Danny Kaye, famous actor and comedian, once said, "To travel is to take a journey into yourself". He is suggesting that by seeing a new part of the world, one is inevitably confronted with deeper realizations about one’s self. Thomas C. Foster, author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, would likely agree. In his book, he argues that every trip in literature is actually a quest. The word "quest" conjures images of knights in shining armor, princesses, and dragons, but Foster uses the word in a more archetypal sense. A journey, Foster says, needs only to fit five relatively simple criteria to be considered a quest (1-3). Quoyle, the protagonist of Annie Proulx's novel, The Shipping News, undergoes a life-changing journey that clearly meets all necessary criteria set forth by Foster to be regarded as a quest.
In his book, Foster sets out five guidelines that define quests: a quester, a destination, a stated reason to travel, difficulties faced on the way, and an “actual” reason for
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After months of brooding, Quoyle discovers that Wavey’s late husband, like Petal, was unfaithful and emotionally abusive. Quoyle then initiates an emotional conversation with Wavey and finally is able to accept that his relationship with Petal was unhealthy. Wavey, too, confesses her husband’s infidelity and the two connect more deeply (307-308). They are uniquely situated to understand one another’s burdens – grieving the loss of a lover while simultaneously feeling relieved by the loss of a tormentor. The two can be happy together and still acknowledge the grief that may never fully disappear. Their meeting was facilitated entirely by Quoyle’s journey. It is unlikely that he would have ever met a woman with whom he had enough in common to accept his loss had he remained in his old
These feelings drive O’Brien to seek out a journey in order to find out what is truly valuable to his self being. His adventure of self-knowledge mirrors the narrative archetype of the Hero’s Quest. One might argue that as a result of O’Brien’s uncooperative nature towards his circumstances, he is able to pursue the main motive of the Hero’s Journey, in which he departs from his ordinary world and is able to obtain the life treasure of self-acknowledgement.
Since the earliest literature, many of the world’s greatest stories have been built around a quest. According to Thomas Foster, “when a character hits the road, we should start to pay attention” (Foster 3). Throughout Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer, Oskar Schell, a young who boy who lost his father in the tragic events of September 11th, experiences a quest of his own. The journey he embarks on seemingly appears to follow the structure of the quest archetype set up by Foster in his novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, as it consist of the required elements of a quest being: a quester, a place to go and reason to go there, and challenges and trials along the way. These elements eventually culminate in the event
Louise, the unfortunate spouse of Brently Mallard dies of a supposed “heart disease.” Upon the doctor’s diagnosis, it is the death of a “joy that kills.” This is a paradox of happiness resulting into a dreadful ending. Nevertheless, in reality it is actually the other way around. Of which, is the irony of Louise dying due to her suffering from a massive amount of depression knowing her husband is not dead, but alive. This is the prime example to show how women are unfairly treated. If it is logical enough for a wife to be this jovial about her husband’s mournful state of life then she must be in a marriage of never-ending nightmares. This shows how terribly the wife is being exploited due her gender in the relationship. As a result of a female being treated or perceived in such a manner, she will often times lose herself like the “girl
Tan explained the feelings of Waverly through an important symbolic imaginary chess game as she wrote, “My white pieces screamed as they scurried and fell off the board one by one. As her men drew closer to my edge, I felt myself growing light” (508). This showed how Waverly felt about the relationship with her mother and how she was losing the battle. The conflicts were important especially to the theme, for the conflicts shown where the lack of understanding came from and how it can be resolved.
A journey can be defined as going from one place to another. Michael, in Andre Alexi’s “Kuala Lumpur”, goes on a journey though his father’s wake to find understanding and acceptance of the death. Sarosh, in Rohinton Mistry’s “Squatter”, goes on a journey to assimilate into Canadian society by trying to overcome the need for squatting on the toilet. Both experience a progressive sense of exile which manifests in a physical manner amongst peers and in a mental manner in the form of personal conflict. The exile felt by both of the characters can be defined by the ways in which ethnic isolation, confusion of identity, and the use of the carnivalesque are implemented in the formation of the journeys they take.
In the article “Reading and Thought” the author Dwight MacDonald provides criticism and disagreement with Henry Luce’s idea of “functional curiosity”. Luce developed the term “functional curiosity” defining it as an eagerness of people to know the latest news happening around the world. On the other hand, MacDonald concludes that functional curiosity only strengthens reader’s practice in reading rather than in providing invaluable information. He underlines that literature nowadays is deficient and insubstantial since there is no deep meaning in the texts. Modern printed literature is simply being skimmed through by the reader as the reader nowadays tends to avoid too much information resisting thinking in such a way. Because of the new nature of the printed materials, MacDonald considers today’s reading behavior and the way people think as flimsy and indifferent. I agree that our thought has definitively changed since we are paying less time to serious critical thinking losing connections with society and awareness of it.
Thomas C. Foster’s novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor, helps the reader understand the beginnings of a quest by breaking down the task into five steps. A quest will always consist of 1) a quester, 2) a place to go, 3) a stated reason to go there, 4) challenges and trials en route, and 5) a real reason to go there. A quester, the protagonist, typically is not aware that they are partaking in a quest. Step two and three are thought of together usually because the protagonist is told to go somewhere to do something. However, the stated reason to go to their destination is not the real reason they go there. As Foster explains, “In fact, more often than not, the quester fails at
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
A journey, whether it is forced or enforced, involves obstacles and movement from point A to point B either physical, mental and/or spiritual and they provide travellers with the opportunity to extend themselves in these three aspects as they respond to challenges and learn more about themselves and the world around them. This shows that travellers are very much impacted by the journey they go on as they gain insight into themselves and their surroundings. ‘Out of time’ , ‘Beach Burial’ and ‘Five Bells’ are all poems by Kenneth Slessor that deal with this concept of journeys impacting the traveller substantially. Another text that deals with this, is the film ‘Red Dog’ by Kriv Stenders. Both composers through imagery and the exploration of
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
In Foster's book, quests are described as being a very popular device used frequently in literature. Foster says that a quest has five parts; a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials, and the real reason to go (Foster 3). In “Pulp Fiction”, many quests are present as each character has their own voyage. These separate voyages all revolve around one main quest, Marsellus Wallace's quest to get his briefcase back. One of the mini stories revolving around the main quest is the story of Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega. Vincent Vega has been asked by Marsellus Wallace to take his wife, Mia out on the town while he is away. Vincent has heard a story about a man who gave Mia a foot-rub and was afterward thrown out of a window by Marsellus, so he is rightfully paranoid about his quest. Vincent is the quester in this m...
“It was a pleasure to burn” Bradbury (1) Is the first line of Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451, the line itself is thought by the book's main protagonist Guy Montag. Although from that line alone he wound not exactly seem like the ideal protagonist of a science fiction novel. Throughout the story Montag has some life altering experiences that change him; he starts out as a fireman (the kind that burn books, as opposed to saving lives) and ends up belonging to group of intellectuals who memorize books in order to someday write them down again. Ever since he met a young girl named Clarisse he had been consumed with thoughts, thoughts of what things looked like, thoughts of what things smelled like and even thoughts of why things were the way they are. Guy Montag goes through many changes in a fairly brief period in the story. Throughout his journey he has three mentors: Clarisse, Faber and Granger. Clarisse is the first, the one who opens Montag’s eyes to the world around him, Faber gives him wisdom and helps him shape what he is now thinking and feeling, and Granger helps him establish his own identity.
Nonetheless, Waverly failed in completing her journey. Although, she does succeed in improving her relationship with her mother, she still does not complete a spiritual or physical deed and fails to achieve the “return” in her journey.
A quest is a journey, an adventure, seeking or looking for something that you feel there is a need to find. Robert Frost's "Directive" and T.S. Eliot`s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" are poems of quest. Both men have chosen different quests for their poems. Quest that they feel the reader needs to seek out and become aware of. As there is a quest, there is also something that they want the reader to not be aware of. Thus going away from the quest, toward a new direction.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...