• Home Page
  • The Quest Motif In Crying Of Lot 49

The Quest Motif In Crying Of Lot 49

Improved Essays
Show More
In the first chapter, Foster focuses on the quest motif and indicates that this feature is an essential convention in literature. The quest is important because it is linked to any trip or journey endeavored by a character in a text. Common quests involve a wild path, a Holy Grail, a princess, a dragon, and a good and an evil knight. Foster explicitly explains the five stages that make up a 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 person to go there.” (Chapter 1) He highlights that “the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Chapter 1), and the discovery process.
The author analyzes the storyline of Crying of Lot 49, a twentieth-century novel by

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Grief In The Odyssey Analysis
    • 1349 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Grief In The Odyssey Analysis

    The word “grief” shares many similarities to “sadness”, but just as both terms are used to describe a state of unhappiness, to be grieving carries with it connotations of a deeper-rooted pain stemming from the mourning of a loss, or an emotional loyalty to the subject of the grief. The characters in the Greek epic The Odyssey are no strangers to grief, as it is a word woven throughout the text both physically and as an underlying theme. Just as the heroes of the Trojan War long for home, the women they left behind pine for their missing loved ones through constant articulation of grief, bouts of weeping, and sometimes even the need of literal unconsciousness in order to forget their pain. For the wives of The Odyssey, the amount of grief they…

    • 1349 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Odyssey: An Analysis Of Siren's Song
    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Odyssey: An Analysis Of Siren's Song

    During the Odyssey, dictated by Home, Odysseus and his company traverse through the straight where sirens inhabit the area. However Odysseus has already planned a way to go through without his crew members being hypnotized by the sweet voices of the sirens. As they attempt to lure the men the sirens promise them a harmonious song. A song that is unknown. A song that “praises” men, but kills leads them to death.…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Rage In The Odyssey
    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Rage In The Odyssey

    In book one of Iliad, Homer characterizes rage as disastrous and destructive. In the Greek world rage in a way happens when one party dishonors, shames or discredits another party. Homer gives a distinct explanation and uses different words to describe rage in book one. He reveals that Agamemnon’s bad leadership and rage towards the priest, Apollo, Achilles and Zeus causes the Achaeans to suffer a lot. Agamemnon first huge mistake came when he refused to give back the priest of Apollo’s daughter back.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Decent Essays

    Theme Of Grief In The Odyssey
    • 103 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Theme Of Grief In The Odyssey

    in both the Odyssey and ''an ancient Gresture'' the characters expinced grief. According to Alexander and Millay grief is a universal theme. grief survival and hope are all found in both of the pieces. Odysseus is a depressed character because he started crying when he hear the song the greeks was playing , he had a long sleep and then he was was up washed upon the shore. his wife is still waiting on him to come home…

    • 103 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Emily St. John Mandel Quotes
    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Emily St. John Mandel Quotes

    5 quotes from "Station Eleven" that showcase an elegant take on the Dystopian theme Emily St. John Mandel is a contemporary Canadian author living in the United States. In "Station Eleven", her fourth and latest novel (published in 2014), she starts, with calm and paced language, by describing an unusual night at the theater. The instant impression is that of watching a thrilling, well-crafted TV series: the way the setting and the characters are introduced, the way the writing focuses on one character then another one in a large cast, induces a perception of movement, action and familiarity. In this novel a woman in her 20s, an actress in the "Traveling Symphony", journeys from one settlement to the next in a post-pandemic America, 20 years…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Christ Figure Symbolism
    • 55 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Christ Figure Symbolism

    Foster claims that in order to be Christ, characters doesn’t “need to resemble Christ in every way; otherwise he wouldn’t be a Christ Figure” (Foster 122). Foster argues that to be Christ, the characters don’t need to be him, because it is not necessary and the readers are only interested in the symbolism of…

    • 55 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Summary Of Nice To Eat You
    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Summary Of Nice To Eat You

    Chapter 3 Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires In the chapter “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires”, Foster enlightens the reader to meaning behind vampire stories which is the old and corrupt figure preying on the young. Another way of putting it is the exploitation of others in order to get what we want. This essence does not simply apply to just vampire stories, it can be found in most suspense and scary novels. More importantly the chapter leads to the understanding that a loss of your ground or power will lead to eventual suffering as vampires live in all of us due to our innate selfish nature.…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    John Ervin's 'Investigating Writers'
    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages

    John Ervin's 'Investigating Writers'

    Investigating Writers: Assignment This interpretation of writing varies from author to wordsmith, and with great appreciation I have gathered various insights to various writing processes and approaches displayed by the following correspondence which has not been without it’s detractors certainly. While there are different strategies for developing an idea, Stephen King allows us to delve in and explore his own beliefs and theories of the foundations of writing. By recognizing another great writer, John Ervin, he began his lecture by declining certain processes, such as writing the final sentence of a book prior to all of the missing components. We can both agree to how Erven’s process would essentially not be enjoyable, since the process…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Dark Artifices And The Last Hours Analysis
    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Dark Artifices And The Last Hours Analysis

    The one thing I hate more than people rating/reviewing books before they have read them, is when people hate on authors for writing in the same universe. Ever since it was announce that Cassandra Clare would be writing more series in the shadowhunter universe (The Dark Artifices and The Last Hours) people have gone mental. I have seen so hate towards her on goodreads and such, that she should not be writing more books in this world – that she is only doing it for the money. As a writer and reader this makes my blood boil.…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    Moby Dick Chapter Summary
    • 1763 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Moby Dick Chapter Summary

    2. Basic Plot- Overall the objective of the book is to understand Moby Dick and capture the beast himself, but the symbols and meanings of the whale is what transforms the book into more than just a hunt for a large white whale. The whale symbolizes knowledge and its limits especially for the human race. Therefore they are in search of that knowledge, or at least Ishmael is while Captain Ahab is stuck in his blind pursuit of the beast in madness and revenge. 3.…

    • 1763 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Three Quests: A Narrative Fiction
    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Three Quests: A Narrative Fiction

    One day, a man named Kai was with his mom. His mother told him to go out into the woods and collect us some food. Kai gathered a bag and a stick, then went off into the woods. He began to gather some berries, potatoes, and carrots. It was getting late, so he started to go back home to the cottage.…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Quests In Oedipa Maas The Crying Of Lot 49
    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Quests In Oedipa Maas The Crying Of Lot 49

    “Now we know, as she [Oedipa Maas] does, that she can carry on, that discovering that men can’t be counted on doesn’t mean that the world ends; that she’s a whole person.” Pg. 5 As Foster previously states in this chapter, quests are for self-discovery and solving an unanswered and potentially unknown mystery that lies deeply within you. In his example of Oedipa Maas in The Crying of Lot 49 he describes the unpleasant and perhaps overwhelming voyage that one must go on to come to terms with the fact that a person that you once relied upon heavily for emotional/ spiritual/ physical/ financial/ fill-in-the-blank support isn’t all that you’ve cracked them up to be.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Theme Between Lamb To The Slaughter And The Lottery
    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Theme Between Lamb To The Slaughter And The Lottery

    The definition of suspense is, “a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty of what might happen.” At least that is what dictionary.com refers to it as. Also, in both the stories “Lamb to the slaughter,” and “The Lottery,” mood plays an important role in the story. Through the mood, we get the main idea of the scenario or what the author is trying to make out of this scenario. Throughout the story reader can learn that both these stories have mood built up especially in specific phrases.…

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Plenitude In The Abbey
    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Plenitude In The Abbey

    For example an old foresight, which is commonly dull, inadequate, or frustrating, and connected with the house in a wide open or its inhabitants, either past or show; dream vision or indication of coming events; remarkable animals and events, for instance, inert things awakening; woman crippled by an extraordinary, hasty, or tyrannical man, who asks for the female to achieve something unbearable, are not shown in the novel. Then again other Gothic segments adding to an atmosphere of mystery can be found in the book. One of the regular features of Gothic novel is its dialect. It uses the misery and disdain. A critical number of them appear in depicting the key of her night in the Abbey, when she found the organization:…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Sorrow: A Short Story
    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sorrow: A Short Story

    Sorrow, that is what I am feeling on this hot summer day. I am sitting here, on Morgan Court, and watching box after box come through the door. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to think. I have lived in this house for thirteen years and now we were packing it up and leaving, all in just two days.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More

Related Topics

Ready To Get Started?
Discover
Company
Follow
©2024 Cram.com
Privacy Policy |  About Ads |  Site Map |  Advertise  | 
  • Cookie Settings