How to Read Literature Like a Professor (23-24-25)

Chapter 23- It's Never Just Heart Disease
    Heart disease is commonly used in literature to express the character's feelings or society's feelings toward that character. (i.e. "bad love, loneliness, cruelty, disloyalty, lack of determination" just to name a few) These feelings are used with heart disease because they often cause or accompany a heartbreak.

Chapter 24- ...And Rarely Just Illness
    Illness, especially in earlier novels, is mysterious, frightening, and dangerous, a force to be reckoned with.There are four aspects to diseases in literature, these include:
     -Not all diseases are created equal: each disease has its own literal effect on the character and therefore each has different symbols and implications on the story line (a venereal disease shows evidence towards cheating in a marriage: moral corruption)
     -It should be picturesque: we should be able to feel the pain of the character, vividly picturing the sufferer
     -It should be mysterious: the origin of the disease should be unknown to the reader, at least in older novels
     -It should be symbolic and/or metaphoric: Different diseases symbolize different things

Chapter 25- Don't Read With Your Eyes
    The reader is to put his or her self in the character's situation to get the full gist of the story and the characters' view point.