Skin Mouse Princess - Alyssa Hamilton

   The love between father and daughter was finally found in the end.

Begging for forgiveness after seeing her face their bond was found again.

Retorting, the daughter, Queen of the land, laughed now you want some salt

The King got mad over tasteless food, he yelled out loud who's fault

Blind to his daughter's fate as queen the King sat down to eat.

Invited to the neighboring kingdom to celebrate a wedding so sweet

    Her beauty exposed to the world the King asked her to wed.

Without a strong disguise the boy became a women with long gold hair on her head

Thinking Mousekin was a thief the King stole her disguise

Finding a ring so expensive so bold the King cried out he lies.

Anger filled, Mousekin yells I come from a no violence boot land.

The King, when relieved of his shoes threw them with his hand

Pawning herself as a man she went to work for a King.

    Wearing only a garment made of mouse she left behind all but a ring

The servant followed every wish and gathered her some clothes

She begged the servant's help after he refused to deal her final blows

Sent out to the woods with a servant meant to kill.

    Her father cried, get out bad girl, the sight of you makes me ill

When the last daughter replies, my love is greater than salt

The second daughter said, I love you more than everything in the vault.

The first replied, my love is greater then our land

They all reached out with love to hold his hand.

Curious the King asked which of you loves me the most

The King of the land gathered his daughter's close

Wait a minute, the last daughter said interrupting the King, This is backwards!

After the Princess broke the fourth wall her fictional fairy tale world began to implode

and a meteor fell from the sky, killing them all. 

 

Unique, not necessarily a freak

Throughout literature you hear about unique characters with unique features. These features are what makes a character stand out, and what helps give their character more depth. The evil queen in Snow White is beautiful on the outside, but in the world of pop culture she is best known for her disguises. Particularly how she pretended to be an old, worn out woman to trick Snow White into eating the apple. This twisted, shriveled old lady is a representation of how the evil queen is twisted and shriveled on the inside. A perfect example of one way that unique marks work in literature. See the way I look at it marks work like this most of the time, they either portray what the character is actually like on the inside, like the evil queen. Or they distract from what one is like on the inside causing conflict.

A good example of this, as Foster pointed out, is Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. His character is deformed, twisted. Much like the old lady he is shriveled up. He barely looks human. However, on the inside he was a good guy. Sweet and thoughtful, overly kind. But because of how he looked on the outside people were distracted, and they didn't care about getting to know him on the inside. They were just scared of how he looked on the outside.

Looks can be both a blessing and a curse and that is what literature is trying to get us to understand. Don't judge a book by it's cover, as Ashley says in her article. http://thisibelieve.org/essay/93407/ First impressions are a big deal, but if you don't bother to get to know someone you might miss out on the gem they are inside, much like Quasimodo. You may look like a beast on the outside, but you could turn out to be a prince on the inside.

Many marks in literature are a way of marking greatness. Just like Harry Potter was marked for being the chosen one. The character with the scar could turn out to be the hero needed all along. The mysterious birth mark ends up marking Buffy as a vampire slayer, according to fate. It's seen throughout literature and pop culture. Being marked, whether through a scar or a birthmark, or some kind of physical defect, it means something. When Luke Skywalker loses his hand in Star Wars, it wasn't just a depressing wound. It marked him, made him similar to his father who lost the same hand. It was a metaphor, connecting him with his father indefinitely, in a way that only a physical mark can do. It's a lot like the stories about friends who make blood bonds to make them family. Their wound, their scar is what connects them. Not the silly blood ritual or whatever, but the mark that they will share forever.

Whether a mark is signifying greatness, or giving a clue into a characters true intentions, or teaching us an important lesson by distracting us from looking inside, they always mean something significant in literature.

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The Bible tells you so, even in other books

 Biblical allusions are easy to find, they appear throughout “book history” from old books to new, more modern day books. They are the most common allusion found, the question is why. What good does it do a story to add biblical allusions in, why would you want your book to be tied to the bible. As with any allusion, obvious or hidden, there is a purpose to putting a reference to someone else's material in your book, and it's not to be accused of plagiarism. Sometimes the reason behind an allusion can be well, alluding, however biblical allusions are so common that the main reason is easy to figure out.

Modern day writers have been missing out on this reason a bit, they don't quite seem to understand the true purpose behind using a biblical allusion. Instead they make a mockery of it, using bible-like stories to mock the ancient stories, making a laughingstock of a historical book. Biblical allusions are worth so much more then a cheap laugh, or a twisted tale, they add depth and history to a story. As Foster says in his examples, it adds a past. If your story happens to be two brothers fighting that alludes to the story of Cain and Abel. Foster says that allusion expands upon the story by showing a new history, suggesting that your characters aren't the only two bothers in the world who fight. This is what biblical allusions add to a story, a rich history, a common thread.

Even if you aren't highly religious they're easy to catch, and they add weight to a story. Whether or not you believe that Jesus died on a cross to save us from our sins if you read a story about a man, who sacrificed himself for the good of others the sacrifice itself seems drastically more important and worthwhile when the allusion towards the death of Jesus is caught. This extra weight is otherwise known as deeper meaning, it adds a second layer to a story, an emotional purpose behind the words. This is the ultimate purpose of an allusion, according to buzzle, to add an emotional tie to a story, a new past that explores a deeper connection then the surface one. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/biblical-allusions.html

Along with the history and the weight that references to the bible can add they also help the author out through pathos and ethos. Connecting a man's sacrifice to Jesus' sacrifice pulls on the emotional heart strings. It expands upon the pride one feels for the man and the guilt for letting him sacrifice. It also adds ethos to the story, it helps give the author more credit by displaying a fair amount of research went into the book. Using biblical allusions make a person sound well-versed, knowledgeable. The reader is more likely to believe what the author's saying if they're alluding to a famous, religious book, one that's whole purpose is to educate on how to be a better person. Wouldn't you believe them, if the example they're pulling from comes from a book that instructs not to lie.

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Self-Knowledge, the real reason for a quest

 In order to correctly analyze “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” one must start from the beginning, much like they do on a quest. Thomas C. Foster begins his exploration of literature with the simplest concept to grasp, the quest. Almost every person, if asked, could list well-known quests easily, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Indiana Jones, the use of quests in literature is not a new practice. However, Foster proposes the idea that quests are in everything, not just the stereotypical princess in despair, but everything that contains a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials, and a real reason to go there. This could cover anything, from a dramatic quest to get rid of a ring to a walk around the block to clear the head. As long as the five key elements are there, it is a quest.
A quester, the person who up until the moment of the quest was just kind of going through the motions, not really living life. A place to go, the destination of the proposed idea that started the quest. A stated reason to go there, the beginning idea that started it all. Challenges and trials, the difficult pathway to the end of the quest that helps give the quester a new view on life. A real reason to go there, the actual driving force behind the quest, unbeknownst to the quester. This last element, the real reason to go, Foster claims that “the real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge. ” As Foster pointed out in this chapter quests always begin with, what seems like, a simple task. As the quest continues though, in every quest imaginable, the quester always end up on a different path completing or learning a different task.
From simple popular books like “Percy Jackson”, who goes on a quest to find a lightening bolt but ends up finding home, and self-worth to more in-depth series's like “The Belgariad” series where the main character ends up being dragged along on someone else's quest only to discover not only that it was his quest all along but also that he is the true king and all of the gods in his childhood stories are real and he is one. This is the most common theme in quests, losing the surface reason for the quest in exchange for the true purpose of the quest, self-knowledge. The quest provides an opportunity for the quester to react to many different situations and see how they react to them. Developing a definite sense of self, much like living through the first couple years of adulthood on fast forward. Quests are not simply journeys with a definite beginning and end point, the prince goes and saves the princess, but an ongoing struggle for growth that everyone undergoes in their life, just shortened from a lifetime to the length of a quest.
Now many people say that self-knowledge is not incredibly important, that knowledge of the world and how it works is necessary over knowledge of yourself. However, quests show us that since the real reason for the most simplistic and common plot line in everything is self-knowledge, that it is intrinsically important. Eric Schwitzgebel, a Professor of f Philosophy at University of California agrees in his blog post about the importance of self-knowledge. http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-intrinsic-value-of-self-knowledge.html

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