Real Life VS Literature
I know that we are not supposed to get a quote from page 2 but I couldn't help it because it really jumped out at me, and a part of me just wanted to not follow the directions, you know, stick it to the man?
"In other words a quest just happened."
I understand the author's point that it was a quest even if it was a stretch. (I feel it was a pretty big one!) but I really do not think that everything is meant to be construed as something so "epic." I know I read all of the points that make this out to be such a big deal but If my mother sent me to the store and I called it a quest I think others would think of me a little bit differently. If I were relating my story to someone else I would hardly choose to explain it by such epic means and I would certainly not want them to think of it on such epic terms. After all "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" and a story about going to the store is just an event that happened in someone's day.
I think that in literature it might be easier to think of things on such epic terms but the author might just as well as had something else in mind. By calling any kind of journey an epic quest I feel that we are oversimplifying things.
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Jennifer Prex on Real Life VS Literature: There are always exceptions. I
Matt Henderson on Real Life VS Literature: I agree that we can't always l
Matt Henderson on Real Life VS Literature: I agree that we can't always l
I agree that we can't always look at an event in a work of literature, run to the index of Foster's book, and say, "Yup, that's a quest!" Literature is rarely so easily defined like that.
However, the great thing about literature is that it doesn't have to be just like real life. In fact, it's probably preferable that it isn't, because I know if they made a book out of my daily life, it would be pretty darn boring. Now, if you only made a book covering the major events in my life, it might be more interesting. I think writers do the same thing. I don't know why a writer would include a section in her/his novel or short story about a character going to the store if it wasn't important for some reason. You only have so many pages to tell a story, and you don't want to depict events that don't tell you anything at all about the characters or keep the plot moving forward. So I would argue that a trip to the store in a work of literature better be significant somehow, because if it's only a trip to the store, that writer needs to find a more interesting story to tell.
There are always exceptions. I think that all Foster really means is that this is one way to interpret literature--it's another general label that can be used. No, when looking at it this way all quests may not be epic, per se, but they can still be quests if the components are there.