Reading Novels Like A Professor: Chapter 14 – The Light on Daisy’s Dock

Reading Novels Like A Professor: Chapter 14 – The Light on Daisy’s Dock: Foster writes, “Novelists want us to understand their creations…so they post road signs along the way, suggesting what we should look for” (...


In Thomas C. Foster’s, How to Read Novels like a Professor, he states that, “Every character has his telos-Aristotle’s term for the necessary endpoint in a goal-oriented, even compulsive, process- not the place he actually winds up but the thing toward which he’s driven, his ultimate goal” (181). Foster explains that the author places road signs throughout the novel in order to thoroughly explain certain situations and help the reader understand their work and hopefully where they want the story to go. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment, the author uses dreams as road signs to direct the reader’s attention to the subconscious thoughts of the characters. The dreams themselves are not just normal dreams at all, the dreams in the story act as premonitions. The first dream that we see is right before the crime is committed, in the mind of Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov dreams that he is a young child again. He then witnesses the gruesome beating of an old mare in the middle of the street, and then begins to laugh and cruelly join in. When Raskolnikov wakes up he is disgusted at himself for even thinking of such things. Of course this dream is foreshadowing of the crime that Raskolnikov is fixing to partake in. That is what the author wants us to understand from the passage. Another dream that the reader is subjected to, is that of Arkady Svidrilgailov. In the story, Svidrilgailov is emotionally scarred after the love of his life turns him away. That night he has a dream that he is tucking a small girl into bed, but then the child begins looking at him very seductively and lustfully. This dream is of course trying to guide the reader understanding the fact that He will soon feel so ashamed of his actions and crimes that he will be driven to commit suicide. Road signs are very helpful for readers in order to understand certain characters and plot points.
-Conner Furr