American Literature 1856

ENGL 2260 Summer 2021 Final exam

I. IDs and short answers.

The following passages are drawn from the material we have read in the course. For each of the seven passages below, you will need to 1) identify the author, 2) identify the title of the text, 3) provide the approximate date (within 10 years), and 4) write a short paragraph explaining a) how the passage in question relates to the work as a whole, and b) how that work in turn relates to one or more themes shared with other texts we have read. Please be specific. Points will be awarded as follows: 1 point each for author, title, and date; 7 for each short answer. Each passage, then, is worth 10 points, for a total of 70.

II. Essays Write an essay in response to one of the following prompts. You may consult the course texts as you compose the essay. Be sure to point to specific textual evidence to support your analysis. The essay component of the exam is worth 30%.

1. Questions of personhood animate a number of the course texts. You might consider how notions of personhood intersect with ideas about gender and maternity in Herland, with race and gender in Kindred, across species barriers in Pym and The Martian Chronicles, and so on. How do ideas of personhood influence these novels’ treatments of ideas of ownership? Of intimacy? Of violence?

2. Many of the texts we have read in this course are structured around narratives of exploration and colonization. Discuss how these themes operate in different texts. You might consider, for example, how the colonial project in Herland compares to those in The Martian Chronicles and Pym. In what ways do these texts celebrate exploration and colonization? How do they critique it or show ambivalence?