How To Read Literature Like A Professor Chapter Summary

In the interlude and the eleventh chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster analyzes the different effects violence has in literature. Firstly, Foster distinguishes that there are two different types of violence in literature. The first form of violence is when a specific injury is brought upon a character by themselves or another character through “shootings, stabbings, garrotings, drownings, poisonings, bludgeonings, bombings” and other harmful means (96). Contrasting with this, the second kind of violence is general harm brought forth by the all-powerful author. The author does this in order to advance the plot or thematically develop the story. The greatest distinction between the two violences is, “no
In The Hunger Games, twenty four children are chosen to fight to the death until there is one last standing. Rue, a 12 year old girl, makes an alliance with the main character, Katniss, until her abrupt end where she is stabbed through her stomach, resulting in her death. Rue’s death devastates Katniss, but continues the plot, making Katniss struggle through loss while attempting to defend herself from others. To contrast from this character committed violence, in My Sister’s Keeper Anna, a 13-year-old girl, struggles with the fact that she was born as a savior sister for Kate, her sister who is dying from leukemia. Anna get a lawyer and sues her parents whom want her to donate her kidney to Kate. In the end of the novel Anna gets into a car accident and is deemed brain dead. The author causes the car crash to further along the plot and complete the story where Anna donates her kidney to her sister. In conclusion, the Interlude and Chapter 11 of Thomas C. Foster’s, How to Read Literature Like a Professor have taught me to critically evaluate and categorize different types of violence found in literature. These chapters have also displayed the effects and reasons of why violence is incorporated into novels, stories and