Thursday, August 6, 2009

How To Read Lit Ch.1

What is the real reason for including a quest in a piece of literature? What did you think? What made sense? Can you think of any quests in other pieces you've read?

20 comments:

  1. the real reason for including a quest in piece of literature is self knowledge. i think that reason is correct because as the characters travel meet new people and go to new places you learn more about yourself and others. i can think of the quest the woman in the Victorian Rose where she learned to over come her prejudice and learn to have self confidence after she was injured in a fire

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  2. I believe the reason for including a quest in a piece of literature is to make the main character progress in maturity and experience. I liked how it explained that the original item that the quest is made to retrieve usually never ends up being the real goal or the most important thing obtained. I don't read many books with "quests" but in most movies with adventure and such, like Indiana Jones, the experience is what the characters end up cherishing forever.

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  3. The real reason for a quest is always self knowledge. I figured the reason for a quest was because it made the story more interesting, but really what the author says makes sense. Any books I've read that involve quests, the person, or knight, is having an internal struggle and trying to figure out who they really are. There is the LOTR books which, in my opinion, includes several quests. In the book "Right Behind You" the guy is in a quest to have a normal life after being in a mental facility for catching a boy on fire as a child.

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  4. To show what someone goes through to get something or to achieve a dream. They go to obtain self-knowledge. I think that quest are a natural piece in writing stories. Yes, there are always quest in the stories I read. Most of them are about adventure and the person trying to find something.

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  5. The real reason for including a piece of literature is to gain knowledge. I thought at the beginning of the writing that it was going nowhere, but it opened my mind to the many underlying ideas in writings. After he explained that it was a quest because the boy made a journey, had an objective, and ran into a rival, it showed that it was very much like a quest. When I was reading the recruit last year, it had a quest. A boy went to training camp and he had a hundred days to complete his training and he ran into many of his fears and rivals along the way. Now that the author explained how there are many quests in many writings.

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  6. I think the real reason it included quest as a piece of literature because when you go on a quest you learn from it, it was out of the ordinary, kinda of like a detour from which you learn something from. Now that I think about it, it made alot of sense. because sometimes like the author said I do just go to the grocery store or go get gas and nothing happens, therefore it wasn't really a quest. Almost every book i have read, was basically a quest. Thats what makes it interesting and thats what makes it a good book.

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  7. I believe that their are quests in literature and stories because it helps bring out the theme in stories or what you were supposed to get out of it. kind of like a lesson. It makes sense that people have to go on journeys in order to learn lifes lessons. An example of a quest from the last book i read would be a prayer for owen meany. Owen meanys quest began by being an insturment of god.

    Jeff Abel

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  8. The reason for including a quest in a piece of literature is to give the story a meaning. If there wasnt a goal to reach in a story it would be absolutely pointless and not entertaining to read. In every piece of literature the character's quest holds all of the action. It includes the rising action which is the journey, the climax which would be getting to the destination, and the falling action which would be the characters gaining of self knowledge they found and the problem they had is solved which in the end is the reason the book was wrote and why you read it in the first place.

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  9. If literature didn't have a quest involved in it then there might not even be a plot or a theme. It may become a very boring or uninteresting story to read. I honestly view the plot as a long term quest that one is either trying to prove or achieve during the adventures of the story. What i understood from reading the chapter was that the story we were told in order to understand the concept of literature having a quest was that this boy named Kip was suppose to go to the store and buy a loaf of bread but after he made a fool of himself in front of the store and in front of the girl he desires to have he lied about his age and signed up to join the military.

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  10. The real reason for a quest is self-knowledge. I thought it was interesting how the author used just an average 16 year old kid going to run an errand for his mother as a quest. It made sense that a quest consists of a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials en route, and a real reason to go there. Just running an errand involves all of these things-
    Quester: Kip
    Place to go: Store
    Stated reason to go: Get his mom a loaf of wonder bread
    Challenges and trials en route: encounter with a German shepherd, seeing the girl of his dreams-Karen- in the parking lot around someone else's brand new Barracuda while Kip is on a bike, Karen laughing when she sees him.
    Real reason to go there:Decides to lie to his Marine recruiter about his age because nothing will ever happen for him in the one-horse burg where the only thing that matters is how much money your old man has.
    I have read "A Child Called It" and I definitely think there is a quest in there to get away from his mother.

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  11. A reason I think that an author would put a quest in a piece of literature is because it tends to be something that a character needs to do to figure out who they are and what they want in life. It's the whole "bigger picture" idea. It's not just in literature that "quests" happen, they happen in real life. That's why it's a lot easier for an author to write about such events, because the fact of the matter is they have probably taken a "quest" of their own. When the author of this book explains that on a "quest" there is always a stated reason for going somewhere and then the actual reason, it makes perfect sense, because once you start the actual reason, the stated reason seems to be irrelevant and not as important anymore. There are many pieces of literature that I have read that involve a "quest". One is a book called "How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn't Called You Back?". A girl about sixteen-years-old moves from the eastern coast to the mid west with her family to help her father start his own restaurant, and she doesn't want to move, she only cares about herself. In the beginning it is all about their life as they are establishing this restaurant and in the end she ends up realizing what is important in life, and that things that don't matter will all pass in time.

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  12. Including a quest in a piece of literature is to keep that plot line interesting and to keep the story from being repetitious and boring. Most authors usually try to give the characters a quest or some type of journey. Even in some children's books such as the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And in most adult books like Twilight.

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  13. I think the real reason for literature to have a quest is to give the readers a plot to follow and twists and turns to suck you in. When there is a quest it gives you something while you reading to look forward to in that you know that it's not necessarily going to be easy and along the way a lot of decoys are going to be thrown in and you want the quester to make it out ok. I think quests are a good idea because you don't want to be able to predict what's going to happen when you read something because that'll make it boring. It makes sense for a quest to be thrown in and like the author said there are quests in pretty much anything you read because anything can turn into a quest even when you dont expect it to. Im pretty sure that you can read anything from green eggs and ham to the great gatsby and find a quest!

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  14. I think the reason for including a quest in a piece of literature is to see the progression of the hero. He will start out at one spot with nothing but in the end he will have what he has desired. An example of this is Star Wars. The ultimate goal is for balance in the force. All of the heros work for that goal.

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  15. I think the reason for including a quest in a piece of literature is so we can be exposed to varieties of decision making, growth, and self-knowledge. As people go on "quests they are forced to deal with many different situations and the literature shows how they cope with those situations. The example of quests that come to mind, for me, are The Divinci Code and Finding Nemo!

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  16. A quest is included in a piece of literature so that a character will grow throughout the story and as you read you will feel you know them more personally. I thought that it was quite amusing to find how a
    "quest" can be hidden in a story. It made sense how it is never the old and the wise who are on a quest but the young and immature. In the book harry potter the boy is on a quest of life and all that's in it.

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  17. Ok, so I think the whole reason to put a quest is, as Meghan said, self-knowledge. I understand what it's talking about. Now that I've read it, and thought about it...I can see what they mean. In my own life I have realized that, yes, there is a quest in everything you do...even something as simple as getting the mail. I honestly don't know what the quest would be in getting the mail..maybe "Listen to your Parents" or maybe something more complex....I highly doubt it's more complex..

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  18. A quest that is endured in a piece of literature, I think, isn't about where the character is going, but how they get there. Quests are journeys in a story that lead the readers in a whole new direction. They give the character different options and help them succeed at more than just a simple quest. Whether it's finding out who they are in life or what they want out of it, quests normally have a deeper meaning. It makes complete sense to me, because I see it in books I read all the time. In the novel, Looking for Alaska, a boy is simply sent to boarding school, but on his quest there he comes face to face with surprising events, good and bad, and encounters many journeys that lead him to find out who he really is.

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  19. the reason for quests is for self knowledge and maturity of the character. when we read these situations we can relate to the character's problem, and maybe find ways to deal with problems in our own life. an example i can think of is in the book Eragon, when Eragon's uncle is killed and he attempts to track down the killers

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  20. to me i believe the reason to adding a quest is for the reader to stay interested in the piece of literature. its also safe to say that we as people may have encountered the same problems that our "hero" encounters. a good example is in that book "heavy metal and you" alot of it has our "hero" torn between his friends and his girlfriend. throughout the whole book it makes me think of the times when that happend to me

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