Remember the 5 “quest” ions (questions, get it?)

Roads, rivers, bridges, oceans, highways, by ways, trails, pathways, even an alley

indicate a quest in progress.

What about a fork in the road? you ask. We’ll get to that when we venture into irony.

Always think communion first…characters don’t just get hungry, literally anyway.

Where have I seen or heard that before?It’s probably an allusion.

An allusion is a reference to another work of literature. Sometimes they are obvious, other times subtle.

To be or not to be that is the question That which we call aa rose by any other

name would smell as sweet,

A plague on both your houses! For never was a story of more woe than

this of Juliet and her Romeo.

The possibilities are endless…

Remember Yertle the Hitler Turtle?

Can you find the reference to children’s literature in The Scarlet Ibis?

Rain Snow Storms Wind Floods

Names Places Events Objects Animals If you can think of it, it could be a symbol.

Writers go to a great deal of trouble to choose just the right symbol for the situation. It’s a literary game of hide-n-seek.

Usually unmarried, preferably celibate Wounded or marked in some way Sacrificing oneself in some way for others Wilderness/nature involved Often involves temptation Humble transportation Very forgiving Came to redeem an unworthy worldNot every character will possess all traits.

Actually sometimes even if she doesn’t come up, it’s still a baptism.

Water can be present in many forms: rain, a lake, a tub, a waterfall, etc…

Rebirth or spiritual cleansing is usually the thematic message.

Death by drowning usually symbolizes character revelation, failure, guilt, or resolution.

Obviously defies laws of physics if not a superhero or a bird; therefore, it is usually highly symbolic.

Flight equals freedom from something.

The flying can be real, imagined, or DREAMED.

They can be spiritual or American Airlines.

Where in the world are you?

Why should I care where you are?

Why do you keep moving around?

Why don’t you ever leave?

Mountains, rivers, valleys, oceans, etc.

While geography is setting it is also psychology.

Spring: fresh and new; birth or rebirth; cleansing rain, green grass; renewed hope; young life

Summer: season of growth and nurturing; vital time in life cycle; time of great expansion; adulthood

Fall/Autumn: harvest; reaping what was sewn; bountiful time of thanks; mid-life

Winter: a season for dying; hibernation; loss of vitality; old age

Physical mark or imperfection

Think Quasimodo, Oedipus, and yes Doodle!

The physical imperfection can represent a mark on an entire group, people, or generation.

Come on now…you knew this one was too easy, right?

Heart disease will seldom be as simple or complicated as it seems on the surface.

In Ibis though, the diseased heart may not be the obvious or diagnosed heart. Who is really weak at heart? Is it Doodle?

a little irony in the heart disease perhaps?

Think Cupid: Mythology’s Matchmaker was afflicted with blindness. No wonder love is sometimes random

Sometimes the blind will see much clearer than their sighted literary counterparts

Romanticized illnesses usually preferred over the overly nasty.

i.e. tuberculosis over Ebola

Irony trumps all other literary devices.

Picture this- You’re writing a story. You’ve developed your main character, a woman, as a vain, Hollywood actress whose career is faltering. In the last chapter, she crashes her ElDarado into a billboard sign. Her seat belt works perfectly, saving her life. Except that the billboard begins to give way and crashes down

onto the car. The billboard, her billboard, crushed her in the car. So, in some twisted way…she killed herself.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I came up with this piece of overworked irony all by myself! Okay, so in good literature they are not usually so obnoxiously obvious.

If you didn’t know that Yertle was written in 1952, he might have just seemed a little over-eager. The context provided by the time period tells a much larger tale.

Contemporary readers might find Doodle’s parents’ reactions to their baby’s disability incomprehensible. Time and place matter!

It’s about everything and nothing. (Lame answer, huh?)

Each in some way explains us to ourselves Hardly anything can be purely original. Intertextuality: Think 6 Degrees of Separation. Intertextuality means every work from poetry

to songs to novels to plays are related in some way.

Even if a writer tried intentionally to avoid any character, situation, setting, even avoidance is a form of interaction.

Violence Greek Mythology Sexual Innuendo Acts of Vampires Politics And many more that I just can’t think of

right now.