Purposeful Writing

The most valuable lesson that is repeatedly taught in How to Read Literature Like a Professor is for the reader to always expect a deeper meaning. In the first chapter of this book, the reader is sprung into the most important lesson taught. The author of any given book wrote down each word with care and meaning, so as a reader, one must understand that the author would not summon multiple characters together to share a meal to act as a  meaningless page filler. This understanding as a reader broadens the scope that they can use when reading literature to find a deeper meaning. Each chapter of this novel explained a pattern that is common in literature and the deeper meaning involved in these actions, whether it be the weather patterns, a shared meal between characters, or simply if a character gets wet. The reader is trained to be prone to recognizing the symbolism that the author has so subtly included.  

Foster explains that “writing a meal scene is so difficult, and so inherently uninteresting, that there really needs to be some compelling reason to include one in the story,” which furthers his point by stating how unimportant a meal can be unless it has been made to be important (8). Although Foster’s explanation is highly contradictory, it brings the point across that there is always significance in every single line of literature because of how intentional the author was in writing the story. No matter how simple an action that a character makes in a novel, the reader must know that that action was purposefully written into the storyline by the author, which means that it has importance to the plot.