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HTRLLAP. Tom Foster is a smart man. 1. The Quest. The quest has five major components. The Quester. A place to go. Stated reason to go there. Challenges and trials en route. A real reason to go there. The real reason for going on a quest is always self knowledge.
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HTRLLAP Tom Foster is a smart man.
1. The Quest • The quest has five major components. • The Quester. • A place to go. • Stated reason to go there. • Challenges and trials en route. • A real reason to go there. • The real reason for going on a quest is always self knowledge. • Questers are often young, immature, or sheltered.
2. Eating • Eating is an act of communion and a way of communication. • This does not mean that every time someone eats with someone else in literature that they are sharing a religious experience. • Meals signify sharing some sort of experience. For instance, intimacy or shared misery could be substituted. • A failed meal can be a bad sign.
3. Ghosts/Vampires • Ghosts and vampires are never about ghosts and vampires. • What these beings do represent is an older figure who embodies corruption, outworn values, etc. • They usually prey on a younger, virginal female who will be stripped of her youth. • The male’s life-force will continue, where the female will be destroyed.
5. Where Have I Seen This Before • There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature. • All stories sprout from some other story or from some experience that has contributed to the idea behind a story. • We call this idea “intertextuality”. • See last slide.
7. The Bible • Almost every literary allusion comes from one of two places. The first place is the Bible. The other is good ole Willy Shakespeare. • Biblically, though, each story about the loss of innocence is really about someone’s private reenactment of the fall from grace, since we experience it not collectively, but individually and subjectively.
9. Greek • Myth matters. • It is a huge body of work. • It seeks to explain the deepest of human fear and emotion; that which cannot be explained by math, physics, science, etc.
10. The Weather • It is never just rain • Drowning is a deep fear. • Rain is the “big eraser”. • Rain is a great plot device. • Rain is mysterious, causes misery, and falls on everyone equally. • Rain is a symbolic cleanser. • Fog = Confusion • Snow = Purity, blanketing, and evil.
11. Violence • Violence is an intimate act. • Violence can be symbolic for many things.
14. Christ Figures • See the Christ Figure Chapter for a complete list. • Partner assignment! • Yay!
15. Flight • Flight = Freedom. • Enough said.
16. Sex • Sex, one of everyone’s favorite things to talk about, is rarely explicitly discussed in literature. • However, sexual imagery is pervasive and there are often strong sexual undertones in a book or story. • For instance, a man and woman are having an intimate dinner together and things start to get heated. The train they are riding enters a tunnel. The chapter ends.
17. Geography • You send characters south so that they can run amok. • South also means raw encounters with the subconscious. • Heading west usually means you are heading someplace in order to discover. The west is wild, untamed, progressive, and sometimes dangerous (beat literature, Jim Morrison poetry)
18. Seasons • Fall = Middle Age • Summer = Passion • Winter = Anger • Spring = Childhood, Youth, Fertility
19. Injury and Deformity • War is the death of culture. • Injuries are present for a reason. • Illness is too.
20. Blindness • When literal blindness is at work, it is because figurative seeing and blindness are also at work.
21. Heart Disease • The heart is a symbol. • Duh. • Read a book.
22. Irony • Irony is the great eraser. It trumps all things. • If your expectations, as outlined by the previous 21 slides are subverted for some reason, it is probably ironic.
23. Read with your feelings. • If you feel like something might be going on in a book or story that you are reading, you are probably right. Just look for the evidence. • Trust your gut. • Your eyes and brain can talk you out of good ideas.
24. One Story • There is only one story. • It describes people us and the world, us in the world, the world’s effect on us, or some combination of the three. • Do you buy it?
