Thomas C. Foster: How To Read Literature Like A Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor Summer Assignment How to Read Literature Like a Professor is, as explained in the title, a guide to better understanding literature, written by Thomas C. Foster, an English professor at the University of Michigan-Flint. Foster wrote this book so students and casual readers alike can enhance their reading experience. Each chapter gives an in-depth explanation of a specific element of literature. The first concept I used was quests in literature, and how it relates to The Odyssey by Homer, and the second concept I used was politics and how it relates to Animal Farm by George Orwell. Quests are common in literature, but a great example of one can be found in The Odyssey. The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, ruler of the kingdom Ithaca, and his journey home to his family after fighting in a war. The plot alone can be informally described as a quest, but according to Foster, “the quest consists of five things: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, …show more content…
He states that almost all writing is political on some level, some more than others. Animal Farm, by George Orwell, is a great example of a political novel. However, at first it might not seem like one-on the surface, it is just about animals on a farm. So how would one know that it is a political allegory? Foster states, “Knowing a little something about the social and political milieu out of which a writer creates can only help us understand her work, not because that milieu controls her thinking but because that is the world she engages when she sits down to write” (Foster 123). Orwell wrote Animal Farm in 1944, when relations between England and future dictator Stalin were positive. However, Orwell had seen communism before during the Spanish Civil War and wrote Animal Farm to warn people of Stalin and his socialist ways. We are therefore able to conclude that Animal Farm is about the Russian Revolution and what lead to the Soviet