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Chapter 1: Every Trip Is a Quest Analysis:

A quest always involves one person, an intended destination (sometimes the destination is found as they go through the journey), lots of challenges on the way (sometimes they give up on the way), a purpose which they learn in the end, and a reason that starts off their journey. I haven't read a quest where someone small and weak went on a quest like the one explained in How to Read Like a Professor. The quest that comes to my mind is the one in Heart of Darkness, in which the protagonist Marlow finds the darkest parts of human nature as he travels through the heart of Africa. Marlow the quester, wants to find a lost ivory trader inside the Dark continent and takes his ship and men through a river to find him. Through his journey, he sees how humans preach religion, but at the same time possess slaves. His boat breaks down, natives attack him, he meets very peculiar people, and gains knowledge (All the things that are supposed to happen in a quest). Through his perilous quest he discovers how people possess a heart that loves, but also holds a dark part that is stimulated through selfish and self events deep inside. When Marlow meets the crazy German trader at his destination, he finds an hold man, who rules over the natives with an iron fist and considers himself a god, and everybody else just mere slaves. Discontented Marlow tries to take the frail and evil professor back, but he dies on the way, and Marlow is left to lie to his wife about her husbands last words. An act that Marlow condemned from beginning of the novel, Marlow hated lying, but after this journey, he became a new man. He saw the darkest reaches of humans through his quest through the Heart of Darkness.

Chapter 7: Or the Bible... Araby by James Joyce Analysis:

Araby by James Joyce shows the life of a Dubliner. He goes to a bazaar who's name is quite "enchanted", the Araby, from the name you get the sense of a place where you could buy luxurious imported goods from the Middle East. Further bringing us closer to the geography of Biblical times. The Dubliner, who is a boy, in love with Mangan’s sister, a girl near his neighbourhood. The boy visits her home to take her shopping at the bazaar, but fails to do so, astonished he goes to the bazaar himself and buys nothing. He just observes the items present there until the lights shut at the bazaar, and he just gazes up while he was "driven and derided by vanity". Now from my knowledge of the Bible, the featuring of two young lovers and the presence of the want to buy or possess some beautiful material possession, really sounds like Adam and Eve to me. There is a few differences, when our narrator, the boy, walks into the bazaar; the garden. He does not find his apple, rather he is not interested at any of the items there. He realizes that he does not need to buy material goods for Mangan’s sister to impress her and make her feel a certain way towards him. The references of the "dead priest" and the "central apple-tree" that our narrator admired very much are great Biblical hints to this love story. But maybe the apple our narrator is looking for its in the bazaar, it may be for his relentless love for this girl. A girl for whom he cannot concentrate at work, and cannot stop a minute without uttering her name. Lust and love have gotten to this boy just like Adam.

Chapter 13: It's All Political Analysis:

During my freshman year we read, Grendel, The Iliad, Gilgamesh and The Aeneid. Looking at these works from a political standpoint, I can see many political ideas like patriotism and nationalism being spread in these stories. The two Oral Epics the Aeneid, and the Iliad, are perfect examples of patriotism. The Aeneid, which explains the founding of the city of Rome, from the great stories of men sailing through the underworld to an island full of dangerous mermaids. The Aeneid is a story in my opinion of the founding father of Rome so to speak. The Iliad, a prequel to the Aeneid, tells a story of how the political hierarchy abuse their power to mast an army to fight another civilization all in the name of a woman. The fact that Agamemnon went to war because his wife was literally stolen from him is very much the tipping point on our story, I have a feeling that Homer is trying to mock the aristocracy and their very selfish ventures. Which put their own people in pain and risk. In the epic if I remember, the war went on for more than a decade, and the Trojan Horse was only used after they were completely exhausted from battle. However the political ideas encompassing Grendel were very complicated for me to grasp at freshman year, I never understood Grendel's existentialist make over. There was one thing I did see clearly, and that was the humans always banded together in the face of adversity from a great monster, and welcomed the help of foreign fighters like Beowulf to avenge the death of their men(The crusades as a historical example). After showing the great celebration of humans. we see that humans are portrayed as highly war-liking and blood thirsty. People who stick together, fight and patronize a foreign hero, only when their own existence is at stack. You get a war like sentiment from the people in Rothgar.

Chapter 10: It's More Than Just Rain or Snow Analysis:

In the novel Night, Elie Wisel experiences the horrible torture at the Auzwithz concentration camp during the reign of Nazi Germany. This little child who was taught the all the mighty aspects of religion and God. Instead saw the horrible things people could do to each other, and he was consistently losing his faith in religion as the weather in Auschwitz got colder and colder until winter. Until the snow brought the death of many including his father and then finally the death of their camp after the Russians arrived. I do not remember any rain during the novel, but the arrival of winter marked a significant time in Elie's life. Prior to the cold hitting the area, Elie went through surgery on his heel, the cold camp conditions caused horrible pain and discomfort in his foot. Then the time came were the inhabitants in the camp had to leave because of the invading Russians, that is when the horrible cold conditions of winter forced Elie to leave his sick father. If the snow and cold weather was not present, then Elie only friend and source of sanity through all the pain and suffering, could of accompanied him a bit further into his life. I feel as though the snow, like a blanket, covered up the horrid past that Elie had to face, and after the winter went away Germany had lost the war and Russia had freed that area, and Elie was free of religiously prosecution. After the snow melted away Eastern Europe became a different place then it was before, until the next winter came in and the communists came in, but thats a story for another novel.

Chapter 11: More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence Analysis:

Grendel is a novel where they show two types of violence, one done by animals towards humans, and the others by humans to animals. The violence which Grendel lashes onto the humans in met with fierce dislike and fear, his appearance knocks people dead, and no one understands him. From his perspective his violence towards the humans, is easily understandable by the existentialist crisis he goes through. Once we change perspectives and see as the humans then the violence of Grendel is benevolent and needs to be eradicated. The violence of humans towards Grendel, when Beowulf pulls his arms apart, is so greatly glorified, that such a gruesome act is justified just because the humans banded together to kill another creature. We see both negative and positive violence when we see through different perspectives.

Chapter 19: Geography Matters Analysis:

I do believe that people are a product of their environment, and the explanation of the geography in the Heart of Darkness is a great example of this. Right from the title of the book, you read, The Heart of Darkness, both of which explain the act of going inside the dark continent and also what Marlow finds there. The explanation Joseph Conrad puts into the landscape, makes the jungles in the Congo seem like they want to jump out and kill Marlow and his men. The jungles are described as densly packed, full of animals that want to eat them, people that want them dead, the heat and humidity that would kill the average European man, and hostile nature of the environment that just wants to consume them. Geography played a very important role in hardening all the people living there, the natives were ruthless, and so were the colonists that occupied it. Plus I believe if Joseph Conrad never made the Congolese geography so dreaded, then the European readers he was trying to write to would never be interested. They don't want to read about plain geography, no they wanted something more exciting and amazing, these people reading this novel at this time did not know what Africa was like, Europe had just started colonizing it. Anything plain and not exciting would be just plain boring to the readers in that time. So Conrad indeed did exaggerate the hostility of the African wild to provide to the curiosity of his audience, but it really helped set the dark tone for the novel.

Chapter 25: Don't Read with Your Eyes Analysis:

The Satanic Verse's, a novel that requires a perfect grasp of understanding of universal themes, the Quranic ironies present are not for the conservatively minded. If you are a conservative muslim who does read this novel with their eyes, then you will be too occupied on wanting to assassinate the author, than actually learning something very significant from this very good novel. You see the atheism presented by certain characters, where they struggle with believing in God, is what frustrates readers. This novel is quite surreal because our characters gain back their faith because of very majestic occurences that happen to prove the exsistance of god (angles, living plane crashes, etc...). Salman Rushdie(author) portrays ascetic and overly faithful people as corrupt and evil, because they now if they ask for forgiveness their sins will be ridden. Now for most muslim this might seem like the Salman Rushdie trying to attack at the belief of god and the pious population, but we are ignoring what he is trying teach us, he shows us that every human as an internal struggle with faith. He teaches us that to believe in God you cannot just be born into a religion, if you really believe in God it has to come from your heart. That real beleive comes from struggles in life, where you tip off from your angelic side, to the 'atheistic' satin. As you go through lives challenges as a good citizen then good things will come to you, and you will solidfy your connection with good. I personally think that having doubt about the exsistance of God is a normal part of being a human, it proves your rational thinking power and creates a desire for you to learn more about faith. Through that journey you learn to differ faith from relgion, and your beleive in God becomes concrete, because you learn that God doesnt want you to hold to certain 'religious' practices but be the best human being you can be. That is in my opinion is faith, and a message that cannot be read with your eyes from the novel the Satanic Verses.