Category Archives: Assignments

Midterm exam questions

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In a well-developed essay, consider how two of the short stories we have read this semester compare in their approach to one of the following issues, topics, or themes. Compare two examples from each story, using quotations from your quotation sheet as evidence to support for your thesis-driven essay.

  1. the treatment of characters exhibiting signs of mental illness or instability
  2. the significance of setting details, including their symbolic significance
  3. the inclusion of the supernatural or inexplicable in what is otherwise natural, of-this-world, or rational
  4. the intricate relationship between freedom and death
  5. marriage as restrictive and empowering

(on the exam, this will be a list of three, so be sure to prepare three of the five to guarantee one of your preferred options will be available to you on Wednesday!)

Your essay should be 500-600 words—if you’re writing 5 words per line, that’s 5-6 pages in the blue book, fewer pages if you get more words per line. There’s no need to count all of the words: check to see roughly how many words you write per line on a few lines, then multiply that by 20 (lines per page) and the number of pages you have. When you include a quotation, even though it is already on your quotation sheet, I ask that you copy it into your essay. Rather than using whiteout or making a mess, when you need to make a correction, just cross out what you want to delete.

To get started, you should use the time before the exam to plan your three possible essays. On Wednesday, take time at the start of the exam to think about what you want to write, and use the blue book to write down notes before you start writing the essay. There’s no need to skip every other line, but you might want to skip a line or two between paragraphs to give yourself space to add in any additional words or sentences when you re-read your essay.

Don’t forget–there will be short-answer questions to start the exam.

If you have questions, feel free to ask them here. Here’s one to start us off: what’s a draft of a thesis statement for one of these essays?

Essay Questions (Midterm)

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1. Consider the way mental disposition is portrayed in the short stories “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner  and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. How do the mental breaks or perks of the protagonists contribute to the development of the story. In what way are both women similar in their realities. Consider this in relation to the sort of dementia that plagues the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” as well as Emily’s mental state due to her fathers interference.

2. In short stories setting is important because it is hard to portray certain feelings in such little space of time. Consider the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. How does language help to portray the setting and help to show the mood and tone of the story. For example cold in “A jury of her peers” and dark in “Young Goodman Brown” as they pertain to each story. Show examples where words help to set the feeling or tone in that portion of the story.

3. Consider the portrayal of the strength of women and the influences they have on each other in the following stories “The Cottagette”  By Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. Consider the lies told by the woman to either get something in “The Cottagette” when Malda changes to get Fords attention lying to him in showing that she is a domestic woman when she is definitely not. As well as the woman lie about the bird in the box. How do these actions help to influence the outcome of the story.

Brainstorming for the midterm exam

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As you well know, our midterm exam will be on March 20th, the last time we meet before Spring Break. In preparation for that, and to make sense of what we’ve worked on for the first half of the semester, we’re going to devote class time today and Monday, March 18th, to an examination of the stories we’ve read and to the overlaps we find among them.

The midterm exam itself will include ten short-answer questions asking you to define or identify terms, and one essay question that will ask you to compare two stories in a specific way. We will develop possible essay questions together in class today–they will each be based on a comparison of some element of two stories. For homework, write a blog post in which you advocate for two or more of these questions to be included among the choices you will have. In your post, consider any of the following questions:

  • What does answering the question allow you to understand about each story?
  • How does the question allow you to further explore the stories?
  • What does the comparison bring out?
  • What examples and quotations would you use in your response?
  • What thesis statement would you include?

In class on Monday, we will narrow the options down to 5 possible essay questions. On the exam, I will include only three of those questions, and you will have to answer one. You will be allowed to bring one sheet of quotations into the exam, which you will use to include evidence in your essay. After the exam, I will collect the quotation sheet along with your exam booklet.

For the essay, you will not be able to use the story you wrote about for Essay #1.

I’m happy to answer any questions in class, or you can reply here with more questions.

Visiting the BHS

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Our class took a trip to the Brooklyn Historical Society last wednesday to learn more about Brooklyn. Although i visited the BHS in another class about two semesters ago, it was still a wonderful experience in which learned alot about Brooklyn. The last time i went on a trip to the BHS it was for a history class in which we researched vaudeville and were assigned to write a research paper on the subject. So going the Brooklyn Historical Society was a big help on giving me enough information to write that research paper. The last trip was basically the same as this trip except for the fact that we researched vaudeville and used the back room of the library to have the research session. In fact im almost positive that the two women that were presenting were the same ones that presented to my history class last time about a year ago.
This trip was focused mainly on researching Brooklyn itself and its history. the material that i researched in my group were mainly maps of brooklyn which showed different historical facts about its development. There were also some photographs which illustrated how like was back then in that time period, which was around the 1920s. I was unable to take any photographs of the materials because unfortunately my phone died prior to entering the BHS. I will however describe what the photographs and maps displayed. The first piece was a map of Brooklyn in 1925 which displayed what the original streets were made out of. the second map displayed how Brooklyn was divided into sections or towns. The other two photos hat i viewed were merely pictures of the daily lives of people who were living in brooklyn during that time period. Although the materials that i viewed gave me a deeper understanding of Brooklyn and it’s history, i was still left with a few questions. first of all, what a the main mode of transportation during that time and why did Brooklyn seem so much larger back then than what it is now? Hopefully we will be able to revisit the BHS sometime during this semester so I could get an answer to some of these questions.

Essay #1, blogging about our first BHS visit, and more

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Essay #1:

Essay #1 is due on Monday, but I haven’t heard much about Part 2–how is it going? Please bring a paper copy of both parts of Essay #1 to class on Monday. Once i see that everyone has these materials, I will ask you to do some reflective writing about your writing process and will then provide directions for submitting your work electronically.

If you still have questions about Essay #1, please ask them! I know there must be questions, and better to be brave and ask them now than wonder and guess and have no guidance.

Blogging for homework:

At the Brooklyn Historical Society on Wednesday, I asked you to blog for homework. I’ve added some more suggestions to the instructions, so this might be more helpful:

After class, write a blog post in which you elaborate on the materials you examined in class. You might begin with your one-sentence presentation. If your item can be posted on the blog, please share the photograph; if it can’t, you might describe it for your readers. This blog post is the place to say all the smart things you observed and interpreted but didn’t have a chance to present to the class. You can reflect further on the questions of how the “big guy” in “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” gets to know Brooklyn, and how you have, or you might think about what was missing from our exploration at BHS, what you would have liked to examine. This blog post could also be the chance for you to include other materials that you know about or seek out. Remember to include a citation for any materials you use, including the items from BHS and “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn.” Choose the category Homework, and tag your post with whatever tags you think represent your work.

For those of you who missed class, please use the BHS visit 1 handout I distributed at BHS and any of the following materials to complete the assignment:

Map of the New York City subway system. 1955. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection.

Who Lives Where. Guenter Vollath. 1985. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. (not the first map in the post)

Brooklyn and how to get to the World’s Fair. 1939. Brooklyn Historical Society Map Collection. (first map)

Dry Dock 1, 1928, v1973.5.875; Photography Collection; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Coney Island Beach, ca. 1968, v1988.12.41; Otto Dreschmeyer Brooklyn Slides Collection, V1988.012; Brooklyn Historical Society.

And more:

We will begin blogging in a rotating cycle again, so if you have any other requests or suggestions, please let me know what they are. Our next round of blogging will be geared toward preparing for the midterm exam, which will be on 3/20 in class.

Is my narration consistent throughout this piece and does it flow well?

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Here comes Richard and Josephine I haven’t seen them in quite some time and they are here together. This is truly weird for they have no reason to visit me today. They came wearing grim faces and portraying sad eyes. In my heart I know that something terrible has happened, I wonder if it has anything to do with the terrible ruckus down at the telegraph station today I swear it was like a complete mad house there. Then they start talking and I can barely believe what I am hearing. “Jessica my sister” she says “I there has been a terrible accident on the rail. It has been most disastrous and families have been thrown into turmoil.” “Death has come and we will get through this as best as we can because we are family and that’s what family does” she continued to speak but I had long stopped listening to her and came to the horrible realization that he was gone. DEAD for that is what he is dead and gone according to Robert. My poor Brently taken away from me in a disastrous culmination of steel and fire on that beast of iron he worked on. I am blinded by the grief for my eyes have been bathed in the wetness of my tears and I have nothing else but sorrow in my heart. I now weep for he whom I lost the man that I love.

In a fell swoop it is gone I feel nothing and need to be alone, my room beckons calling me into the peaceful abyss of my abode. Gone is the light for the sky has turned dark with rain as if somehow the gods feeling my sorrow wept with me and have become spent. The darkness that is there is dissipating slowly like the sobs wrecking through my body. In this moment I am truly lost but just as quickly clarity comes to me as the light starts peeking through more and more through the sky. I remember a time when I was happy and young and beautiful, a time when life was so simple. Then I realized that I was free to go back to being that girl. I was no longer tied down to the dead man I was “FREE” truly free and I am going to love it.

Ecstasy has set in and my heart is pounding my realization has thrown me for a loop and I have accepted that I am truly free. I no longer need to worry about pleasing the dead man I have only myself to worry about. Pure happiness has filled my once dreary heart I feel like new life has been breathed into me and it is intoxicating. I feel alive more so than I have felt in a long time. I can hear her out there shouting in riotous anger Josephine my sister asking me to come out and talking to Robert at my conversation but she doesn’t understand, neither does he. They can’t begin to understand the feelings shooting through my very soul.

I have come to a conclusion that I am better because of his death but at the same time I truly loved that man that wonderful kind man who sheltered me through the years where I was his. I will truly miss him and when I see all that is left of him I will weep again but for now I will relish in my freedom. Because even though he was my love, love was not present all the time and I am happy I am not burdened with loving him anymore. There she is again yelling “Open the door Jessica who are you talking to stop these rambling thoughts before you make yourself sick.”  Sick what does she know she is no doctor she is a question bathed in mystery to me has been all my life.

I have had enough of her pleading and I care not for her talking. I open the door and in she rushes taking me by the hand and pulling me downstairs gently like I am made of glass and liable to break any time soon. I see Robert standing in the foyer looking expectantly at me as if I were there to present him with something. Then I hear it the jingling of the lock and the rattle of a key and in swings the door. Standing there is a ghost a ghost of my husband. I look again and see it’s not a ghost but the real thing. Gone is my freedom gone just as quickly as it came. I am no longer free. There is a pain a stabbing pain in my chest. They are all talking I can tell because their mouths are moving whether from shock I know not. All I hear is the clashing of a bell and the chains dragging me back in he’s alive and I am dead.

 

 

 

What kind of narrator here? (I just want to know if this consider a third person omniscient narration)

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As Faith opens the door for her husband, Goodman Brown, he looked outside and then starts crossing the threshold. He turned back and gives her a parting kiss. Faith, the name was aptly named. She thrust her head into the street; letting the wind play with the pink ribbons on her cap.

“Dearest heart”, whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, “pr’ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she is afeard of herself, sometimes. “My dear husband, stay here with me tonight”, said Faith.

“My love and my Faith,” he replied, “of all night in the years, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done ‘twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!”

“Then God bless you!” I said, “And may you find all well, when you come back.”

“Amen!” he cried. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.”

So they parted; and she sees the shadow of Goodman Brown is fading away and the tears on her face dropped. Then she walks back in to the house and closed the door. The house seems empty and lonely. She walks into her room with a worried face that she senses that something “bad” is going to happen to Goodman Brown. She paced to the window and looked outside, “Please my lord, bless on him all the way until he is back home safe.”

“Faith, Faith….Help me!” She woke up and realized it was a nightmare. She cried on her bed. It is raining outside and then she falls back to sleep. In her second dream, she sees her husband in the forest walking alone. While walking himself alone, she sees that Goodman’s mouth is moving like he is talking to someone, but she sees there is nobody next to him. Then she sees that he picked a staff that looks evil. The staff which bore the likeness of a great black snake, that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. “My love!” she screams in her dream. She thought Goodman could hear her because she sees that he look forward when she called his name. She sees that he screams but she couldn’t hear what he said. Then she sees him disappeared in the forest.

She woke up again; it is now the next morning. She is thinking about what was the dream trying to tell her. She couldn’t figure out the meaning of the dream. “Was that really my husband in the dream?” she whispered to herself. She gets up from her bed and went to wash her face and then prepare the breakfast for Goodman that he is coming back to Salem village today.

She walks to the street, seeing her husband is walking toward the village. She looked happy. But as he comes by near her, he looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting. She wonders what happened to her husband, and she is worried. From that day on, he barely speaks to her. And he doesn’t trust her anymore. On the Sabbath-day, he refused to listen, and thought the people in town all became evil. “He doesn’t love me anymore,” she cried to herself. For the rest of her life, she lives her life as she is alone. And until Goodman dies, she still doesn’t know what happened that night in the forest.

Unhappy Marriage-Fiction of Authority

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Majority unhappy marriage appear in women because of an unfair society in the past, but even in today’s society there’s still unhappy marriage exist. However, women in today’s society appear to have more dignity than in the past, at least they have right to say “NO!” and made their own decision because of the word “Respect.”

In the story “Female Ingenuity” from Fictions of Authority by Susan Sniader Lanser, she argued that  the wife need to show the letter to the husband before she allow to send it out to her best friend. Because of that she forces to write in 2 versions, one is positive to show her husband and one is negative and that’s the actual letter and the letter she want to tell her friend. In the 1st letter, she said “I tell you my dear husband is one of the most amiable of men, I have been married seven weeks, and have never found the least reason to repent the day that joined us, my husband is in person and manners far from resembling ugly, crass, old, disgreeable, and jealous monsters, who think by confining to secure; a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a bosom-friend and confidatn, and not as a play thing or menial slave, the woman chosen to be his companion. Neither party he says ought to obey implicitly;–but each yield to the other by turns–” (page 9 middle paragraph). The sentence “far from resembling ugly, crass, old, disgreeable, and jealous monsters” the wife is actually saying her husband is instead of not and the meaning is hiding undearneath it.

 However, in 2nd version of the letter which is the actual one. The wife wrote “I tell you my dear I have been married seven weeks, and repent the day that joined us, my husband is ugly, crass, old, disagreeable, and jealous[;]a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a play thing or menial slave, the woman he says ought to obey implicitly;–” (page 10 1st paragraph). The wife is telling her true feeling on her husband and her marriage.

If you compared the 2 versions, you will find that on the 1st letter the wife meant to write in truth but the words that she choose totally change the whole meaning. But at the end, which letter did she sent out?

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Choose three quotations from “The Yellow Wall-Paper” that convince you that the protagonist is an unreliable narrator and explain why for each.

An unreliable narrator is one that makes you questions whether or not he or she is telling the truth. In the story” the yellow wall-paper”, I will say the narrator is unreliable because she is mentally disturbed. Therefore, it is very hard for one to say she is truthfully explaining herself. One approach that shows the narrator unreliability is when she said “ I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes”. This demonstrates that she doesn’t have a reason to be angry with him, she cannot control her emotions and she doesn’t know why she feels the ways she feels sometimes, which indicates that she cannot be a reliable person.

Another proof of unreliability is the way she quickly changes her minds and opinions about things. One moment she likes something, later she hates it and then she likes again. For example, “ the wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother-they must have had perseverance as well as hatred, but I don’t mind it a bit only the paper”. She seems to strongly dislike the wallpaper, but later on she mention “ I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall paper”. Discovering so many new things about the patterns of the wallpaper fascinates her. Moreover, according to her, she is healing because of the wallpaper. Therefore, we can say that her feelings toward the wallpaper are not quite consistent.

Moreover, she is so lost in her own world that she refuses to believe her husband and her brother when they are telling her about her condition even though she knows they are both doctors. She states “ but I am smarter than them “, which indicates that she is tricking them. She believes that no one understands her and only she knows what’s wrong with her. Therefore one can say that she is not a reliable narrator.

 

 

 

 

 

“The Yellow Wallpaper ” -a view as a horror story

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I won’t say “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman fits in the category of typical horror stories, which fascinates or shocks the readers by introducing them to supernatural powers, bloodshed, or scary scenes. But this story shares some properties with the horror collections. There are incidents in the story where author has created weird and scary situations in a fascinating manner.

The story is about the author herself who suffers from physiological disorder and her struggle during the phase with her own imaginary scary activities. When the author starts narrating the story, it feels like as if she is going to narrate a horror story. In the second paragraph of the story she start saying “A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house,” The author leads the story with the description of the house which she and her husband have rented for summer.  Describing the house as old and haunted she is conveying message to the readers that the house carries some unusual environment. Again to support her statement that there is something wrong with the house she adds “Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?” In this way Gilman creates a horror story type scenario and presents a dark scary image in front of the readers. As the story moves on, the author gets disturb by the wallpaper in a room and she starts seeing unusual activities “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stares at you upside down.” Here using the words like broken neck and bulbous eyes, author is presenting a disturbed image to the readers like in horror stories. Like the unusual activities intensifies in the horror stories, Gilman’s fear intensifies and she starts seeing a character, a woman creeping on the wall and haunting her “It creeps all over the house. I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.” No one except Gilman witness the woman and the activities. Only she is being haunted by the woman figure. Till the end of the story the imaginary woman character keeps haunting the author for the freedom. And finally she gets rid of the fear by peeling off the wall paper. Looking at these points I would definitely say that “The Yellow Wall Paper” has the taste of a horror story.

The Cottagette And Women and Economics

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Does the short story “The Cottagette” present a solution to the issues raised in Gilman’s non-fiction “Women and Economics”? Explain your stance.

I do believe that “The Cottagette” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents a solution to the issues raised in “Woman and Economics” also by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Some of the issues that she raises are that women are the only species that depend on men for survival. She doesn’t believe that women are any lower than man and they need to get rights and be equal. She argues that women need to change how people view them and what society expects from them.

The solution from “The Cottagette” changes the idea that woman have about marriage and what they believe all men want. If all men were like Malda’s husband and not expect women to be their cooks and house maids then the idea of marrying just for that wouldn’t exist. He says “It is not true, always, my dear,” said he, “that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; at least its not the only way.” ( last paragraph)

 

Gilman argues that women take on too much of a role in the marriage, more than the men, and do not get enough credit which created an image for women as unpaid workers. Some women believe that it is their duty to serve for their husband and only get married for that reason. Lois says “What they care for most after all is domesticity. Of Course they’ll fall in love with anything; but what they want to marry is a homemaker.”She gave her that advice to make her house more homey and have a real kitchen and cook for her husband thinking he wanted that but he wanted the opposite. Malda’s husband only wanted her to continue her hobbies and what she wanted to fulfill her dreams.

 

“Young Goodman Brown” – Allegory

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Allegory is a noun which means a symbolic representation or the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence. In the story “Young Goodman Brown”, there are certain items in the story that have symbolization. For example, the pink ribbon, which belongs to Faith, symbolizes the faith of Goodman Brown. According to the story at paragraph 1, “…letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap…,” the ribbon represents his faith is fragile because when the wind blows it, it is easily swayed. Pink also represents innocence and delicacy.

Another symbolization is the traveler’s staff. His staff has the appearance of a twisted living serpent. Serpents are usually shown as dark and evil reptiles. Since the staff is owned by the traveler, it shows that the traveler is the devil. In the story, the traveler is also called the devil, Goody Cloyse exclaimed, “The devil!” when she sees the traveler.

The forest and town also represents evil vs. good. In the story, the ceremony of converting Faith, Goody Cloyse, the minister, and Deacon Gookin to evil took place in the forest. The forest symbolizes dark and fear. As for the town, it represents the good because in the town, Brown sees Deacon Gookin at his domestic worship, the minister taking a walk along the graveyard, Good Cloyse catechising a little girl, and Faith waiting for him in excitement. These are the actions of pureness.

The symbolism allows me to have a deeper understanding of the story. Faith’s pink ribbon helps me understand that at the end, Brown will be stuck between good and evil since the ribbon is weak just like him. Brown wouldn’t be able to decide whether he should still believe the people that he once saw as good, including his dear wife.

In the story, I think Goodman Brown should be responsible for his actions. He didn’t listen to his wife when she asked him not to go on his journey because she is worry that something will happen. If he didn’t go, he would not have experience the whole ceremony which caused him to doubt his wife and everyone else, believing they had turned evil.

This semester’s blogging assignment

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Throughout the semester, we will use the blog to develop and share our ideas about and analyses of the materials for this course. For each class, you will need to share something, whether it be a blog post , a comment or a summary. You are always welcome to do more than the schedule requires, and I hope we will develop a lively online community that becomes integral to our course.

For each class session, I may suggest a blog topic, or bloggers can choose their own topics. Blog posts should be focused, using direct quotations from the text to drive the responses or reflections in the post. A post should be about something we are about to read or something we have just read, but it might also bring in materials we have read earlier in the semester or materials that interest you from outside of class. Authors of these posts should think critically about the reading material, and should consider how a particular element of fiction or term relating to narrative functions in the material—it might amplify the text, or it could be complicated or problematic, but any of these would be interesting opportunities to explore. Blog posts should be approximately 300 words, and should be proofread before posting. Please include links, images, etc, as appropriate.

Those who are not responsible for contributing a blog post on a given day will be responsible for commenting. Commenting shouldn’t just be “I agree” or “Good point.” These might be the start of a comment. Use the space to offer a counterpoint, to bring together different ideas, or to direct us to a particular point the blogger didn’t include. Comments should be approximately 100-150 words. If you want to add additional comments that are shorter, feel free to.