She Is In Everything I Read

The main aspect of this chapter is brought to you by a literary device known as repetition. This is commonly defined as the repeating of an idea or object. The entirety of all stories use the repetition of character types and other devices to help the reader connect with the story on a deeper level. 

For myself, I pull a lot of memorable aspects from movies or songs I have experienced in the past. The biggest pull comes from the 1994 film “The Lion King.” Now as childish as that may sound, this favorite Disney movie of mine allows me to compare present and future characters to the characters such as Simba in the film. It grants me the ability to relate new characters to ones I already know and make myself more familiar and connected with their stories. 

Another shocker from this chapter was the statement Foster made about there being no such thing as original stories. From a first hear basis that seems outrageously silly considering that there are new stories being made every day, but after further review I began to realize the validity of that statement. If you were to take a minute to think about this every plot, character, and theme has already been thought of and implemented into a story. Every story now is just a different use of these same aspects. If you were to read a novel and not notice any resemblance to another story I’d tell you to take a harder second look. As humans were constantly making connections between our lives and the media we experience especially including stories. 

One habit I have is placing myself into the world of the characters I read about. In some cases that means putting my whole being into the story as my own separate character or I portray myself onto one of the characters already established in the story. When this occurs, I usually connect with a character based on a shared interest or personality trait. This lead me to believe that authors do the same thing when creating their own stories. They pull ideas and traits from previous literature. They don’t do this simply because they're uncreative and don’t want to make new ideas, they do this to allow the reader to know their characters on a deeper level and be able to create character development without saying too much about said character. 

Although some may believe the use of repetition in literature is a crippler, the basis of stories came from an unknown origin, yet since that time nothing has been new. Even if you were to apply this concept to humanity, you'd see that the STORY of history continuously repeats itself just like in literature.