39 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas C. FosterHow to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary: “How’d He Do That?”
Foster begins the book with an example of a class discussion about the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. He describes how he might interpret the play and how his students often don’t understand the play right away: “We’re having a communication problem. Basically, we’ve all read the same story, but we haven’t used the same analytical apparatus” (xxv).
Foster asserts that successful literary analysis depends on two skills: knowing what to look for and gaining experience in what he calls the “grammar” of literature. The grammar of literature involves conventions and patterns, among other elements, that build on each other as one reads more and more. As an example, he uses the season of spring and the connotations that evokes: “youth, promise, new life, young lambs, children skipping” (xxvi) lead to “abstract concepts such as rebirth, fertility, renewal” (xxvi). Inexperienced readers often focus just on the narrative, or the plot, but Foster’s goal in this book is to teach all readers how to look for other elements and to make connections between them.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)”
Foster discusses stories about people going somewhere or taking a trip. These trips are rarely just about the stated reason for going; more likely, the trips set up some kind of challenge that will change the character. A simple example takes place in John Updike’s short story “A&P,” in which a kid takes a short trip to the supermarket. That’s the whole story. In literary analysis, a trip, no matter its length, is usually referred to as a “quest.”
Foster provides the following elements that characterize every quest: “(a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there” (3). The last point—the real reason—always turns out to be some kind of knowledge about oneself. It can change the character in an obvious, outward way or simply appear in the form of a subtle change in perspective.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion”
Next, Foster examines instances of communion in stories, which he defines as “an act of sharing and peace” (8), usually through food. Eating and drinking together is a disarming activity that connotes a sense of community. Other forms of sharing can serve this purpose, such as two characters sharing a joint in Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral.” In Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, written in the mid-18th century, a very sensual scene of a man and a woman eating a meal gives Fielding the opportunity to explore a sexual theme despite the strict limits on publishing at that time in history.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires”
Foster continues with the theme of consuming through a discussion of vampire tales, explaining that they often represent exploitation of some kind. He writes, “A nasty old man, attractive but evil, violates young women, leaves his mark on them, steals their innocence” (16), and the women then become fallen followers of the vampire. Ghosts and doppelgangers can likewise serve the same purpose as vampires in a story. These stories usually involve someone or something old and intransigent who preys on a young, naïve counterpart. As Foster notes, the conflict need not take place between people. In Henry James’s story “Daisy Miller,” for example, the characters involved in this dynamic represent Europe (the old) and America (the new).
Introduction-Chapter 3 Analysis
The tone for the whole book is set in these initial chapters. Though the author intends to instruct the reader, the structure is not that of a textbook. Instead, the author remains front and center, playing the role of a professor guiding students (i.e., readers) through the material. While the Introduction describes a classroom setting, the ensuing chapters feel like a classroom. Foster liberally sprinkles questions and comments throughout the text as if students are directly asking them (formatted in italics to denote the shift in point of view). This tendency is established in Chapter 1, during the discussion of Updike’s story “A&P”:
But it just looked like a trip to the store for some white bread.
True. But consider the quest. Of what does it consist? (2).
Foster then continues to explain quests to the reader, employing an old form of educational dialogue that dates back to Plato.
The overall point that Foster introduces in these early chapters concerns the existence of a whole language used specifically for discussing literature and the fact that this language can be learned. The keys to mastering this language are practice and knowing what to look for. These processes stem from two of Foster’s main themes: the one big story of humanity and the grammar of literature. Each chapter of the book introduces a new aspect of this grammar, as the author attempts to show that there’s nothing “magical” about understanding literature as long as a reader speaks its language. He also warns that he presents simplifications, and that no ideas “always” or “never” apply in literary analysis.
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