How To Read Literature Like A Professor Thomas Foster Summary

Chapter 22: He’s Blind for a Reason, You Know In Thomas C. Foster’s, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster talks about blindness not only as a burden, but as a gift. He tries to convey to the audience that blindness in stories goes beyond physical meaning. He also talks about how to catch important details early in a story or movie. The three main points Foster asserts in this chapter are sacrifice, commonly missed word usage, and if you want something known, make it known early. One of the main points Foster talks about is sacrifice. Sacrifice means blinding himself or herself for a higher purpose. Characters, when blind, can see the reality behind their wrongdoing, gain infinite knowledge of the world, or even gain special abilities. Characters can also have their other senses enhanced not being able to see. In Sophocles’s play, Oedipus Rex, a blind, theban, seer named Tiresias knows the painful truth in king Oedipus’s life. In a moment of anger, Tiresias blurts out those hurtful details. Oedipus remains blind to the fact that his children are his siblings, his wife-mother was driven to suicide, and he has a curse on himself and his family. Many years after, Oedipus blinded himself to gain peace at mind and
Readers often miss the pattern authors use to hint towards a person’s blindness. Every slight detail seems to contain some reference to seeing. Even images of light and darkness could have everything to do with the character’s blindness (211). Foster is also not only talking about physical, but mental blindness. Many characters have their judgment clouded, because they are too ignorant to see the truth. In John Steinbeck’s, The Pearl, nobody is physically blind, but the main character, Kino, was blinded to the fact that the pearl he had found would cause his family nothing but trouble. After Kino realizes his ignorance, he tosses the pearl back into the