The Hands Hold the Key

            “C-O-K-E, that’s right sweetheart.” Jessica slowly formed the letters with her hand as she slid the can across the table to Ben. His signing had really improved over the past year, but he still struggled sometimes. When he got sick, she never anticipated that something like this would happen. She knew as his mother that it was now her responsibility to give him as normal a life as possible, but if the judge didn’t rule in her favor this afternoon, she wouldn’t be able to protect him anymore. If Ben went to live with Chris, his life would change in more ways than one, forever.

            She thought back to when she first got pregnant. Chris was so excited that he had this goofy grin plastered on his face for a solid week. He started looking at houses and planning for their future together, and Jessica thought she could see her life slowly unfolding before her. Jessica, however, handled Ben’s handicap better than Chris did. While Jessica took night classes in sign language and read parenting books, Chris got angry, frustrated with Ben. He would come stumbling in, knocking things over before bitterly saying, “Oh whatever, it’s not like he can hear me anyways.”

            Focusing back on Ben, she silently thanked the restaurant for giving her the day off. She wanted to spend as much time as possible with him today in case the hearing didn’t go well. She knew Chris would try to use her job against her, claiming it wasn’t stable enough for Ben, that he could provide him a better life. Sure, the restaurant didn’t pay much, but everyone there loved her son like a family, and he needed that now more than ever. No matter what Chris gave him, it wouldn’t replace the lack of trust between them, a scar so deep that it could never be repaired. Once was all it took, and even though he swore it would never happen again, she swore she would never let him lay a hand on her son again.

            As they made their way up the courthouse steps, she gripped Ben’s hand just a little bit tighter. “Surely they wouldn’t take a child away from its mother,” she quietly thought to herself. “Ben needs me.” She walked through the empty hall, the only sound coming from Ben’s Spiderman sneakers squeaking on the marble floors. As she pushed the large wooden doors open, she saw him. Rage instantly swelled up inside her as she took her seat across the aisle, the memory of that night still fresh in her mind. He looked tired and impatient, tapping his expensive Italian shoes on the floor. Disgusted by his presence, Jessica turned to Ben in the seat beside her. “I want Coke,” he slowly signed to her. “In a little while baby,” she mouthed, making sure he focused on her lips.

“All rise for the honorable Judge Lewis,” the bailiff bellowed. As Jessica rose from her seat, she glanced over at Chris. There was no way she would let him take Ben away from her. She couldn’t.

The Fury of War

Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is definitely not what I expected a novel about World War II to be about. It is extremely honest and straightforward, making sure to portray everything at face value. Fury, however, is exactly what I expected a war movie to look like: it was gory and violent, yet showed fabulous looking people laying down their lives to protect their fellow man. While both Fury and Slaughterhouse Five depict extremely graphic pictures of what it means to be a soldier in World War II with tones of hopelessness and passivity, David Ayer’s Fury carries an underlying theme of heroism and brotherhood, which is not as present in Slaughterhouse Five.

Spoiler alert: Fury does not end well for the soldiers. In the final scenes of the movie, the men are stranded in the middle of the German countryside in their tank, and have decided to face certain death in order to take on an entire regiment of German troops. The men know that they cannot survive, yet remain and fight out of loyalty to their country and each other. In Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, there is a similar feeling of hopelessness, seen in Billy Pilgrim’s experience in the train car where the men become underfed and are forced to live in unthinkable conditions.  He loses his will to continue as he becomes more and more ostracized from the other soldiers. His only friend, the hobo, dies and he treats it as if it was nothing, simply saying, “So it goes.” In Fury, the men have a similar numbness towards death, but more out of desensitization. They see so much death, that a young kid like Logan Lerman’s character, who breaks down after his first kill, is seen as a source of entertainment rather than pity for the other men.

Early on in Slaughterhouse Five, it becomes clear that this book is in no way a tale of great heroism. Billy is the farthest thing from a soldier; he’s inexperienced and afraid, and has no desire to be in war. The other men don’t like him, separating him in every situation possible: they make him stand in the train car, they give him a civilian’s coat, they make him sleep in the infirmary wing at the camp. The only people Billy has a chance to become close to die, leaving him all along. This is completely opposite of what is portrayed in Fury, where there is a certain comrade-in-arms mentality. Before the big battle scenes of the movie, the men always say,  “Best job I ever had,” which is their way of acknowledging the unbreakable bond that they share as a team. They are willing to lay down their lives for each other, and go to great lengths to ensure their unit stays intact, which lent a certain warmth to the film.

It was strange to see how two different stories could surround the same war. One took a very patriotic and American-central viewpoint, while another made the American weak and afraid. What I took away from both, however, was that war is horrific and painful and possesses the power to change people. For Billy Pilgrim, it forced him to deal with his trauma in a way that made others think he was crazy, and for Logan Lerman’s character Norman, it hardened him into a hateful killer in the name of country.

Hansel and Gretel Find Their Way Home

          This chapter, while thankfully my last for now, has by far been my favorite. Foster discusses an issue that I face as both a reader and a writer: how do you make something that's completely new, but familiar at the same time? And I have to say, Foster's conclusion made me both surprised and happy-fairytales. Writers draw parallels between those stories we were told as little kids and their new works. He mentioned the popular ones, Shakespeare, Brothers Grimm, etc., and as soon as he said Peter Pan, I instantly thought of Lord of the Flies. Those boys, stranded together on a tropical island and forced to work together to survive, reminded me of the lost boys. However, the beauty of alluding to fairytales is that you get to play with what people expect from them, as was done in LOTF. What you expect to be a fun tale of young boys getting to run wild and have fun is quite the opposite, quickly taking a dark and twisted turn towards violence and barbarianism. It puts a harsh reality on a carefree fantasy, and some might consider that a bad thing, but as the reader that just made it so much more interesting.
          What surprised me the most in this chapter was the that Foster claimed that Hansel and Gretel would be the fairytale most utilized by writers of modern literature. the most used by writers. The way he explained it, I suppose it made sense to me, however, I couldn't think of a very good example other than the ones he stated. The closest I could get was the movie August Rush, in which an orphan runs away to New York City, gets taken in by a group of street performers, only to end up attending Julliard for music and finding his long-lost parents. I guess I mostly found parallels in that he was a kid, lost in the wilderness of the city, tempted by the life of a manipulative street artist. The only difference is, this movie ends pretty happily for everyone, unlike in the fairytale. Perhaps I just haven't noticed the connections elsewhere, or I just haven't read enough literature, but I feel as though I could make a bigger case for any number of other fairytales. Personally, I would argue the prevalence of Cinderella in modern literature. Take any Jane Austen novel, and they all follow the same story line as our favorite princess: a down-on-her-luck, semi-attractive girl meets the love of her life and after a few mishaps and twists of fate, they live happily ever after together. Sound familiar to you? Whichever fairytale you choose as the "best", I love the idea that everything I read is in some way inspired by a fairytale. Like Foster says, it adds multiple levels of complexity and harmony when there's something familiar, yet new. It allows the reader to experience the text on a deeper level, playing with different levels and expectations. It's kind of magical, almost like a fairytale.

Symbol Say What?

          Foster's position on symbols in this chapter is one that I find both very refreshing and enlightening. Most literature books that you read will either tell you that a symbol can only mean one thing within a story, or that it should only mean one thing. Foster, however, takes a more open approach, telling us that a symbol can mean whatever you want it to mean, as long as you base it off your experiences and instincts. He tells us to use our creativity, and to divulge all the different possible meanings of the story. For example, in the book Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls, there is a very iconic moment at the very end of the book, where Billy, the main character, discovers a red fern growing atop his beloved dogs' graves. Now, when I first read this part, of course, I was crying. I was thinking about how, based on the legend in the book, this fern meant that an angel was watching over his dogs, in the same way his dogs watched over him and protected him. However, when I came to class the next day, my teacher told us that it meant how even out of death there springs life. While I didn't necessarily disagree with her, it wasn't what I got from the story. Upon presenting my theory, she dismissed it and told me I had missed the point. (Great way to build up a sixth grader's confidence, huh?) I had been angry at my teacher because she told me I was wrong, but really, there wasn't a "right" answer at all. For all we knew, the fern could have symbolized how life moves on, or how, as much as Billy loved the dogs, he knows that the plants will continue to grow and the sun will continue to shine. We really don't know, but as long as the interpretation is valid and based in the text, it should be considered correct.

          Another great point that Foster makes is that while reading is a highly intellectual activity, it also relies heavily on instinct. A story becomes most powerful when it becomes personal, so by relating it to your experiences, you can connect with the story on a deeper level and come up with a meaning that's specific to you. Now, I'm not exactly sure how practical that is in a school setting, considering most teachers give tests that ask questions like, "What does the imagery in chapter 4 symbolize and why?" For example, when we read The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, in Mrs. Gay's freshman English class, I had a really hard time on tests, because what I thought a symbol meant wasn't necessarily what she thought was correct. Looking back, I accept that I was most likely wrong in whatever I took as the "true meaning" due to the fact that Mrs. Gay and I are nowhere near the same academic level (her being much smarter than I am, obviously), but at the time, I was frustrated.  Symbols can mean so many different things, so why does there have to be a right or wrong answer in the first place? The point that Foster is trying to make in this chapter is that there doesn't.

There is Only One Story.

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, chapter 4 poses a compelling and unique idea, which I agree with completely. His theory is that there is no such thing as an original piece of work, but that all writers feed off of their experiences and other works, which were written by people who have fed off of other works, etc., and it just keeps going around and around in this great big cycle of creativity.

One of my favorite examples of this idea is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. When I began these books originally, I had no idea that they were based off of anything, but shortly after starting into the first novel, I had that “aha!” moment that Foster describes. Reading it now, its very obvious to see that C.S. Lewis based his books off of stories from the Bible, most namely the crucifixion. In the books, the true king of Narnia, Aslan, voluntarily sacrifices himself to the White Witch in order to save the life of Edmund, who betrayed his siblings and Aslan himself. In the Bible, we see how Jesus voluntarily gave his life “for all [those who] have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Now, I don’t want to get into anyone’s religious affiliation, but the Bible was in fact based on history, to whatever extent you choose to believe. Foster also mentions that history itself is a story, which brings us back to the original point: there is only one story, huge and all encompassing. But it doesn’t always have to be such an obvious and overt allusion to another piece of literature like we see with Carol. When I saw the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the first time, (which admittedly was not that long ago) the main character Ferris reminded me of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. Both aren’t swayed by society’s views of them, and they view the world through very honest and somewhat cynical perspectives. Albeit, Holden handles his situation a little differently than Ferris, ultimately getting checked into a mental hospital, but you get the idea.

Writers pull from their experiences, which hopefully include a lot of reading, if they truly want to be good. Whether they realize it or not, by drawing from their lives, they are actually drawing from the lives of others, which has manifested into the works that they have read or studied. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing by any means, but it actually allows us to develop a deeper appreciation for a text as it becomes more complex. When we can make connections to other works we are already familiar with, it substantially increases our engagement and allows us to draw a more personal meaning.

Now, if you’re like me, however, and you haven’t read as much as other people, and you may not see those connections as easily, Foster makes an analogy that basically boils down to one thing: the more you practice, the easier it gets. The more you read, the bigger your database of sources becomes that you can make connections to. Even if you don’t have the wealth of knowledge that comes from reading, the worst thing that can happen is that you’ve read something interesting at face value, and have stored it to use in the future as a source of connections to the next piece you read.