3 Keys to Enjoying Literature and Getting the Good Stuff Out of Reading

Reading is by no means the most popular pastime of today's  youth. To most who are not active readers, there is the  perpetual notion that there isn't much to be gained by reading,  or at least nothing that can outweigh many other activities  like movies, video games, or other forms of entertaining media.

Well, it's sad but true that most are also sadly mistaken. A  story is a story is a story is a story, right? Wrong.

While originality is a myth when it comes to stories and  literature, real value and entertainment are not. You hear of  the classics in school like Shakespeare, Lord of the Flies,  Count of Monte Cristo, Dante's Inferno or Divine Comedy,  Picture of Dorian Gray, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and  Huckleberry Finn, and countless others, but those titles and  authors inevitably become synonymous with BORING.

Well, there are 3 keys to enjoying those classics of literature  and getting some real entertainment and value out of your  readings. These books don't have to be boring, in fact they can  be life-changing when these simple keys are applied. Reading  won't be a burden anymore, at very least it will be a pleasant  pastime.

Key # 1:

Symbolism

This is probably the most important key to keep in mind when  reading. It might even be handy to have a little literature  symbolism dictionary around, like Ferber's Dictionary of Literary Symbols which  I would personally recommend. But, even without a symbolism  dictionary, just think about what possible meanings certain  things that stand out could have.

For instance, once a friend came to me who was in a different  English class, and was extremely excited about this book that  her class was reading. So, I asked her to tell me what it was  about.

The first thing she said was that it was the story of a girl  who had Leukemia.

Now, I stopped her right there, and asked her what Leukemia  was. She told me it was cancer of the blood.

So, I told her that I could tell the story was about a girl who  had a disease that was going to tear her family apart. She  stared at me, amazed. She asked how I knew that.

Well, it's quite simple really. Cancer is a disease, it makes  the body eat away at itself. Blood is a symbol for family, as  people who are family have the same blood, or the saying 'blood  is thicker than water' attributed to familial relationships.  So, she has a cancer that is affecting her blood = She has a  disease that will eat away at her family or family  relationships.

The book was My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, which  personally I haven't read. But, applying the basic concept of  symbolism to aspects of a story or character can shed a whole  new light on what's really going on in the story.



Key # 2:

Recognizing Motifs

Motifs are recurring important ideas or images throughout a  work. The way these can enhance the pleasure of fictional reading is the subtleties they convey.

For instance, let's take Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. In Macbeth, blood is an outstanding motif. It appears in the story only when something important beneath the surface is taking place. More specifically,in Macbeth, blood appears when a character reaches a 'point of no return'.

It's important to pay attention to what is a motif in a work of literature. Because the reader recognizes blood as a motif, the reader can discover what that motif applies to, and it can shed a different light on whats happening in the story. In this case, the reader can recognize that when blood appears in the story, a character has reached a 'point of no return, and the reader can then understand in greater depth what causes the character to do the things they do in the rest of the story.



Key # 3:

Choose a Genre

Starting off trying to read the classics can be daunting. The third key to enjoying literature is to find a niche that sparks your interest. If a type of book bores you, find a different kind.

Literature is divided into genres as well as time periods. I had a Literature teacher once who could not stand Victorian literature (i.e. Jane Eyre, or anything by the Bronte sisters), because of the style of writing and morals portrayed, but she still taught a few of the works to us.

Personally, once upon a time I happened upon the Picture of Dorian Gray, and became infatuated with Decadent Literature or literature from the Aesthetic movement. From there I learned about similar types of literature, and came to enjoy many types of books.

So, just find a type of book or niche that might interest you, or something that is very popular like Clockwork Orange or Hitchhiker's Guide o the Galaxy that have had movies made based off of them.

It's okay though, if you don't like a book, even if you try and apply these keys. There are just some books that will have a flavor you like, and some that are hard to turn the page in. The third key to enjoying literature though, is to just find the right genre to start. Once you find one type that you like, you will naturally open up to more and more types that are similar, and soon enough you will find great pleasure and value in reading.

Distortion in Literature

How the use of distortion in literature can affect it's meaning and the way it is perceived by the readers, sometimes sparking vibrant cultural trends or movements

    Literary realism can be the most drab way of analyzing or criticizing our human condition, so the wonderfully effective antidote is distortion. What makes distortion such a wonderful fix is that instead of pointing fingers and telling it like it is (which can flip the 'off' switch faster than it can make a lucid point) it is entertaining and can sometimes unconsciously have the reader empathizing with a point they might have otherwise found distasteful.

    For instance, the distortion of Victorian ideals in Alice in Wonderland had some shaking their heads (at the time it was published) with the apparent ludicrousness of the story. However, every kid (or kid-at-heart, we call them the progressives) wanted to jump down the rabbit hole with her. Why? Because the harsh reality of Victorian society was that the elders and influential people sprinkled the same old pepper on everything and told them all to eat cake. When the youngin's of the time sneezed and decided they didn't want to play croquet with the Queen anymore, change was welcomed in society.

    See, without distortion to make the truth of the matter clear, Alice (or the youths of the time) would still be spectating on irrational systems of conduct, unaware that they had a choice to even play croquet. Distortion in literature can hum the solid tune of societal change.

    In the book Fear and Trembling, distortion of consciousness and mood within the story lead the reader unwittingly down a path that in common religious practices would lead straight to hell. The reader thinks that the narrator's rather harsh female boss is just hazing her new, awkward employee out of jealousy and sick humor, but this conception doesn't quite fit the actions. The narrator is forced to cleaning bathrooms (a janitor's work, not a secretary's), re-copying hundreds of files over and over, one by one, and her boss is still just so enchanting.

    The reader sypmathizes with the narrator in her victimization, but by the end of the story the reader realizes they have just walked the path of a girl who falls in love with her sadistic lesbian boss. And you thought you could relate to her, didn't you? As the haze of distortion lifts and the reality of what has transpired throughout the plot (the hazing being a distorted form of the sexual, sadistic adventures of the two), a relationship commonly ignored and condemned in society has just been given very real and undeniable justification to the reader.

    The Stranger, by Albert Camus is another great example of the merits of distortion. They don't consider this a definitng tome of existentialism for nothing. By seeing through the narrator, Mersault's, eyes, the reader takes a walk on the existentialist side of the road. Now, this may seem a far cry from the way we live our lives, but as Mersault tells his story we walk with him through it and see through his 'distorted' (this is the existential) perspective of the world. Nevertheless, we come to understand the situation of the world as radically different from ours as it may be, and the respect gained for our existentialist guinea pig by the end of the book is more than adequate, just as our understanding of that philosophy has become. Mersault ends up dead, but we end up wondering.

    Another case of distortion in this text is the way Camus tells of the actions and at what point they occur. This is a very powerful tool, as the reader is never quite sure from at what point in the flow of events the narrator is speaking of how long this particular event actually lasts. This kind of distortion implies the irrelevancy of time, and allows the theme of the story to be applied to any time in history; in other words, it is therefore immediately applicable to the reader's point in time and point in life through the distortion of time in this novel. We don't know how long Mersault is in prison on trial, but frankly, we are led to not care. The time it happened or how long it took to pass doesn't matter, only that it happened: a major theme of existentialism.

    Distortion is, as Flannery O'Connor once said, 'the only way to make people see'. Alice would be the first to testify that our perceptions of reality are always too big or too small, but with a little distortion (or chunks of giant mushroom) everything is just right and we can finally get into the garden wherein the root of our quest resides: an understanding of our human condition.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: A Religious Allegory

      An insight into the religious allegory and symbolism contained in Tom Stoppard's work

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, is a vivid work that addresses humanity's need to believe in or follow a higher cause. It begs the question: Are we lost without a God?

    The answer would be yes, if it were that 'a God' could be construed to mean any type of higher ideology as well as some sort of supreme being. Without something to devote ourselves to, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern demonstrate that we are lost and wandering, much like they, the protagonists of this play, are.

    The story begins with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flipping coins. No matter how many times they flip it, it always lands on the same side. They sit on a bench somewhere at some time of day in astonishment, just trying to fathom how this could truly be the case. This coin they are flipping represents the belief in a higher purpose. It is unclear whether or not there is an alternative side to this coin or not; much as there is no clarifying whether or not there is an alternative to the existence of a higher power.

    They try to reason that it is chance that the coin lands on the same side one hundred percent of the time, but even chance dictates that this could not be the case. One insists to the other that there are indeed two separate sides and that the coin is not weighted, so this puts them at a bit of an intellectual loss. The two fellows try to fathom what kind of forces could be making this phenomena occur, while at the same time it is becoming blatant to the reader that this scene is utterly pointless. This unexplainable event whispers the possibility of a force beyond their understanding; beyond our understanding, and it is not until the Tragedians (who represent the voice of a god, or the intimations of a higher purpose) happen upon the scene that the play takes a more meaningful turn.

    The role of the Tragedians is relatively important to understanding the predicament of our main characters. They are seen and watched, but their words fall on deaf ears, so to speak. Their display is witnessed but seldom taken seriously, and the true meaning of what they say is lost on the people watching (there is an exception in Act III, but the actual "Murder of Gonzago" is not portrayed in Stoppard's play). This is related to the 'voice of God' in that what they are saying has an impeccable relevance to the situations of the onlookers, but they are dismissed as simple actors, whose words are meaningless. However, the topic of individuals being open to the influence of higher purposes is not a point of this discourse, so we continue on with the journey of the twins.

    Eventually, (with the aid of the Tragedians, of course) the clueless pair stumble upon the twisted world of Hamlet. They are caught completely unawares of the true events going on that are the topic of Shakespeare‘s play. This represents the ambiguity people in general experience when they are confronted with religion, be it of varied definitions. There's no knowing exactly what happened in the beginning of time or, for that matter, even in the time of Jesus or Muhammad. There is no knowing the real validity of the sacred texts, and there is no knowing concrete answers to questions of faith. Nevertheless, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent on a mission to take Hamlet to a place far away. They are not fully aware of what their task means (and indeed this does fit the archetype of The Task quite well) and it is the display of their faith in their Jesus figure, Hamlet, that they carry out this task unquestioningly.

    They do not question this task, for the task itself inspires a deep faith in them, and it gives them a purpose. The significance of this newfound purpose is that they were never previously told what to do, and thus their lives before the task seemed erratic and meaningless.

    The irony of this newly found purpose is that once they are alone on the boat on their way to England, they begin to questions their mission. They ask each other where they are going, why they are going, and what they will do when they get there. They find each other at a loss for answers. The questions they ask all refer allegorically to rather Christian questions such as: Is there a heaven? How will I get there? What is beyond the Pearly Gates? They ask each other then why they believe in Hamlet (Jesus) and their simple answer is the root of Christianity: because they had grown up with it. Hamlet had supposedly known them since they were adolescents; because the bible says so, because God knew who we were before we were born.

    There is no proof of a childhood with Hamlet, much as there is no proof of the validity of the Bible, or the Koran, or any such text or prophet. Their unquestioning faith begins to waver because there is no proof. Suddenly, some pirates come in their unwitting absence of faith and steal Hamlet from the ship. Naturally, they now forget where they are going. They wander aimlessly, once again.

    When we lose our faith in a higher purpose, we begin to lose our reasons for doing the things we do. Be it a god or ideals, when their presence in our life is either no longer felt or is ignored, our efforts are utterly aimless. There are always two sides to a coin, but it is not only luck that determines the outcome of the toss. A certain accountability for the results lies in the factors of faith, and the presence of a belief. This is an implicit theme of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

The Outline Summary of the Hamlet

The Symbolism of Terrain in Tom Rob Smith's Child 44

An analysis of the meaning of terrain in Tom Rob Smith's Child 44.    

In Child 44, Yuri is a devoted officer in the Russian military, and in many ways the cold, harsh Russian terrain symbolizes his family, his career, and his journey to self-realization.
    Yuri starved as a child. His poor, diminished family was stuck living on the back-burners of a war-driven, communist country in a town all but forgotten by the government, where in the dead of winter people killed each other over a stray cat.
    Out in the forest, in the snow, as a child he takes his younger brother to hunt said stray cat. The fact that they venture into this forest for the cat (which could be a symbol of survival, since this is what will supply their sustenance) foreshadows that he will lose his brother, and that is just what happens. The forest they venture into both foreshadows and symbolizes how they become lost as well as the loss of each other in the hunt or quest for survival. They take each other for dead in the cold night and as they emerge from the forest they are each forced out of their adolescence and into the darkness of the world.
    Yuri flees the town after the 'death' of his brother and becomes a stern officer in the KGB whose cold rationale perfectly matches that of the Russian winters. Coincidentally, his younger brother becomes cold to match the terrain of the land in a much different way. Seeing his successful brother on the cover of war posters and knowing that his high-ranking brother knows nothing of his existence, he is driven to gross serial murders to get his attention.
    The way that these murders are carried out is of great importance given the early symbology of the forest and the cat. He takes his victims and feeds their stomach (an organ perhaps representing his ability to digest the circumstances of his life) to his pet cats and drags the bodies of the victims into the snowy forest. This is his way of trying to drag his brother back down into the cold darkness with him to realize he's there. It takes many, many murders to catch the attention of the KGB, but it works. Yuri is the officer delegated to investigate these murders.
    The terrain then turns to represent the Russian government itself and the social prison Yuri begins to find himself in. When Yuri realizes there is a serial murderer, the government shuts him down, because under the communist rule, there is no crime, no fear, no one outside the rules. The snow (representing the cold blanket of lies and harshness) encases everyone. The government even goes so far as to arrest any person on the street who is slightly out of favor and charges them with the next murder and tortures them until they confess.
    When Yuri has had enough and runs from his commander who begins to order these innocents to death, he runs through a forest (ironically) and across a white, snowy field until he falls into the river. After nearly freezing to death, he comes out of the nearly frozen river alive, no longer lost in the web of government lies. Everyone knows that being submerged in water and coming out means rebirth. He has been reborn into moral innocence.
    Without a career, instead he has a new determination to find the truth about the murders, he is forced to live on the streets, running from the ruthless government while being surrounded by them constantly, like the snow in the villages. Without a home he feels the stinging bite of the winter, the bite of corruption more than ever. He realizes he used to be a part of this winter: ruthless and cold, covering everything with a blanket of white lies pretending to be an innocent truth.
    As he slowly discovers the truth of what happened in the forest when he was a child, and the truth of the bodies found in the forest; that his brother is alive and is vengeful, the circumstances of the past are frozen as the present's reality. His brother is still dead to him, even though he is found to be alive. They say it's always winter in Russia.

Dialogue 'Self-Knowledge'

I have one last question for you, Sir.

Yes?


Who Are You?

Who Are You?

I am Joris.

 You are a name? A sound, a mere utterance?

Well I am my memories, as well.

You are a vision of the past seen through an infinitely small peephole?

Well I am my body, I suppose.

Then why do you call it yours? Are you a possession of your self?


If I keep giving you answers, will you only reply with questions? How can I define myself? Can you give me a real answer?

He smiled. 'Who' is not the more pertinent question, indeed. You know very well who you are. Do not let you fool yourself. Your knowledge does not stretch only as far as you are able to define and put restrictions on an abstract something. Do not be daunted by having no definite answer, for one can only define the finite. You can never answer 'who' somebody is. Therefore, I cannot answer your question.

How shall I know you, then?

The way you know yourself.