English 251:  Introduction to Literature

Prep Sheet for Exam #2

 Exam #2 will consist of three parts.  In Part A you will write an essay on Ibsen's A Doll's House.  Your aim here will be to demonstrate your ability to carry through an inquiry into some depth, raising a logical series of questions and resolving them on the basis of the appropriate evidence in the concrete facts of the play.  In Part B, you will write an essay on one of the stories you did not do your writing assignment upon.  Again, your task will be to demonstrate your ability to carry through an appropriate agenda of curiosity.  In Part C, you will write a series of short answers on various other works we have covered since Exam #1.  Your aim here will be to show your accurate awareness of the meaning of various critical concepts in the light of the relevant specific details of the work you are discussing.  You should review the pointers given in the memo "Criteria for Evaluating Exams".  (There is both a succinct version and a version with more detailed explanation.)

Part A.  (30 points)  Consider A Doll's House as a dual-protagonist play.  Then pick one of the protagonists (either Nora or Torvald) and classify the plot of the play with respect to the characterization of this protagonist.

• Depending on which protagonist you pick, you will get a different answer.  Your job then will be to examine the issues relevant to that particular sort of outcome.

Part B.  (30 points)  Do not write on the story you wrote upon for Writing Assignment #2.  Pick one of the following options.

B-1.  Show how the theme of Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" comes into focus if we trace out the implications of the foil system the story is constructed around.

B-2.  Show how the theme of Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"comes into focus if we trace out the implications of the foil system the story is constructed around.  (You should focus mostly on the contrast between the old and the young waiter, but you should also comment on the contrast between the cafe the old waiter seeks to maintain and the bar he goes to before going home.)

B-3.  For Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," cite some of the evidence that Granny's thoughts and/or actions are motivated by feelings of which she is unconscious.  Then explain what we are to understand as the reasons why these feelings are unconscious rather than facts about which Granny is aware.  (If you choose this option, your discussion is to focus entirely upon the story.)

• [To address this question about unconscious motivation, you obviously need to get on top of the concept of repression.  There are several items on this topic in our Glossary of Critical Concepts.]

B-4.  Cite several of the differences between Katherine Anne Porter's story and the film adaptation by Horton Foote.  Explain why the screen-writer devised these inventions.  What important implicit or explicit facts in Porter's story were these inventions designed to convey?  (Be sure to be specific in citing the relevant facts of Porter's story here.)  What is some important meaning of the story that the film is unable to convey?  (Be sure to explain how the story conveys this, and why or how it is important to the overall meaning of the story.)

B-5.  Point out some of the ways in which Manischevitz and Alexander Levine are foils to one another.  Then point out some of the important ways in which they "doubles" of each other (i.e., in which they, or what they undergo, are alike).  End your essay with a comment on how some of what you have pointed out contributes to what you take the theme of the work to be.  (Of course, you'll have to commit yourself to some specific view about what that theme, or some important part of it, is.)

Part C.  (40 points).  For each of the works you did not write upon in Section B (and leaving out the story you wrote upon in Writing Assignment #2), answer one question. 

You will be adequately prepared to handle this section if, for each story, you are able to (a) identify the point of view from which the story is told, (b) say what happens in the climax (or, if appropriate, the epiphantic moment) and the denouement, and (c) to comment appropriately on the tone of voice of the characters and the narrator.  Expect to add a brief comment about some aspect of the thematic significance of the element you are asked to identify. 

In what follows I give you examples of the sorts of questions you might expect to find.  In some instances, these may turn out to be the actual questions you will get.  In others, you will find different questions.  I might, for instance, frame a question about Hemingway's story along the lines of the first question over Walker's, and a second question over Hemingway's story along the lines of the first question below over Malamud's.

C-1.  Concerning Walker's "Everyday Use":  What kind of a person is the narrator of this story?  Does she come across as someone we respect, or as someone we don't.  Cite one specific fact that qualifies as a reason for the answer you give.  OR:  What does this story say about the kind of individualism Dee represents?  How does it make this point?

C-2.  Concerning Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place":  What is the point of view from which the story is told?  What problems would arise if the story were narrated by the old waiter?  OR:  What is the epiphantic moment of this story, and what new light does it throw on the opening dialogue between the two waiters?

C-3.  Concerning Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" (not the film):  Explain the significance of one of the two more significant words in the story's title.  OR:  What is the significance of the emotional state Granny is in when she blows out the candle?  (Of course you'll have to say what that state is, and what conveys it!)

C-4.  Concerning Malamud's "Angel Levine":  What happens in the denouement of this story, and what feelings (be specific!) does it elicit in the reader?  OR:  What changes do we notice in the speech of Alexander Levine in the course of the story, and how does this parallel changes in his dress and situation?  What peripeteia happens at the end, in respect of his condition?

C-5.  Concerning Singer's "Gimpel the Fool":  What is the climactic moment of this story?  Say something specific about how it contributes to the overall theme of the piece.  OR:  Briefly defend the thesis that Gimpel is noble even though he is a fool or that he is noble because he is not a fool or that he is not noble because he is a fool.

C-6.  I will give you the text of a poem and ask you to comment upon various aspects of the tone of the speaker's voice.

• I'll be picking a couple of poems from among the following:  Roethke's "My Papa's Walz" (p. 526), Kees' "For My Daughter" (p. 530), Auden's "The Unknown Citizen" (p. 538-9), Hardy's "The Workbox" (pp. 541-2), Owens' "Dulce et Decorum Est" (p. 543).