Vamprism In Literature

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: Chapter 3 Outline

Title: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires

Summary :
Vamprism in literature isn’t just about literal vampirism but amoung other priciples. (16)
Literal Vamprism is “a nasty old man, attractive but evil, violates young women, leaves his mark on them, steals their innocence-and coincidentally their usefulness”. (16)
Vamprism can be a characteristic that can be portrayed in literature such as selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to respect the autonomy of other people. (16)
“ghosts and doppelgangers” principles that also applies to vamprism. (16)
Most literary ghosts that occur in stories of lasting interest have to do with things besides themselves. (17)
Many Victorian writers included

vampires, ghosts, etc. to show that they are not just always there to scare the audience. (17)
The Victorians were limited to what they were able to write about such as sex and sexuality.(17)
Ghosts and vampires did not always have to be visable in forms some could be entirely human. (18)

Literary References:
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603)
When the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears arround the castle he is just not appearing simply just “to haunt his son”
The apperances by the ghost of Hamlet’s father is to help point out something that is wrong in the Denmark’s household.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
In this novel Stevenson has Dr. Jekyll drink from a potion that summons his evil half.
Connects to the characteristics of vampirism.
Henry James’s Daisy Miller (1878)
There are no “ghosts, no demonic possession, and more mysterious than a midnight trip” involved in James’s story
But Dasiy dies by contracting malaria while on her trip but vampires is what really kills her. But a person does not necessarily need to have fangs or a cape to be vampire.
D. H. Lawrence Women in Love (1920)
Even though the characters are insanely in love with one another the both of them “ realize that only one of them can survive” as a result they must engage in “mutually destruvtive behavior”.
Weaves back into the use of vampirism characteristics and do not always have to have vangs.
A- Ha Moments:
On the significance of non literal vampirism: “... ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires” (18)
On the significance of the use of vampirism is not limited: “...writers still use ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and all manner of scary things to symbolize various aspects of our more common reality” (17)
On the significance of different forms for any type of vampirism: “... the ghosts and vampires don’t always have to appear in visable forms” (18)
On the significance of the different charcteristics of vampirism: “...the ghosts or vampires is merely a gothic cheap thrill without any particular thematic or symbolic significance” (21)

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: Chapter 6 Outline

Title: ...Or the Bible

Summary:
The Bible is frequently a source that many writers will turn to in their writing. (45)
The use of Biblical allusions “ gardens, serpent, plagues, flood, … betrayal, denial, and slavery” (42)
The Bible can be used for many different purposes (45)
When it comes to most writers they do not need “enriching motifs, characters, themes, or plots, but just needs a title”. (45)
Stories based on the lost of a type of “innocnece” (45)
Some writer’s of the twentieth century solely used the Bible due to the use of religion (47)
The “Bible is nonsectarian” religious group have access to use the Bible (44)
Most writer’s reference the Bible due to the fact that most people know some of the Biblical stories. (42)
We see that most people who know these stories are “writers. Poets. Playwrights. Screenwriters” due to the fact that they expect most of their audience will connect to the point they are trying to convey. (42)

Literary References:
Quentin Tarantino Pulp Fiction (1994)
The use of swearwords by Samuel L. Jackson’s characrter throughout the film is “a Vesuvius of biblical langauge” which creates a little bit of irony of eruption.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987)
The scene of where the “four white men ride up to the house in Ohio” where an escaped slave Sethe has been living there with her children.
Scene creates the presence of The Four Horsemen without saying here comes the horsemen.
James Joyce’s Araby (1914)
Is a story about the “loss of innocence” which is another way to say “the Fall” from grace.

This relates to the biblical allusions that most use to draw connections between a biblical character of feeling to a literary character or feeling.
T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (1942)
Novel “looks very like a dove, offering salavation from the bomber’s fire through the redemption” connects to the Bible.
Salavation brings out a type of redemption from a sin commited and the belief and faith in Christ to be saved.
Eudora Welty’s Why I Live at the P. O. (1941)
The naming of his characters is so important it is a serious piece of the novel “a name has to sound right for a character… but it also has to carry whatever message the writer want to convey about the character or the story”.
The connection between a biblical character and a literary character.
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977)_
The family in her novel chooses their names “ by allowing the family Bible to fall open, then pointing without looking at the text; whatever proper noun the finger points to, there’s the name”.
Shows the family’s belief in the Bible

A-Ha Moments:
On the signifance of the Bible “...In modern literature, many Christ figures are somewhat less than

Christlike”
On the significance of the loss of innocence writing “... the thing about the loss-of- innocence stories, the reason they hit so hard, is that they’re so final”
On the significance of poetry “... poetry is absolutely full of Scripture”
On the significance of religion “... English is frequently about, and nearly always informed by, religion”

How to Read Litertature Like a Professor: Chapter 9 Outline

Title: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

Summary:
Rain can be used for more than just helping with the setting of a story (70)
Some writers can use the weather such as rain to use “as a plot device” (71)
Rain can also create an atmosphere and moods within a story (70)
Rain can bring out the many fears that some people might have (70)
Rain can create floods “Drowning is one of our deepest fears… and the drowning of everything and everybody just magnifies that fear” (70)
Rain can be very resorceful to the world such as “restorative” (72)
Rain can bring life back to the world and enlist new growth which will can bring the return of “the green world” (72)
Rain can be symbolic in some novels (71)
A writer can allow for their character to be “cleansed, symbolically” this can show changes within a character (71)
Rain can be dangerous at certain times in life or novels (73)
When it comes to rain it can be “ the source of chills, colds, pneumonia, death” rain can be apart everything
Rain also connects to the Bible the story of Noah’s Ark (70)
Snow just about “can mean as much as rain” does but they both are very different (75)

Literary References:
D. H. Lawrence Virgin and Gypsy (1930)
This novel connects to Noah’s flood which was an big eraser that “destroys but also allows a brand-new start”.
Shows that rain can be destructive but also a chance for renewal.
Thomas Hardy’s The Three Strangers (1883)
Three strangers all arrive at a house that is hosting a christening party one of the men flee which leads to a manhunt and with the rain coming down it forces these men to seek shelter together
Shows as rain being used “as a plot device” in this novel to bring these men together uncomfortably
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977)
Morrison has her character Hagar have “an encounter with cleansing rain” but instead of the rain “washing away some taint, the rain cleanses her illusions and the false ideal of beauty” this experince destroys her character and destroys her whicj leads to her death by being heartbroken.
Proves that the symbolic use of cleansing with rain can have a positive and negative effect.

T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922)
In this poem Eliot engages “off our cultural expectations of spring and rain”
Elizabeth Bishop The Fish (1947)
Ends her poem with “everything / was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow” there is the elements of “human, nature, and God” present within her closing.
Creates the mood of peace and also interwines with the Bible.
Henry Green’s Party Going (1939)
In the story fog presents itself as “the fog is mental and ethical as well as physical”.
Wallace Stevens’s The Snow Man (1923)
In his poem he uses snow to “indicate inhuman, abstract thought, … thought concerned with nothingness”.
Rain and snow can be very similar in Stevens indications.

A-Ha Moments:
On the significance of rain “... Rain is the principal element of spring” (73)
On the significance of the use of rain “... Rain mixes with sun to create rainbows” (74)
On the significance of fog “... Fog for instance. It almost always signals some sort of confusion” (75)
On the significance of the use of fog “... authors use fog to suggest that people can’t see clearly, that matters under consideration are murky”

(75)