Chapter 5

"Literature, as the great Canadian critic Northrop Frye observed, grows out of other literature; we should not be surprised to find, then that is also looks like other literature. As you read, it may pay to remember this: there's no such thing as a wholly original work of literature. Once you know that you can go looking for old friends and asking the attendant question: 'now where have I seen her before?'". (Page 29)

This chapter of the book, specifically this passage has been the most interesting so far. I have found my self before pondering about plots of books and movies and realizing, when you pick them apart they are all essentially the same thing. It's hard to grasp this concept though, even after pondering it, and I still have doubt after reading this chapter. But Foster reasserts what others have said, that all literature is really a compilation of everything before hand, and really "there's only one story" (Page 32).This goes back to the first chapter, which it states the components of a quest, and we can safely assume if all literature is really the same story, then all works involve some sort of quest, thus leading me to conclude that all works have the components a quest needs, which means all works are made on the same framework that all other literature is made on. So all stories have a knight, a villian, a grail, ect. which makes them the same story really, just with different details. When I first thought about this I compared The Pearl and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Both these stories have a character that is overwhelmed in an unfamiliar setting. In The Pearl he is constantly being deceived by the city dwellers while in Curious Incident, Christopher Boone faces troubles dealing with the city bustle and noise. Both characters rise to the occasion, and in turn gain self-knowledge. This is just one example where the two stories are really the same, but the details are what make the books unique, but this can be seem in any two books when compared I am sure.