:/ i love u and if ur a guy i would gladly marry u and have all my babies with u<3
Okay dude this doesn't help me because I have to write an essay on it...
why did foster write about irony at the end? help me pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee
seriously saved my life... bullshitting my way through English isn't so bad with the internet
i think i have gone gay for you sir... i love you.
Yea mine too
has helped soo much with my ap lit class, just understanding the chapters better as i read it. thank you bunches!!
THANK YOU!!! seriously
major help! so much easier to understand then those boring chapters!thanks so much!
I wanna make sweet, sweet love to you in a bus down by the river.
Thank goodness! Thomas Foster gives way too many examples and rambles. It just couldn't keep my attention. This is going to save me a lot of time, and a headache!
Simple, and straight to the point. Why can't all english be like this?
thank u sooo much!!!
Oh yeah i agree with this guy ^ THANKS SOOO MUCH
Holy crap, i had to read 4 books over the summer and i just started a month ago plus my additional work. THIS SAVED ME SOOO MUCH TIME!!!!
This is the best thing to ever happen in my life! Thank you thank you thank you!
School Starts in 2 days and you just save me from failing my 1st quarter of senior year :)
this is so good, thanks
i love turpen and bpf does not like it up the butt. ok pobably..
madeline is a bitch and im glad to say im never talking to her again, nor will i try to be a good friend ever again
not bad
Same here... School starts tomorrow
reading notes on a book about how to read books...
ironic?
Saaaame.. Thank you so much, bro for life.
Thank you, whoever the hell wrote this.
You all must think your teachers are stupid. They know how to use Google too.
dumbledore dies
I don't think my teacher is stupid, of course he/she can use Google. The thing is, all of that information comes from the book....just don't copy it word for word, like an idiot, and you'll be just fine.
this entire book was just put right here (the important stuff anyway). This annoying book few would ever willingly read has just a ton of unneeded fluff in between the pages and a whole bunch of references to unheard of books. its like the dude who wrote is just trying show off how smart he is. this book should never be considered a reading assignment. it should simpyly be used for reference because no one reads all these types of books so therefore you dont need all the added "fluff" in the book.
I love you for this, life and time saver!
THIS SAVED ME
You're my hero. I started reading the book this morning, got to chapter 12, and realized I had a test on it tomorrow morning. You saved my life.
These notes are #1
My best friend and I would seriously like to thank you. We start school tomorrow and just couldn't read the book anymore (we were both on chapter 8), let alone finish it in 4 hours. It was too fustrating and confusing. You're our savior! <3
you the chillest dog around
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TIMES 44324354232 <333333333333333333333333
I flippin love u
Saved my ass
What are the 4 greatest struggles of human beings?
YOU SAVED MY LIFE
gracias. yo tengo un A en ingles!! Los siento yo vengo. adios!
May whoever wrote this article be blessed for eternity and beyond. You are awesome.
this is amazing!!!
i love u man keep it up ujust got me an A
where the fuck is 27 u little prick??
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