How to find eggs in literary works

The word "egg" must be familiar to you. Looking for eggs, originally a custom of Easter in the west, has now almost become a necessary link for people to watch movies. In order to increase the interest or preview the sequel, producers usually set eggs in the film or at the end of the film as a reward for the audience. According to statistics, Spielberg set more than 65,438+000 eggs in the movie Player One.

The reason why eggs have attracted much attention is largely because of their interactivity. After watching the movie, the audience can get a surprise with a little brain movement, and their sense of participation and pleasure will be improved instantly.

Have you noticed that there are eggs in literary works? The author doesn't just tell a story, but often leaves some clues intentionally or unintentionally, hoping that some interested readers can follow them and have a date with them through time and space. So, how can we find eggs in Quan Yi's literary works and meet the author smoothly? Thomas Foster suggested in How to Read a Literature Book that we should read and understand literature from the perspective of a literature professor, even if we read less. More understanding, more insight, more fun. This sentence on the cover explains the method and significance of embarking on the road of literary exploration for us.

Thomas Foster is the most popular open literature professor in America, specializing in 20th century English, Irish and American literature. How to read a novel is a companion to How to read a novel, and it is the designated reading of Ivy League University in the United States, ranking in Amazon bestseller list for more than 8 years. In the book, Thomas comprehensively combs novels, movies, plays, poems and other literary works, leading readers to re-understand literature from the perspective of literature professors. He listed 26 reading skills, and through the appreciation of more than 300 works, he helped readers understand "reading language", enriched reading experience and stimulated reading interest.

Looking back on the Chinese class in middle school, we have done countless times of "appreciation of ancient poems". We are good at analyzing the artistic conception of poetry and the poet's mood from the weather. But when we read novels, plays and other literary works, we often ignore the symbolic significance of the weather. Thomas Foster said in his book: The weather is not just the weather. Take rain as an example, it has five functions:

1. Design story: Rain can make the hero fall into a more difficult situation;

2. Set off the atmosphere: rainy days are more mysterious, gloomy and lonely;

Rain is fair: it will fall on everyone indiscriminately;

4. Rain is clean: it is clear when it falls, but it will make the ground muddy and give people a symbolic baptism;

5. Recovery effect: Rain is the main component of spring, which can bring the world back to life.

"Geography" in literary works is a very broad concept, ranging from the whole world to a small mountain, which belongs to the category of geographical factors. Thomas said in his book that the location in poetry and novels is very important, regardless of height, distance, east, west, north and south. We can not only understand the background of the story, but also explore its hidden thoughts, psychology, history, internal motives and so on.

In the Snow of Kilimanjaro, Hemingway described two different death scenes: the jaguar on the top of the mountain, sealed in the snow, died clean and pure; The writer at the foot of the mountain died of gangrene, and his death was ugly and terrible. Under the influence of geographical factors, death can also be divided into high and low, clear and turbid.

Those characters with physical defects in literary works are not written by writers at will, but are carefully designed and deliberately arranged. Because writers always use it to express something. Quasimodo's ugly face highlights his kind heart; The scar on Harry Potter's forehead reveals his origin with Voldemort. Oedipus blinded himself because he finally saw his terrible life. ...

Heart disease can be regarded as one of the most common diseases in literary works, and its appearance often has two meanings: first, if a person suffers from heart disease, he/she must also face some things that make him/her uneasy in life; On the second floor, a character is preoccupied all day, and it is natural that emotional problems will eventually turn into physical diseases and suffer from heart disease. According to this view, humbert, who is full of evil in Lolita, finally died of heart failure. Although unexpected, it is appropriate.

Eggs in literary works are actually various details carefully designed by the author, through which readers can understand a work more deeply. In How to Read a Literary Book, Thomas Foster gave 26 egg-finding skills, which can not only give us the most direct emotional response, but also keep a moderate distance from the work and gain a more colorful reading experience. What really matters is not the ending that everyone can reach, but the process of finding eggs and understanding them in depth.