Final

The final has part I and part II: Part I is about passage/quote analysis and part II is short essay questions.

Part I

1. Include the genre (whether the text is a play, short story, poem, novel, or novella) and the publication year of the literary works in your answers.

2. Italicize the title of the play, novel, and novella (this is an MLA style); Put quotation marks around the titles of poems and short stories.

Moliere's play  Tartuffe (1669)

Charles Baudelaire's poem, "To the Reader" (1857)

Gustave Flaubert's short story, "A Simple Heart" (1877)

Henrik Ibsen’s play  A Doll’s House (1879)

Franz Kafka's novella,  The Metamorphosis (1915)

Chinua Achebe's novel,  Things Fall Apart (1958)

Ama Ata Aidoo's novel,  Changes (1991)

 

3. For the questions of passage analysis, the following four components should be included in your answer: (a) Identify the author, genre, and the title of the text, (b) Explain the context (i.e. name the character and paraphrase what the character is saying, (c) Interpret the significance of the quotation, and  (d) Connect your interpretation and analysis of the quotation to the major theme of the literary work

    *Note: Please avoid summarizing the plot or merely rephrasing the quotation.

4. Each question (#1- #6) for passage analysis should be at least 150 words. The maximum points per question will be 15 points.

 

Part II-  Two short essay questions (each about 250-300 words).

 

 

Part I. Passage Analysis (Questions 1-6, total 90 points, at least 150 words per question)

Please include the following four components in each of your answers:

(a) Identify the author, the title of the literary work, and the publication year.

(b) Explain the context-  (i.e.) name the character and paraphrase what the character is saying.

(c) Interpret the significance of the quotation.

(d) Connect your interpretation and analysis of the quotation to the major theme of the text.

 

1. "So those whose hearts are truly pure and lowly/ Don't make a flashy show of being holy. / There's a vast difference, so it seems to me, / Between true piety and hypocrisy: / How do you fail to see it, may I ask? / Is not a face quite different from a mask?" (at least 150 words)

 

 

2. "Our sins are stubborn, our contrition lame;/ we want our scruples to be worth our while--/ how cheerfully we crawl back to the mire; a few cheap tears will wash our stains away!" (at least 150 words)

 

 

3. "The priest began with a sketch of sacred history. . . . The sowings, harvest, wine-presses, all the familiar things the Gospel speaks of, were a part of her life. They had been made holy by God's passing, and she loved the lambs more tenderly for her love of the Lamb, and the doves because of the Holy Ghost. She found it hard to imagine Him in person, for He was not merely a bird, but a flame as well, and a breath at other times. . . . Of doctrines she understood nothing--did not even try to understand."  (at least 150 words)

 

 

4. "While I was at home with father, he used to tell me all his opinions, and I held the same opinions. If I had others, I said nothing about them, because he wouldn't have liked it. He used to call me his doll-child and played with me as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house. . . I lived by performing tricks for you." (at least 150 words)

 

 

5. "How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart."  (at least 150 words)

 

 

6. "My lady Silk, remember a man always gained in stature through any way he chose to associate with a woman. And that included adultery. Especially adultery. Esi, a woman has always been diminished in her association with a man. A good woman was she who quickened the pace of her destruction." (at least 150 words)

 

 

Part II - Short Essay Questions (each about 250-300 words, 30 points per question, a total of 60 points)

7. Kafka's  The Metamorphosis (1915) can be read as a parable. What caused (multiple causes) Gregor Samsa's bodily change into a beetle? What does the change of his body into a subhuman form signify? Why did Gregor feel dehumanized while working as a traveling salesman, and why did he feel obligated to stay in the job he disliked? What does Gregor's concern right after his metamorphosis ("Just don't stay in bed being useless" 755) say about his mental state as well as his sense of being "useful" to his family and in society? When does Gregor become an insignificant useless thing to his family? In what sense is his bodily degradation a symptomatic manifestation of alienation increasing in modern times? What caused him to death, and what do you make of his conscious suicide? Please provide at least two textual examples to prove and support your analysis (about 250-300 words).

 

 

 

8. Chinua Achebe’s novel  Things Fall Apart (1958) centers on a traditional Umuofian man Okonkwo and highlights the influence of white missionaries and the British colonial power on the Ibo clan.  Why is it important for Okonkwo to act like a "manly" man on an individual level and a societal level? Does Okonkwo's belief in the clan's traditional culture clash with the new rules imposed by the British colonial power? Why does Okonkwo "mourn for the clan" and what causes the disintegration among the villagers? What does Okonkwo's death symbolize in the novel? Please provide at least two textual examples to prove and support your analysis of the novel (about 250- 300 words).