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How To Read Literature Like A Dinner Table

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The main significance of a dinner table explained by the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor is that it brings about unity or fights between characters which allows them to determine their relationship from this. An author would put a dinner table scene in a story if he would like the audience to be able to infer how a relationship would turn out to be. In other words, if the dinner table situation and the talking going on while eating has a negative aura then the relationship is done or finished off with.
This symbolism of the dinner table is also shown in the short story “Everyday Use”. The dinner table in the short story was supposed to determine the relationship between the mother and Maggie and the eldest daughter Dee. “‘That’s

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