What is the difference between reading like a student and reading like a professor?
Students:
Professors:
The combination of using memory, identifying symbols, and recognizing patterns allows a reader to analyze literature in a new light—the way a professor would. If you ignore memory, symbols, and patterns in literature, you will not be able to appreciate a book for everything that it says between the lines.
This book teaches you:
When you read with a powerful memory, you actively look for how the text corresponds to other literary works. You mentally flip through the things you’ve read before and look for similarities (or differences) to the structure, theme, or characters of what you’re reading now.
For example, as you watch the movie Pale Rider starring Clint Eastwood, you might be reminded of the movie Shane from 1953.
These similarities are what critics call intertextuality. Authors use references and parallels to draw connections to previous literary works.
Intertextuality in literature deepens the meaning of the text by drawing on the reader’s expectations.
A great example of intertextuality, an author referencing previous literature, occurs in Tim O’Brien’s novel Going After Cacciato. The novel has three interwoven stories: one, the history of protagonist Paul Berlin’s war experiences; two, an imagined trip to Paris in search of their fellow soldier Cacciato; three, the present night in which Paul Berlin is remembering the first story and inventing the second.
In one part of Berlin’s fantasy trip, he and his squad fall down a hole in the road. They end up in an otherworldly network of tunnels. One character even states that they need to fall back up. As a reader, you are invited to relate this part of the story to when Alice falls down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Now 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.
In order to truly read literature like a professor, you need to be on the lookout for intertextual references to “sacred texts,” like Shakespeare, classic fairy tales, ancient myths, and the Bible.
Using recognizable themes or plots from these sacred texts gives the author the chance to use the reader’s associations to say more in their own work with fewer words. And for the reader, recognition of these references enhances the experience of reading current literature, because the modern stories share in the power of the sacred text.
How authors utilize the common sacred texts:
Shakespeare’s work provides a source against which writers can challenge ideas and struggle through timeless questions.
For example, Athol Fugard’s play “Master Harold” … and the Boys uses Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II as a device. Fugard mimics Shakespeare’s plot—in this version, Harry must turn away his black friends in an effort to grow up and become responsible. Fugard invites his audience to question whether choosing to regress toward racism is really the mark of growing up. He challenges Shakespeare’s values, and gives the audience the chance to do the same.
Fairy tales are popular choices for authors to reference because they’re an assumed body of knowledge. Most readers can relate to and recognize the classic fairy tales.
For example, an author could adapt the plot of “Hansel and Gretel” in their work. The story of children far away from home, lost in a forest, and captured by some evil witch in a strange place—you’ve probably seen a version of this in something you’ve read.
References to mythology in literature show that the story goes beyond what is on the page—it is really a story about humanity’s noble yet primal motivations.
For example, Derek Walcott’s Omeros uses parallels to The Iliad and The Odyssey to tell the story of a community of Caribbean fishermen. He knows this community intimately and wants to tell their story in a way that highlights their struggles, as well as their triumphs. The narrative guide of the classic myths allows Walcott to show the nuances of the fishermen’s condition by associating their story with an ancient epic.
Many authors use the Bible to highlight the differences between religious tradition and modern life, or to enhance the reader’s awareness that the story speaks to the tensions and struggles that have existed since the beginning of man.
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. But Hemingways’ book is about hopelessness—it’s about infertility and the feeling that the future will never come. Hemingway’s ironic biblical reference is meant to highlight a key theme for the reader.
When you 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:
Some symbols in literature are less commonly used, even unique to a particular novel or author. While it is more challenging to interpret the meaning of a symbol you’ve never seen before, you can still draw on your experiences with previous works of literature as a guide.
And symbols aren’t always objects. Some actions that are commonly used as symbols are:
When interpreting symbols in literature, think of it 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.
In E. M. Forster’s 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 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 thing that’s clear about them. Readers can infer a variety of meanings from the caves. Here are just a few:
A Passage to India is a great work of literature because of its networks of possible meanings and significance. The fact that every reader 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.
When you read to observe patterns, you recognize the similarities between life and books. You look beyond the plot to see how the drama and characters illustrate a truth of human experience.
One of the main benefits of the similarities and connections between 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 Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon follows the pattern of a quest narrative. In the novel, a young woman named Oedipa travels from San Francisco to Southern California to execute the will of her former lover. Along the way, Oedipa meets a lot of strange and scary characters and ends up in a lot of dangerous situations. By the end, Oedipa has learned to rely on herself and trust her own self-knowledge.
In this novel, Thomas Pynchon presents an example of a classic 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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Now that you have a sense of how to use memory, interpret symbols, and recognize archetypes in literature, you are almost ready to start reading like a professor.
Some other advice for the intelligent reader:
A literature professor is always looking for meaning and significance beyond the text of a novel, poem, or play. Here’s an example:
In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the protagonist, Walter Lee Younger, moves his African American family into an all-white community. A white man named Mr. Linder comes to Walter with an offer: He wants to buy the Younger family out of their claim on the house. Although the offer is insulting, Walter Lee is forced to consider it. This is one of the play’s primary dramas.
Imagine you’ve just read the play. Would you be surprised to hear your literature professor say that Mr. Lindner is the devil? Would you have come to that conclusion on your own?
If not, that’s okay. That means that you, the student, and your professor have read the same story, but not in the same way. Your professor has had practice analyzing literature and finding its conventions and codes. She has the skills to remember instances of bargaining with the devil in other stories, and connect that pattern to Mr. Lindner through common plot devices and themes.
So what is the difference between reading like a student and reading like a professor?
Students:
Professors:
Memory: When you read with a powerful memory, you actively look for how the text corresponds to other literary works. You mentally flip through the things you’ve read before and look for similarities (or differences) to the structure, theme, or characters of what you’re reading now.
Symbol: When you 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.
Pattern: When you read to observe patterns, you recognize the similarities between life and books. You look beyond the plot to see how the drama and characters illustrate a truth of human experience.
The combination of using memory, 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 will not be able to appreciate a book for everything that it says between the lines.
Imagine you meet a man who is very hostile towards his father, but gentle and loving towards his mother. You might not think much of it. But then, you meet three more men who show the same behavior. You have recognized a pattern.
Now, you might start to think of where you have seen behavior of this pattern before. Your memory calls to mind the story of Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother. The men you met didn’t actually do those things, but your symbolic mind can draw the connection.
This is how Sigmund Freud came up with the term Oedipus complex. He “read” his clinical patients and interpreted their behavior patterns. Then, his memory and symbolic imagination corresponded their behavior to a drama he had read before. His psychoanalytical revelation mirrors the way that you will learn to read literature in this book.
By the end of this book, you will have
Author Note: In this book there is a lot of use of the words “always,” “all,” “never,” and “none.” Just remember that there are exceptions to every rule.
(Shortform note: For the sake of clarity, we’ve reorganized the chapters in this book to follow the themes of memory, symbol, and pattern introduced here.)
Readers who are new to literature might feel as though everything they read is new. But really, there is no such thing as a new story.
All literary works are alive and involved with each other like eels in a barrel. Each time a new eel is created, it squirms its way into the barrel. It is new, but it’s also an eel just like every other one that ever has been or ever will be in the barrel.
Just because an author can’t create anything purely original anymore, doesn’t mean that modern literature is derivative or unimportant. Rather, new literature gains significance from the harmony and dissonance it strikes with what came before.
Once you understand that all stories—no matter the genre—exist together as part of one big story, you can begin to see the patterns and recurrences between them. This is what critics call intertextuality. Authors use references and parallels to draw connections to previous literary works.
Intertextuality in literature deepens the meaning of the text by drawing on the reader’s expectations.
A great example of an author referencing previous literature is Tim O’Brien in his novel Going After Cacciato. The novel has three interwoven stories: one, the history of protagonist Paul Berlin’s war experiences; two, an imagined trip to Paris in search of their fellow soldier Cacciato; three, the present night in which Paul Berlin is remembering the first story and inventing the second.
Paul Berlin’s fantasy trip to Paris is made up of a bunch of stories, each based on or influenced by some novel, story, or historical figure from the past. Tim O’Brien, as the author, knows this. But Paul Berlin, the character, doesn’t. He is simply making up stories the way everyone else does—by drawing on other stories.
For example, in one part of Berlin’s fantasy, he and his squad fall down a hole in the road. They end up in an otherworldly network of tunnels. One character even states that they need to fall back up. As a reader, you are invited to relate this part of the story to when Alice falls down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Now 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.
Don’t worry if you aren’t able to catch allusions to intertextuality right away 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 knowledge of other books to begin to make connections and consciously look for layers beyond the text on the page. When you do, you will enrich your reading experience and give yourself the opportunity to see the way an author might play with your expectations based on literary references.
In order to truly read literature like a professor, you need to be on the lookout for references to “sacred texts,” like Shakespeare, the Bible, classic fairy tales, and ancient myths.
Using recognizable themes or plots from these sacred texts gives the author the chance to use the reader’s associations to say more in their own work with fewer words. And for the reader, recognition of these references enhances the experience of current literature, because the modern stories share in the power of the sacred text.
Authors in every time period have reinvented Shakespeare in their own works. You see Shakespeare’s plot devices, themes, and language adapted in plays, movies, and literature from every age.
For example, Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres is a rethinking of King Lear. Although the time and place are much different, the themes of greed, love, and misunderstanding are still the same.
There are some surface reasons that authors choose to use Shakespeare for inspiration:
However, the use of Shakespeare goes beyond the surface in some ways as well, making his intertextual references deeper than many others. Shakespeare’s work provides a source against which writers can challenge ideas and struggle through timeless questions. The new literature has a chance to have a say in the dialogue opened up in Shakespeare’s classics.
Authors know that Shakespeare is the most well-known writer in history, so they rely on a reader’s awareness of Shakespeare to deepen the meaning of their own work. This allows reading to be a creative activity—not only for the writer, but for the reader, too.
Fairy tales are popular choices for authors to reference because they’re an assumed body of knowledge. While some readers might not be able to pick up allusions to more traditional works, they have certainly internalized the classic fairy tales. The author wants her story to be new, but also to have familiarity. And, as an added bonus, there is very little ambiguity in fairy tales.
“Hansel and Gretel” is one of the most commonly adapted fairy tales in modern literature. The story of children far away from home, lost in a forest, and captured by some evil witch in a strange place—you’ve probably seen a version of this in something you’ve read.
As an example, let’s think of a modern story with a fairy tale inspiration: A young couple is driving their BMW and get lost in a big city. Their cell phones are dead and their only option is to stop into a crack house. Sure, the young people aren’t brother and sister. Instead of their bread crumbs getting eaten by birds, their phones die. The crack house probably isn’t made out of gingerbread. But the ideas from the original fairy tale are still there.
In order to read literature like a professor, you want to see the details, patterns, or pieces of the story that the author is taking from the old fairy tale. Then, you have to ask why? Why did the author borrow that particular element, and what does it illuminate about their own story?
As a reader, you should also be on the lookout for irony—the use of a common pattern that goes against expectations. When the author puts the unambiguous world view of a fairy tale in conversation with our highly ambiguous reality, there is almost always irony there. (We will talk more about irony in a later chapter.)
In general, the term “myth” means a story that explains people to people. Classic myths are stories that are deeply ingrained in the memory of a group and that have the power to shape a culture’s way of seeing the world.
When an author uses a myth as inspiration for their work, he is reaching back to stories that matter to him and his tribe.
Why do authors use myths as guides for their own work? To show their characters’ nobility, while also highlighting their actions as primal. In Greek and Roman myths, characters heroically struggle against nature, the divine, other people, and themselves.
Sometimes, authors put classic myths up to a funhouse mirror to distort the stories and show sillier correspondences to our reality. These ironic parallels are still meant to show some kind of nobility or voyage.
When reading, remember that a reference to mythology in literature means that the author is giving you a hint that their story goes beyond what is on the page. She is trying to teach you something about the human condition.
Like Shakespeare’s work, the Bible is an age-old and widely-known text that provides authors (even non-religious ones) the chance to deepen the meaning of their work with relatively few words.
In literature, the Bible inspires:
Think of some of the common stories from the Bible: Judgement Day, the Fall, the Prodigal Son. Have you seen these stories mirrored in literary works before? Chances are, you have.
Example: In James Joyce’s story “Araby,” a young boy feels desire for the first time, so he tries to buy a gift for the object of his desire. In the process, he realizes that his affections are just the ordinary kind, and that this girl will probably never love him. Any story, like this one, that is about a loss of innocence is really a story about the Fall of man.
Many authors use the Bible to highlight the differences between religious tradition and modern life.
If you read something that seems to resonate more deeply than the story itself, chances are it comes from something bigger, like a Bible story. If a quotation sounds different than the rest of the story’s prose, take note.
When you read something that alludes to the Bible, know that the author is trying to give you the sense that the story is not only about the characters in that time and place. The author wants you to know that the story is timeless—it speaks to the tensions and struggles that have existed since the beginning of man.
In order to read literature like a professor, you must be able to recognize the religious traditions of the culture from which the literature originates. For example, to read English and American novels in a scholarly capacity, you will need to know about the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
Even if the author of a particular novel is not a religious believer, Christian principles and values will inform the literary work because it is such a dominant part of our culture.
One of the most prevalent ways that religion informs literature is through the presence of a Christlike figure. How do you know when a character is being portrayed as a parallel to Christ?
Look for some of these signs:
Within a literary work, a character who stands for a Christ figure might not necessarily exhibit all of these signs. The figure could be a woman, a criminal, or any kind of character—even one that looks opposite to the Christ we know from the Bible. But if you can identify a couple of the listed behaviors in a character, you should put your antennae up.
The use of a Christ figure in a novel can serve many purposes, not all of which will suggest something religious. Perhaps the author wants to deepen the sense of sacrifice or forgiveness or redemption in their novel by using the parallel to Christ.
In Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, we meet an old, pure-of-heart fisherman who befriends a young boy. During a fishing trip one day, the old man catches a big fish and gets carried out to sea, alone. During his struggles at sea, the man comes up with several parable-like pieces of wisdom. Three days later, he comes back to land, where everyone assumed him dead—a kind of resurrection. He goes home and lays on his bed with his arms thrown out to the side. He has raw, damaged hands from his adventure. Because of the fish he returns with, peoples’ belief in the old man is redeemed.
Even for beginning readers, the parallels between Hemingway’s story and the Christian portrayal of Christ are clear.
When you read a novel or watch a film, you want to keep your eyes open for any references to or adaptations of the sacred texts. Practice looking for intertextual references of Shakespeare’s classics.
In the musical film West Side Story, two New York City street gangs are in conflict. The Jets are led by Riff after Tony leaves the gang, and The Sharks are led by Bernardo. One night, Tony and Bernardo’s sister, Maria, meet at a dance and fall in love. Both The Sharks and The Jets are furious, and the conflict reaches a boiling point. Just before Tony and Maria are able to run away together, Tony is shot and killed. Maria holds him in her arms as he dies. The tragedy of Tony’s death is enough to end the conflict between the rival gangs.
This is a musical adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s classic plays. Write down which one you think it might be.
If you thought of Romeo and Juliet, you were right! Now that you know it’s the story of Romeo and Juliet translated into 1950’s New York, think about the similarities and differences in the plotline. Write your thoughts below.
Think of one of your favorite books or movies. Can you find thematic or narrative allusions to any sacred texts within the story? What are the similarities and differences?
How does that allusion deepen the meaning of your favorite book or movie? What might the similarities and differences between your favorite work and the sacred text illuminate?
Even readers who are new to literature usually know to ask themselves, “Is this a symbol?” The next question they might ask is, “what does it mean?”
One problem with symbols is that they can mean so many different things to different readers. In fact, it is the mark of a great piece of literature when readers and scholars can come to different, even conflicting, interpretations.
(The exception to this rule is allegory. Allegories convey a particular message by associating a symbol with one specific meaning.
Another problem with symbols is that different authors can use the same symbol in many different ways. For example, let’s look at three different rivers from three different authors:
The final problem with symbols is that they aren’t always objects. Actions can also be used as symbols. For example, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is literally about deciding between two paths. But it has become a universally used graduation poem because it can symbolize choosing your direction in life.
When interpreting symbols in literature, think of it as an imaginative and intellectual exercise. You should actively bring yourself to the encounter with the text. Use your instincts about 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’s literal meaning within the narrative will always be its primary purpose. The metaphorical meaning is secondary to that. If a novel is unsuccessful at telling the story, no amount of symbolism will change 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 great piece of literature.
In E. M. Forster’s 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 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 thing that’s clear about them. Readers can infer a variety of meanings from the caves. Here are just a few:
A Passage to India is a great work of literature because of its networks of possible meanings and significance. The fact that every reader 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.
In literature, scary characters like vampires and ghosts are almost always a symbolic representation of the darker side of our reality.
Think about Dracula: An old, dangerous, alluring man who preys on beautiful, unmarried women. When he finds a victim, he uses her life force to become younger and more alive. Read that way, it seems that Count Dracula is about a lot more than just a cheap scare.
Beyond the literal interpretation of vampirism (sucking blood and the rest), vampirism should be read symbolically to mean exploitation of others, seduction, and a lack of respect for others’ autonomy.
Similarly, literary ghosts are always about more than scaring the reader. Often, they are meant to present a lesson. For example, in A Christmas Carol, Marley’s ghost is there to teach Scrooge about ethics.
Doppelgangers and evil twins are scary, of course. But they also show the dual nature of humans, like Dr. Jekyll’s other half, Hyde. Even a respectable doctor has a dark side that is capable of evil.
The Victorian era of literature was particularly full of vampire and ghost stories because mythical characters were a convenient way to write about subjects that were considered taboo at the time—like sex. Victorian authors translated these taboo subjects into symbolic forms, like vampires, to avoid censorship issues. Can you see how a man sucking the blood of a woman might be representative of a sexual encounter?
Even today, writers use scary things to symbolize the dark side of human nature and experience. But the difficult part about recognizing vampiric symbols in literature today is that they aren’t always presented as vampires.
Any time you read about a character or group who grows in strength by weakening someone else, analyze how that character is vampiric in nature.
And any time you read a book about vampires, ghosts, or other scary figures, consider how there might be a dual purpose in the story, as a parallel to reality.
Since human beings cannot actually fly, when a character in literature takes flight, it is a symbol of freedom. This could mean freedom from a particular place or circumstance, or freedom from all the general struggles that weigh us down.
But if the symbol only worked when characters literally took flight, it wouldn’t be very helpful. Instead, these examples of actual flight give us instruction for how we should interpret figurative, imagined, or failed flight in literature.
Flight is also used a lot in literature to express spirituality. In the Christian tradition, it is a common notion that the soul can flutter or fly separately from the body.
When it comes to common symbols such as flight, irony changes everything. But irony only works because the patterns of symbols are so established that authors can feel free to invert them.
Not all authors use common symbols, such as flight, that have ready-made associations attached. Some writers use a symbol that is private to them, and that makes it slightly more challenging for the reader to interpret.
There aren’t many poems that employ mathematical instruments as symbols, so you can’t fall back on your expectations to interpret the symbolism of the compass. At first, you may not understand the ways in which two people could be like the foot and point of a compass, or what this comparison signifies. However, you have other associations of goodbyes, themes of connectedness, and lovers’ promises that you can look to for guidance in interpreting the compass in this poem.
You can decode unique symbols by using what you learn from the work itself. Every literary work teaches you how to understand it as you read along.
Another strategy for interpreting unique symbols is to trust what you know. Every novel, poem, story, movie, and play you’ve read or seen in the past has been preparation for the next thing you will read. Don’t deny yourself credit for all of the examples of symbolism that you’ve encountered—you know more than you might think.
Irish poet W. B. Yeats is notorious for employing very unique or private symbols in his body of work. One in particular: A tower with a winding staircase. He bought the tower and lived in it for many years, and was always interested in the image.
In his poetry, Yeats uses this tower to symbolize many different things in many different ways:
Because there are no uses of this particular tower and its winding staircase anywhere else in literature, readers will find Yeats’s work challenging at first. In fact, it might take several readings of each poem and a study of Yeats’s personal history to even recognize the tower, much less understand all of its implications. That is the beauty and the challenge of such unique symbols.
Every good story needs a setting, the time and place in which the story takes place. In literature, the setting is not only the backdrop for the story but an integral part of the story itself. The setting of a particular story informs the mood of the story, the attitude of the characters, and the presentation of the themes.
When you begin reading a poem or a novel, take notice right away of any weather that is mentioned. Weather is never only about weather in a piece of literature.
Weather can also act as:
The most popular weather condition employed by authors in literature is rain. Rain has many associations that you should be aware of as a reader:
Of course, other weather has associations, too.
There are too many possibilities for weather to cover in one book. The most important thing is to learn to see weather as something to analyze as a purposeful choice on the part of the author.
Every time an author sits down to write a story, one of the first questions he asks himself is where will this story take place? An intelligent reader will recognize the geography of a novel as a conscious choice on the author’s part to deepen the story’s meaning.
In literature, geography is not only about the earth’s physical features, like hills, rivers, and seas. Literary geography is about the ways in which a specific place forges the people who live there.
Geography informs a novel’s:
Characters go traveling in a lot of literary works, and often they travel south. There are a couple of different thematic elements you should look for in a novel when a character goes south:
Hills and valleys are another form of geography that have somewhat specific thematic implications.
As a reader, you should also consider an author’s personal geography when reading their work. For example, poet Theodore Roethke was largely influenced by his background in the Midwest. To truly understand and appreciate his poetry, the reader should understand how that midwesterness influenced his thematic concerns and artistic voice.
Many authors of literary works have used seasons symbolically to enhance the reader’s sense of themes and characters. Over the course of literary history, the seasons have been used so often and so consistently that each season carries ingrained meanings and associations.
Autumn:
Winter:
Spring:
Summer:
As readers, our emotional responses and associations to the seasons are deeply ingrained. This means that an author can choose to play into those expectations and easily create meaning with fewer words.
Geography influences a novel’s atmosphere, characters, and plot. Practice using the analytical skills you’ve learned in this chapter to analyze geographical symbols.
In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a young boy, Huck, and an escaped slave, Jim, travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.
In what ways is traveling into the Deep South thematically relevant for Huck and, especially, Jim?
Consider the raft that Huck and Jim are traveling on for the majority of the novel. What could it symbolize?
For most readers, recognizing objects as symbols comes easy, but it can be quite difficult to understand that actions can act as symbols, too.
Authors choose the actions that happen in a narrative carefully—each action must serve the plot in a novel, but some will also illuminate larger themes.
Violence is prevalent in literature, but it is important to know that acts of violence are always a symbol for some greater kind of suffering. The range of possibilities for what that suffering might be is too large to generalize. The answer might be psychological, spiritual, historical, social, or political.
In literary violence, the complexities lie in the significance or thematic meaning of the violence itself.
There are two kinds of violence in literature:
The only real difference between these two kinds of literary violence is that in the second type, there is no guilty party other than the author. Even an “accidental” act of violence in a novel has been carefully planned by the author, with a specific purpose in mind.
Whether violence is inflicted by a character within the story or the author crafting the story, the reader should look carefully at what the violence might signify beyond the specific harm done to the specific character.
William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses is a great example of violence as metaphor in literature. In it, character Ike McCaslin finds out that his grandfather had a daughter by one of his slaves, Eunice. Years later, completely blind to the wrongness of his actions, the grandfather also gets his daughter Tomasina pregnant. Eunice responds by killing herself.
As a reader, of course, we see Eunice’s violence toward herself as a literal act of personal despair. But Faulkner also challenges us to see it as a powerful metaphor for the lack of humanity in slavery. Eunice has no control over her own life or the life she brings into the world. The only choice she is given is the choice to die.
The title Go Down, Moses helps the reader grasp this metaphor. In the Bible, Moses is asked to “go down” and “set my people free” from Egypt. In the story, no one appears to go down and set Eunice free. Therefore, she has to set herself free in the only way she’s able.
In literature, sex and sexuality are used symbolically in two different ways:
Sex is often disguised in literature and in film. At first, the primary reason for sexual symbolism was censorship. Artists were not allowed to depict sex on the page or on screen, so they had to find other ways of getting the point across.
Once Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, literature began to change. Suddenly, writers began to realize that they could encode sex into their work. And readers learned that sex might be encoded into their reading, as well.
Even in our age of explicit sexuality, readers should be on the lookout for images and scenes that evoke sex and sexuality, even in things as common as keys in a bowl.
Censorship ended in the United States in 1959. Less than a century later, most sexual writing has become either cliché or pornographic. So authors only include sex scenes in a novel as a literary device, when they are trying to illuminate other themes, as well.
When analyzing a sex scene, you really can’t go wrong. Just like in life, sex can mean many things and have many consequences, such as
In John Fowle’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the character Charles is a young man who is about to enter into an arranged marriage, which he dreads. One night, he finds himself in the hotel room of a woman named Sarah, who is not his intended. He carries her to the bed and “ninety seconds” later, they have made love. For Charles, Sarah is not just a woman, she is all the possibilities that he is giving up in life by getting married. Charles is only given a short chance to explore those options, literally and metaphorically.
In Henry Miller’s novels, there are a lot of explicit sexual scenes. Miller uses these sex scenes to celebrate his freedom from censorship and claim his freedom as a writer.
In Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, the small amount of explicit sex in the novel is predatory and evil. However, Nabokov manages to engage the reader’s sympathy just enough to implicate us in the act. The sex scene is a mirror of the narrative—an exploration of the reader’s philosophical tolerance.
In Edna O’Brien’s novels, sex is a political act. Sex gives her female characters the chance to throw off the religious and societal restrictions that have repressed them.
In order to read like a professor, you have to be able to look beyond the sex and draw conclusions about how the themes of the novel could be represented there.
We’ve already covered this notion, but it is worth saying again: All literature exists as part of one big story. Nothing is really new. Although every piece of literature is different, it still interacts with every written work that came before it. In fact, even if an author attempts to avoid referencing any other novels, that avoidance is an interaction in itself.
One of the main benefits of the one big story is the emergence of archetypes. “Archetype” really just means “pattern,” or the original on which that pattern was based. No one knows the original use of archetypes, just like no one knows exactly where ancient myths began. They predate written history.
It doesn’t really matter where they come from, when they began, or how often they’re used. Archetypes grow in strength with each use in literature. They create an aha! moment for the reader—a satisfying moment when we recognize a pattern between what we’re reading now and what we’ve read before.
Archetypes and common patterns are always with us, because they’ve been a part of our collective consciousness for so long. They help writers and readers understand each other because we share knowledge of these archetypes and their role in the one big story.
Anytime a character begins a trip, you should be on the lookout for a quest narrative. This is one type of archetype.
Example: In The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, a young woman named Oedipa travels from San Francisco to Southern California to execute the will of her former lover. Along the way, Oedipa meets a lot of strange and scary characters and ends up in a lot of dangerous situations. By the end, Oedipa has learned to rely on herself and trust her own self-knowledge.
In this novel, Thomas Pynchon presents an example of a classic quest narrative.
Structurally, every quest consists of
The stated reason to go on a quest is often in search of a “holy grail.” This can be as simple as going to the store to get a loaf of bread. Throughout the quest, the stated goal falls away and the real mission is revealed: the character learns about himself.
Questers are often young, inexperienced characters. This is because older characters would either already have self-knowledge or be too late to ever get it. In comparison, young characters have a lot of learning and development left to do.
(Shortform note: For more on the quest archetype and the hero’s journey, read our summary of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.)
Whenever literary characters share a meal together, it is an act of communion. The act of communion is another archetype.
Consider writing a meal scene. It is very difficult, because eating is boring and food has been described a million ways before. So, if an author includes a meal scene in a literary work, there is almost always a compelling reason for doing so—to symbolize a communion between characters.
Although the word “communion” has religious connotations, it is important to realize that not all communion is a religious or holy experience. Rather, breaking bread together is a symbolic way of expressing, “I am here with you because I like you and want to create a community.” That is the kind of communion we are talking about.
In contrast, some meal scenes relay the opposite message. In these cases, the failed meal is a symbol of bad relationships or negative feelings.
The story “The Dead” by James Joyce is a great example of the full effect of a meal scene as communion. The story centers around a dinner party. At this party is a man named Gabriel Conroy, who thinks he is superior to all the other guests at the table. Over the course of the meal, there are many moments of tension that shock Gabriel’s ego and show him that he is just one of the group. As Gabriel puts his ego in check, he is able to share a meal with his fellow guests and make a speech of gratitude at the end. The reader is part of Gabriel’s evolution from self-made outsider to grateful sharer of the meal.
James Joyce’s illustration of the meal itself mirrors the plot of the story. He puts great detail into bringing the meal to life for the reader. In this way, he asks the reader to pull up a chair and join the party closely. Joyce describes the food on the table as though describing armies in rank for battle. This conveys a sense of conflict to mimic the tensions in the conversation at the table.
Minor characters may also be archetypical. A story’s plot is intimately connected with its characters.
There is a cyclical way of looking at it: The plot is driven by the nature of the character, and the nature of the character is revealed in their actions throughout the plot.
But it is important to remember that not all characters are equal in the eyes of the author. Characters fall somewhere on a spectrum from round to flat.
Why don’t authors make all their characters round?
So secondary and minor characters in literature are usually flat, and their purpose is simply to help the hero reach his destiny. We often forget about these characters when they’re not on the page.
Unfortunately for many secondary characters, especially sidekicks and best friends, their role in the story is usually fatal. But why?
In order to keep the reader’s attention, things have to happen in a story. Characters have to change, grow, and develop. If the plot needs something dramatic to happen, a character must often be sacrificed. But the author can’t kill off the protagonist if the story is going to continue, so he kills the best friend instead.
Examples:
The death of the friend in literature is used to create the need for rage and/or revenge. It’s also a dramatic way for the protagonist to learn the life lessons he needs.
It might not seem fair, but when you read like a professor, you’ll learn not to view characters as people and not to put too much focus on your emotional responses to them. Rather, intelligent readers analyze the character’s purpose within the narrative.
Writers tend to be people who are observant of the world around them and interested in commenting on society. That is why almost all literature has a political element on some level—a consideration of the class relations, power structures, sex and race relations, or ethical dilemmas of its time. This is a pattern you should be looking for every time you pick up a piece of literature.
If you neglect to familiarize yourself with the world as it was at the time and place the author was creating the work you’re reading, you put yourself at risk of missing the political and social commentary that is most likely behind the text.
Political writing is meant to change the reader in an effort to eventually change society as a whole. The story might question one way of thinking, while presenting another, nobler, viewpoint.
Not all literature will be overtly political. In fact, overtly political writing tends to be reductionist and lacks staying power.
Writers such as Edgar Allen Poe and Washington Irving were some of the first to create a specifically American political consciousness through literature, though they did so in two different ways:
Both of these stories exemplify political writing that is definitively American because they question the features of previous rule and celebrate American freedom.
Especially in American literature, the role of an individual character is almost always politically charged, because matters of free will are inherently relatable to society.
When a character drowns or nearly drowns, it’s more than just a solution to a plot difficulty. The difference between death and rescue in a drowning scene means a lot to the character, as well as the story. When a character emerges from the water in which they almost drowned, that’s a baptism.
Just like communion, it’s important not to think of baptism in terms of the religious practice. Instead, think of baptism as any death and rebirth that happens in water. The rebirth is both literal (the character survived a deadly situation) and symbolic (the character is given a new life).
Another important characteristic of baptism is that the character has to receive it. The character has to change or reform as a result of their new chance at life.
The means of rescue from the water is significant to the meaning of the symbol, as well. Did the character swim out herself? Did she grab onto something floating in the water? That could be the difference between a character with a strong will to change, or a character with good luck. Either should impact the reader’s understanding of a story.
In Judith Guest’s Ordinary People, two brothers sail out onto Lake Michigan. When they get caught in a storm, the older brother drowns while the younger, Conrad, survives.
After this event, Conrad has to come to terms with his survival. He has to develop a new identity for himself since he is no longer just the younger, insecure brother of a great athlete. That version of Conrad dies with his brother, and it’s a new Conrad that comes back to land. Throughout the novel, Conrad faces his new reality and finds his new place in the world.
This is a clear example of a symbolic baptism: Conrad is reborn when he survives the storm.
Every quest narrative includes a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges along the way, and a real mission that reveals itself in time. Practice identifying these elements in a story.
One day, a young boy named Kip agrees to go to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread for his mom. He chooses to ride his old, one-speed bicycle, of which he is deeply ashamed. When he gets to the store, he is humiliated to see the girl he loves, Karen, in the parking lot. She’s hanging out with a guy named Tony, who has an expensive sports car. Moments later, in the bread aisle, Tony decides to enlist for the military. He has learned his lesson: that he’ll never get what he wants in this town, where people only care about how much money your family has.
In the box below, identify the following elements in this quest narrative: The quester, the place to go, the reason to go there, the obstacles faced, and the self-knowledge acquired:
In life, physical deformities, illnesses, and handicaps are simply that. In literature, however, authors use maladies like scars, diseases, and blindness to enhance the themes at issue in their work.
You should see physical imperfections in literature in symbolic terms to classify a character as different. When you read of a character with a physical marking or handicap in a novel, know that the author means to call attention to the nature of the character or a thematic concern of the novel.
In Elizabethan literature, physical deformity was equated with moral or spiritual depravity. As politically incorrect as it might seem now, a character with a handicap was a sign of God’s displeasure in an Elizabethan novel.
Things have changed in modern literature. Not all physical maladies should be read as a representation of moral shortcomings. Instead, you should see physical markings as:
Writing a blind character into a story comes with a lot of complications to the author—such as how the character will move around and be a part of the narrative. For that reason, when you see blindness in a novel, take notice. A blind character is a sign that themes of metaphorical blindness, sight, or insight will be issues in the work.
Many novels have themes of blindness versus sight, but not all of them have a blind character. So why do some authors feel the need to add a blind character into their writing? Simply put, to make the theme more obvious for the reader.
Once you see a blind character in a novel, you’ll instinctively look out for metaphorical blindness, as well. As a result, you’ll be more observant of the language and imagery that the author uses to depict that theme throughout the story.
Without a direct mention of blindness in a story, readers might not know the right questions to ask while reading—like why is the author making use of language related to sight and blindness? By making the theme more obvious with the use of a blind character, the author is guiding the reader on how to read the novel.
For example, in Oedipus Rex, the title character kills his father and marries his mother. Because Oedipus is blind to his own identity, he is blind to his crimes—he even volunteers to hunt down the criminal. He summons someone to come in and help him shed light on the mystery. And when this information specialist arrives, we see that the specialist is literally blind.
While it is the information specialist that lacks sight in the literal sense, it is Oedipus who is figuratively blind to his own circumstances. When the truth finally comes to light (another use of language that suggests sight in the metaphorical sense), Oedipus is so distraught that he blinds himself.
In Sophocles' later work Oedipus at Colonus, we see that Oedipus has suffered through his blindness for years. But he has come to earn favor in the eyes of the gods, and he dies a respectable death. Finally, Oedipus has developed a kind of vision that he never had while he actually had use of his eyes.
When reading a novel, take note of any illnesses given to the characters. The author has chosen to give the character an illness for a particular purpose, and often the kind of illness is a good indicator as to what that purpose is.
Most authors are interested in exploring the humanity of their characters, and a physical illness can be a telling symbol to signify a character’s internal shortcomings.
Here are the principles that govern the use of symbolic disease in literature:
The most commonly employed diseases in literature are:
Every age has a disease that captures the imagination and fear of readers and authors alike. The most recent example is HIV/AIDS. But why? Let’s go back to the principles of an effective literary disease:
Qualities of HIV/AIDS that lend themselves to metaphor:
Michael Cunningham’s The Hours is a modern reinterpretation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. In Woolf’s original work, a shell-shocked military veteran commits suicide as a response to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a widely-discussed disease at the time.
In his adaptation, Cunningham chose to use a disease that was more relevant to the time and place of his own novel, the modern urban environment. Instead of PTSD and suicide, Cunningham’s character has advanced AIDS.
The two characters’ deaths have a lot of similarities, even though their diseases are quite different. By using the model of Woolf’s work, Cunningham implies that suffering and despair are timeless issues of humanity.
An intelligent reader will always be on the lookout for irony in literature—when an author plays against expectations. When irony is in play in a novel, every other chapter in this book is irrelevant, because the author will invert the typical meanings of symbols and archetypes.
Some modern writers, like James Joyce and Angela Carter, deal almost exclusively with irony. So as you become more familiar with their work, you will be ready for them to go against your conventional expectations. But how can you spot irony in other works of literature?
If there is a disconnect between your expectation of a story and the reality of how it plays out, it is most likely ironic. The conversation between the expectation and reality deepens the meaning of the work.
Think of irony like jazz music. Before a soloist takes off on a jazzy improvisation, he begins by playing the melody straight. That way, when he starts riffing on that melody, the audience can hear how his changes enhance and play against the basic melody. That kind of dual hearing is what irony does in literature. Our expectations are the melody, and the irony is the solo.
Some kinds of irony in literature:
In order to read like a professor, you’ll have to learn to read without your own biases and the fixed position of being you in the year that you are in. Instead, you should try to read every novel as it was intended to be read.
As a reader, you should remain open-minded enough that you can sympathize with the historical moment in which a novel was written. And sometimes the social, historical, or cultural background of that novel will clash with what you know or feel to be true.
For example, Greek epics have many unsympathetic qualities, like concubines and violent slaughter. But there are plenty of valuable lessons to learn from these works if you can read like a citizen of ancient Greece and put those things aside.
Unfortunately, some literature will have racist undertones or sexist remarks. And sometimes, you will want to reject those works rather than try to sympathize with the author. That is your prerogative as a reader. However, you should always give the novel a chance with an open mind before you decide to reject it.
At the end of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the main character shows forgiveness and understanding to his brother, a reformed drug addict, by sending him a drink. Today, many readers know that alcohol can be dangerous to a recovering addict. But in 1957 when the story was written, that information was not widely known. And more importantly, it isn’t helpful in understanding the story.
“Sonny’s Blues” is a story about the main character’s redemption, not Sonny’s. And as the reader, if you can’t differentiate your own knowledge about addiction from what was known at the time, you risk missing the touching message at the end of the story.
So far in this book, we’ve learned to find and interpret symbols, allusions, and more. But a lot of readers wonder—did the author really intend to put all of those things in their text?
The truth is that (with the exception of some authors who have actually talked or written about their work) there’s really no way to know for sure.
Many modern writers, such as James Joyce and T.S. Eliot, employ their symbols and references so intentionally that we can confidently say that they mean every inference that the reader can find. Their use of mythic structures is so complex that we know it can’t be spontaneous.
Before 1900, almost all writers would have received some amount of classical education. And their readers would, too—even more than the average reader today. So it is fair to assume that references to Shakespeare and other classic works were fairly deliberate.
We must also remember that an author spends a lot of time composing their novel, which gives them plenty of time to consider every angle and bring in a great deal of related material.
That said, a reader’s obligation should not be to the author of a particular work but to the text itself. If you think you discover meaning from the words on the page, without skipping or adding anything, then you probably did. And since it is impossible to prove a writer’s intentions, the more important thing to consider is what the reader can discover from the text.
Once you discover something in the text, don’t get caught up in needing to prove yourself right. When discussing meaning and interpretation of literature, many readers say things like “I could be wrong” or “It’s just my opinion.” But you, as the reader, have ownership over your interpretation of the story. So trust your instincts.
On your own time, read the story “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield.
(Shortform note: You can find the story online for free here.)
When you’ve finished the story, answer the questions below. Read carefully and practice all of the strategies for interpretation that you’ve learned from this book. Write or type your answers to stay accountable, and don’t look at any other sources for help.
Once you’ve answered the questions for yourself, compare your own answers with some of these other interpretations:
If your responses were anything like these interpretations, you should give yourself a good grade. Here is another, more in-depth interpretation of the story:
When Laura goes down the hill to visit the house of the dead man, she has actually gone into Hades. Laura is a representation of the mythical character Persephone.
That makes Mrs. Sheridan, Laura’s mother, a representation of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility. The proof? Throughout the story, Mrs. Sheridan has a fascination with flowers and her children.
Laura’s adventure down the hill mirrors Persephone’s trip to Hades in many ways:
If you didn’t make any of these associations in your reading of the story, that’s okay. If you understood the story in terms of what actually transpired in the plot, you have still gotten something out of it. You managed to come to your own conclusions, and that is the first step of reading intelligently.