How to Read Literature Like a Professor - Blog #3

I noticed that within this book there are chapters that really interest me, and others the bore me to tears. This blog will contain my favorites from chapters 12 through 17.

Chapter 12 - Symbolism! Everything is practically a symbol in literature. What I learned was that symbols depend mainly on the person, and the variety of books they've read. Different people will look at a scene/scenario and come up with a vast array of symbols and meanings for them. So there's really no right or wrong answer.

Chapter 15 - Flying = freedom, escape, love, spirit. Liberation was my first thought regarding flying in literature. Regarding the soul, it is found heavily in Christian tradition and has more to do with the spirit aspect of flight. Since humans cannot fly without the help of airplanes and such, literature uses human flight as something very spiritual.

Chapters 16 & 17 - I grouped these chapters together since they both seemed to talk about the "S" work in great detail. In my eyes, symbolism and sex kind of go hand in hand. Many authors don’t go right out and explain sex scenes word for word so they use a lot of objects to represent sex and the male/female organs.
"When they're writing about other things, they really mean sex, and when they write about sex, they really mean something else." (pg. 144)
That something else could mean things such as personal sacrifice, psychological neediness, desire for power over someone else, etc. That quote made me realize the complexity of sex in literature and all of its possible meanings.