Eurocentricism is Making Things Fall Apart

It’s interesting that Foster believes that myth and religion are not inextricably bound enough to go into the same chapter. Now, I’m not trying to deny any religious beliefs, but some of the anecdotes out of modern religions are pretty, well, anecdotal. So in literature, I’m wondering, when does religion reach its expiration date and become mythology? Is it when the religion has no followers left? Or can parts of a religion be myth, but structurally be considered a belief? Not to get redundant, but this is ALL Greek to me.
Foster attempts to clarify this by stating that it’s a work that matters. That seems a little too ambiguous. Shakespeare matters, and it’s neither. I’m going to take a sec and and personally draw the line between myth and religion. A religion must have living followers and have a structure of personal beliefs (e.g. Pillars of Islam, The Ten Commandments, etc.). Mythology is (and just to clarify they DO overlap) a dead religion with fantastical imagery (e.g. Zeus turning into a swan and well… you know).
Now that that’s out of the way, I can make a point.
It’s common, in our Eurocentric culture, to hear the word”myth” or “mythology” and think immediately of the Greeks and Romans, however, as Foster points out, there are many other cultures from which myths and mythology come from. Foster elaborates on this in his example of Morrison’s, “Song of Solomon.” Many readers immediately compared the ending to the myth of Icarus and not the story of The Flying Africans for which it was intended.
This reminds me of cultural appropriation in modern society. While audiences assuming a plot point in a novel is not inherently cultural appropriation, it IS the result of a Eurocentric society. In the classroom, people of European descent tend to be credited for (
or forget to mention who pioneered principles) amazing or interesting things they didn’t come up with. For example, my peers and I are usually amazed to recall that algebra and most basic maths were developed by Arabic scholars al Khwarizmi and Omar Khayyam among others.
While lots of symbolism is from Greek and Roman mythology, a major problem with literature is that too much credit and representation is given to voices of European descent. So while this chapter features Toni Morrison, a world-renowned black author, and goes on to talk about how Homer inspires a Caribbean tale, naming the chapter, “It’s Greek to Me,” (while it is just a figure of speech) seems very limiting.

As a result of my surroundings, my knowledge on other culture’s mythology is very limited, however, in the novels of China Achebe, one can easily find patterns and plot points attached to Igbo mythology and ritual (http://www.the-criterion.com/V4/n1/Geetha.pdf). In all of his books, but especially in Arrow of God, there are found ritualistic re-enactments of oral histories. This is where mythology and history sort of overlap as well. Historical figures in many Northeast African cultures become like mythological figures because of this tradition of oral history.

Last Hangover, or Why Spectacle Rules the Quest

In Chapter One, Foster gives us a hypothetical quest that doesn't seem like one. It feels very "average." He writes the whole chapter rather colloquially (sans James Joyce references), as the young man the quest involves is really more embarrassed than changed. Foster has him meet his nemesis as the guy who steals his "dream girl," but said girl isn't too fond of the protagonist, and anyone could see why. Structurally these details don't matter as our hero goes off to Vietnam anyway, surely there's some hidden symbolism in there somewhere.

This counts as a quest.

With the basic criteria, quests ARE, in fact, everywhere. The film, The Hangover, is an example of a modern quest. I'm going to go from the character of Stuart (Ed Helms)'s character. So, on the way to Las Vegas, the gang's beautiful, vintage Mercedes Benz is almost totaled by an eighteen-wheeler thanks to Alan (Zach Galifianakis). The dragon on his path is his girlfriend who hates him and not-so-secretly cheated on him on a cruise. The Holy Grail becomes finding Doug (Justin Lee Bartha). The evil knight being, of course, Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). The princess is the prostitute with a aheart of gold he marries on accident (Heather Graham). While this likely seems like a stretch, it shows that the quest structure can be fitted to anything.

There's usually more to a quest (or any story really) than what meets the eye. It's often noted that the hero fails their quest. This happens to keep people engaged and to build characters that are more static. Good quests have static characters because no one likes to watch a Nancy Drew. Every character should have flaws if writers expect the characters to resonate with an audience.

Anyway, Foster points out that questers are almost always young. Is this because of lack of self knowledge within younger folks or is it because people enjoy watching/reading about older people less? There is a tremendous amount of self growth and knowledge that occurs at every age, especially once people retire.

The first thing that pops into my head is the film Last Vegas which stars Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, and Michael Douglas. This is the story of four elderly men who discover lots about themselves both past and present on their trip to Las Vegas. It's just like The Hangover, but for the 65+ crowd.

The main character, Billy (Michael Douglas), is engaged to a woman fifty years his junior and wants nothing more than to get all of his buddies together for a bachelor party in Las Vegas. His friends are all down for it, except for Paddy (Robert De Niro)because Billy failed to attend his wife's funeral. Eventually, Archie (Morgan Freeman) and Sam (Kevin Kline) just kidnap the stubborn man and bring him to the airport.

While in Vegas, each have their own adventure, and even though he's engaged, Billy falls for a woman his own age. The trouble with this is, so does Paddy!

Sam has been given a hall pass to cheat on his wife, so he's at work on this while Archie plans a wild party for the villa they have rented. Diana (Mary Steenbergen), the woman both Billy and Paddy have fallen for is flirting wildly with each. Billy reveals to Diana that in their formative years, there was a love triangle between Paddy, Paddy's eventual wife, and himself. One night, Paddy's eventual wife (I think her name is Sophie) shows up at Billy's house to tell him that she wants to be with him over Paddy. Billy tells Sophie to go to Paddy instead because he is the better man for her. Current day Paddy overhears this conversation with Diana and becomes very upset. Everything is resolved because Paddy realizes Sophie wouldn't have been married to him for fifty years if she didn't really love him and Diana ends up with Billy. Each character learns a valuable lesson and nothing goes as planned.

This is not the finest film, but it disproves (not singularly) Foster's claim that quests don't happen to old people (Golden Girls, hello??).

It's a bit odd to think of every little story as a quest, even Last Vegas. I think what's interesting  is what makes any one particular quest intriguing. Last Vegas and The Hangover are essentially the same movie, the main difference being age and popularity (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/last-vegas-review_n_4178823.html). Hangover has a couple of sequels, whereas Last Vegas has zero. Why do sequels exist? Why isn't the quest finished in one bout? Apart from money, I don't understand why a second and third Hangover needed to exist.

The other answer is that all sequels and quests are not created equal. For example, The Godfather Part II is critically acclaimed, whereas Caddyshack II is not. Many sequels are a sad continuation of the first film/book/quest. However, if all quests are basically the same, why aren't sequels more successful? My best guess is because people are always expecting MORE.

There is nothing new under the sun and most audiences are subliminally aware of this as the Oscars have pointed out. Movies don't win Best Picture anymore because of plot alone; they win for advances in production. This takes away from people caring about the quest if there is little or no spectacle (i.e. why The Hangover did better than Last Vegas).

Blind to the Blind

In Ch 22 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, the idea of physical blindness mirroring psychological, moral, and/or intellectual blindness. For example in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino’s character, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade is legally blind as well as psychologically and socially blind to others around him. The film also shows Slade as a sagacious character as he, in fact, advises his caretaker, Charlie, on whether or not to rat out his peers in order to receive a letter of recommendation to Harvard while he is taking a trip with Slade in New York.
Charlie takes Slade a little less seriously because of his disability as well as the fact that he lets Charlie know that he is planning on committing suicide later on their trip. Charlie is therefore blind in his own way to the knowledge of his later on mentor. (https://reelclub.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/to-see-or-not-to-see-sights-and-symbolism-in-scent-of-a-woman/)
       

Commonly, both in cinema and literature, stories have a basis in reality. The aforementioned film depicts this in a blind, resentful veteran with tons of experience. However, the events of the Al Pacino movie are likely seldom in the general day-to-day. With this being said, people are blind to the right thing directly in from of them on an hourly basis.
John Green’s books are severely lacking in more ways than one, being a YA novelist usually sets a precedence for this however. I’m saying this because he drops a blind character, Isaac into one of his more popular books, The Fault in Our Stars, for no particular reason other than to crack jokes about the visually challenged. Usually, when a blind character is thrown into the lineup there is a reason. The Who’s Tommy’s title character is blind but has a remarkable pinball talent and the story centers around the disabilities. Isaac, even though a side character, merely eggs an ex-girlfriend’s house. This occurrence donates nothing to the plot.
Back to The Who’s Tommy, this rock opera talks about his inability to see, speak, or hear. It’s the theme of the work. I’m not trying to say that the blind don’t deserve representation in the media or stories that don’t involve character development solely from being blind, but it feels like a wasted opportunity.
I could be wrong, there may be depth in The Fault in Our Stars that I am totally missing because I’m still not sure exactly sure why Isaac existed in the state that he did.
As stated in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, blindness is everywhere in every story ever told, but not literally. Blindness exists off the page as well. A lot of people don’t catch symbolism the first time they see or read something thus leaving them blind after all.
I often wonder if authors necessarily mean all of the symbolism people get out of their books, perhaps leaving them blind to the effects of their work on the mass es. I feel like a lot of it is pulled out of the blue who overanalyze the works. For example, there is so much symbolism in the book Moby Dick (including blindness) that I find it very hard to believe that one man could plan something like that out and execute it in the way that Melville did.