EXCERPT: Major American Authors Mid-Term (1994)

Please write your responses in a blue-book. Sign with your SS#, NOT YOUR NAME.

Part 1: (15 - 20 minutes); 50 POINTS (10 points each)

Choose FIVE (5) of the following identifications. Identify the work's title, the author (date, if possible), and offer a sentence or two on its significance.

1. "‘Go away, I am not making myself ill.’ No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window."

2. Plessy v. Ferguson

3. "In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling

Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull. . . "

4. Armand Aubigny

5. "But, by your leave, I do not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond -------- would be likely to afford me much information concerning the ----- and so I started away"

6. "‘It's so lovely here; and so full of old memories as you say.’"

7. Cultural or Psychoanalytical criticism. Define one and briefly apply to one work.

8. "He had assented to the idea that she was 'common'; but was she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness?"

9. Omniscient narrator. Define, suggest the importance of this narrative technique, and give an example.

Part 2: (30 minutes); 1 essay (50 points)

1. In his essay "Self-Reliance," Emerson offers several interesting and revolutionary insights on conformity. He states:

"The virtue in most request [by society] is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion."

". . . Conforming . . . scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character"

"For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure."

 Use Emerson’s ideas as a springboard for a persuasive essay that compares and contrasts conformity or nonconformity (self-reliance) in three (3) of the following: "Song of Myself," Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Awakening, Daisy Miller, or The House of Mirth. Use specific scenes, characters and/or character foils. In your conclusion, discuss the "cultural work" these authors may have intended by writing about (non)conformity.

2. In "Song of Myself," Whitman's theory of poetry attempts to end certain silences. However, Whitman's poetry clearly did not permanently revolutionize American thinking because late nineteenth-century authors continued to expose previously silenced issues. Write a persuasive essay that compares and contrasts the types of silences which characters refuse to keep "hush." How do these characters develop as they break these silences? Base your essay on three (3) of the following: Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Awakening, Daisy Miller or The House of Mirth. Use specific scenes, characters and/or character foils. In your conclusion, discuss the "cultural work" these authors may have intended by writing about these silenced topics Should we continue to read these works? Why or why not?