Are we on a Quest?
Tom Foster's How to Read Literature like a Professor is a must-read of all those students taking AP English classes. He explains the process of analyzation and how a small object or event can have a deeper meaning behind it. To others, he might have changed the way he or she thought and analyzed while reading literature. But to me, he also changed my perspective about the world and got me thinking about much more than just reading books. In Foster's first chapter, he talks about how many books make a character go through a quest, either directly or indirectly. Each book has a "(a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there." This was very evident in one of the latest books I read, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The main character Santiago travels to the Pyramids of Egypt in order to find a treasure. He encounters physical barriers, such as being robbed and a language barrier, a