After reading Chapter 20 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, ... So Does Season, so many things began to make sense about seasons. Of course we all knew winter equals bad and summer equals good, but it surprised me how little detail I actually knew about the complexity of how important seasons are. I never even took into account how fall or spring might represent something and I certainly didn't consider how much connection there is between seasons and biblical events or greek myths. So many movies I have previously seen and books I have previously read flashed before my eyes as my brain made connections of why certain things happened in certain months. Usually, the time of year is something I disregard because I never thought about how significant it actually is to the story.
The first thing I thought of while getting deeper into this chapter is how much the movie 500 Days of Summer now made sense. Throughout this movie, a young man named Tom Hansen falls in love with a young woman named Summer Finn. Their story/relationship happens over the course of 500 days, but Summer Finn clearly represents the season, summer. Her character is the stereotypical beautiful, fun, enchanting woman. Now, in any other movie, this personality type probably wouldn’t mean really anything, but her name is Summer. It can’t be any more obvious that this is a direct tie to the desired season. Like the season, though, the man and woman's relationship comes to an end, unlike what you assume would happen in a love story. Since she’s a representation of summer, the season of youth and naiveness, of course it comes to an end, considering those characteristics in a person don’t last forever. BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE. As if that weren’t enough seasonal representation, at the very end of the movie, Tom meets a new woman whose name happens to be Autumn! Autumn, the season, represents youth fading away, growing up, and owning up to the life you've been given by facing the punishments or rewards you deserve. What’s more, Tom and Autumn meet at a job interview which is clearly an advancement in one’s life and a step toward maturing and growing as a person. The representation of seasons is so heavy in this movie and, if I would have known how obvious that was, I could probably have figured out how the movie would play out in the end!
Along with 500 Days of Summer, I was also reminded of A Christmas Carol while reading this chapter. Throughout my life, I always wondered why Dickens made Scrooge hate Christmas as opposed to any other holiday of the year. I realize now that having him hate a different holiday would make sense to no one because of how people associate anger and hatred with winter. For some reason, those pieces never clicked in my head and until reading this chapter, I was always pestered by not knowing why he behaved the way he did. Imagine if Scrooge were to hate a different holiday, such as Easter. Questions from everyone would arise on why Easter is a holiday he would hate since spring is such a time of color, freshness, and youth. However, no one really questions why Scrooge hates Christmas since it’s in such a bitter time of the year.
This chapter opened up so much of my mind as to why certain things happen in certain times of the year. I feel like I will never watch another movie or read another book without pondering why it was set in that season or if there’s any seasonal correlation to someone’s name. Although I have a different filter on seasons now, I’m very grateful for this newfound information and I will forever be searching for the underlying meaning of things!
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