What is the What: Quests.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor says that quests are used for attaining self-knowledge and/or self-improvement, usually by novices/naïve people. In What is the What, Valentino’s quest is about surviving and finding out what “the What” is. As a result of the horrendous events he has experienced, in many ways he was enriched with an outlook that many of us in our very privileged worlds will never get to experience. He has a vast tolerance that contrasts with the impatient attitude of our society. He has gone through suffering unlike any that we have experienced, causing him to become stronger and more enduring. He has seen many things we have not, and this has made him all the more wiser than any of us.